WTI Magazine #66    2015 August, 21
Author : Giuseppe Clemente      Translation by:

The south-west US is known for his wide open spaces, oil fields, cattle herds, country music, but almost nobody knows that the Texas prairie was part of Italian history in WW2. Italian history that is forgotten and covered by the West Texas red dust: Hereford, TX, from 1943-46 was the forced home of 5,000 Italian Soldiers, POW captured in North Africa, Sicily and Anzio. During those years, Italians worked at the local farms, built grain elevators, cleaned the streets of the local towns, decorated the inside of the St. Mary's Church in Umbarger, TX (it became a little Sistine Chapel).

Like in every POW camp, there were some escape attempts, in one case a POW reached Los Angeles, CA, but the more spectacular was made by an Italian Navy officer in Sept. 1944, Luigi Montalbetti from Varese. He literally walked from Hereford, TX, to the Mexican border.

Montalbetti's ship was torpedoed in the South Atlantic. He spent six days in a lifeboat and was rescued by a US Navy destroyer. After arriving in Houston, TX, Montalbetti and the survivors were sent to the POW camp No. 31 in Hereford, TX. But he decided that the war was not over for him and was fascinated by the idea of an escape and to reach Mexico (by his words, being 23 years old helped a lot in this). As a Navy officer in charge of navigation, he used his knowledge to plan carefully the new "freedom route ". He prepared himself physically by taking endless walks inside the camp, putting aside food and preparing some maps. Montalbetti sneaked at night from the officer camp trough the barbed wire fences to the enlisted POW sector. He reconnected with his former crew, was forced to hide in a mattress (after his absence was noted, the camp was searched all over) and for a few hours in the kitchen refrigerator (where he almost passed out due to hypothermia). One day in the morning he mixed himself up with the POW's that were going to work in the farm fields, and during the clearing of a corn field, he disappeared in the corn stalks. Montalbetti walked for a few days (as a navy officer he calculated his route with the help of the stars and the sun) in endless fields on a general southwest heading. His only companions, endless cattle herds, jack rabbits and stars.

Near Bula, TX, a farmer as a courtesy gave him a ride to Portales NM (he disguised himself as a French sailor). Montalbetti realized he was west of his route, after buying "coca cola e torta di mele ", he started to walk South on NM206, his goal was to reach the Mexican border. In the middle of the night, Montalbetti reached the village of Milnesand, NM, he needed some rest for the night. Along the road, two miles south of town he spotted a barn, jumped over the fence, worked his way in and slept for the night. In the early morning a child, Holmes Lovejoy, walks into the barn followed by the father.

After the initial scare and yelling, Montalbetti introduces himself as a French sailor, Luois Dupont, on the way to San Antonio. The rancher, a former WW1 vet from the French front, offered him a job at the ranch, he badly needed help. So, Montalbetti stayed at the Lovejoy Ranch, helped in the fields, built a few fences, learned to ride horses and played with the children (Holmes was six and Kylene one year old, in Montalbetti's memories "una bambina con l'eterno sorriso "). After a few weeks, he had to go back on the escape business. Montalbetti said farewell to the family, got a ride to Carlsbad, NM, and from there he hitchhiked to Pecos, TX, in an Army car, that gave him a ride as a courtesy (the area is basically a desert). Once in Pecos, his ride took a different route, so Montalbetti walked through the town on the way South. Just outside town, a Border Patrol vehicle noticed him walking along the empty road and questioned him about his whereabouts.

Montalbetti's story of being a French sailor did not convince them, so they took him to the closest Sheriff office: Alpine, TX. His French sailor story did not hold up very long, the merchant ship he claimed to be part of was lost in 1942 due to a German submarine, so after realizing it was over, he confessed to being an Italian POW on the run from the Hereford Camp. Initially the Sheriff did not believe him, Hereford was 450 miles to the North.

So Montalbetti suggested to call the camp and after two hours his identity was confirmed. At this point he almost became an attraction, WWII arrived in the small town of Alpine, TX, and the Sheriff captured an enemy. Montalbetti has a good memory of the Sheriff Department.: the female employees impressed him, one was a "bionda incendiaria ". A few days later he was transferred to the military base of Marfa, TX, and from here by train back to Hereford. His punishment was 15 days in isolation in a dark cell, and questioned by the camp commandant how he made the escape, he replied that back in Italy he is a champion in in pole vaulting. After the war, in March 1946 Montalbetti wrote a letter to the family in Milnesand, disguising his identity, assuring them that he never mentioned his stay in Milnesand and thanked them for the hospitality, but never received a reply.

68 years later, a lonely Italian, Giuseppe Clemente, an Alpino and Gina Paveglio, an Italian American from Navarons PN/NYC, followed the escape route on a motorcycle, wondering how real all this was, it sounded so impossible. But starting from Hereford, TX, based on the escape notes, it all matched perfectly, step by step, it even felt that the spirit of Montalbetti was pointing the way. They stopped in Milnesand, NM, located the Lovejoy Ranch and the former children, Holmes and Kylene from 1944, and after the initial surprise, the secret of the helper and visitor of 1944 that called himself Louis Dupont, was no longer a secret. After a long search in the attic of the ranch, the letter of 1946 showed up. The Lovejoys hid the letter from the children, being afraid that helping the enemy could have serious consequences. The Lovejoys showed the location of the 1944 barn, confirmed all the known details of the story. This time Italians on a motorcycle tour, and not on the run from a POW camp, after 68 years were invited again to dinner at the Ranch: the Lovejoy have a history of feeding Italians in this lonely part of NM.