James Hargest. Castle Vincigliata, Italy
Castle Vincigliata near Florence, Italy is a 13th century castle which had fallen to ruins before being rebuilt in the mid-1800s by an Englishman. During the Second World War the Italian Army used the castle to hold what were considered distinguished British officer and non-commissioned officer prisoners of war, designating the site Camp 12. Several escape attempts were made from this facility during the Second World War. In 1943 British prisoners dug a tunnel which originated in a former chapel and connected in places with subterranean shafts which had existed since the 13th century. Six officers successfully exited the Camp using the tunnel, four of whom were soon recaptured by Italian or German authorities.
The two remaining escapees were Brigadier Reginald Miles and Brigadier James Hargest. Both natives of New Zealand, the officers traveled together using forged papers to obtain rail tickets to near the border with neutral Switzerland. Aware that their false documents were good enough to fool the somewhat less diligent attention of local Italian authorities but not that of Swiss border guards, they left the train on which they had traveled and covered the final few miles to the Swiss border on foot.
Once they were safely in Switzerland the pair separated. Miles sent a coded message back to friends in Camp 12, informing them of the successful escape. Hargest traveled to Lucerne, Miles to Figueras, where he, overly depressed, committed suicide according to Swiss documents.
Hargest solicited the help of the French Resistance to help him trek across the south of France to Spain. He arrived in Barcelona, after a harrowing and difficult journey, where the British consulate arranged for his return to England. In December 1943, nine months after exiting the Italian tunnel, he was back in the British Isles.
He was awarded a CBE, wrote a book chronicling his successful escape, and returned to active service. In 1944 he began working with a unit designed to help transition newly freed POWs back into service. He was killed in August 1944 during the Battle of Normandy by German shell-fire and buried in France.