Posted 11 years ago
Jayblade
(2 items)
I have added this as a second post due to needing images of the text and also a close up.
The main picture has italia and the letters PQR on the belt, which I believe means People of Rome... This I am unsure of but is the closest meaning I can come up with due to the image of the roman emperor and the victory (laurel) wreath around the image and also being given by the cherub.
The Hy could possibly be Hm?
Help on anything especially the numbers, would be great...maybe a military number or POW number?
Just wondering about the Italia and PQR.
Not SPQR?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPQR
No it only has PQR on the robe and Italia down the bottom, they are both easy to read, so defiantly no S
Got it! I could not see it before thanks!
Perhaps he got rid of the Senatus?
The PQR would then mean the Italian People.
I have not found the exact image yet but it looks to be a figure of Italy based on images on Italian coins of the period. It might be an image that he copied from a coin or was done with some artistic license. I have seen a similar image on a 1 Lira coin and on service medals too!
I have been looking most of the evening and I can't find the same, but many similar also. Will get back to the search first thing;)
The figure in the hand of Italia is called "Vittoria alata" or Winged Victory.
The figure on the top is fabulous too! A flapper?
The Sacred and the Profane.
I have just looked in the family history book we have and it says where he was posted and when, along with the camp details. Also a nice image of him with italian prisoners. I am going to look into these next, also if you look above the image it tells you that a few things were made by an italian artist...of which I will ask about as we don't have them here, but with other family members.
So it was 401 POW camp?
I'd bet that the box was carved by the person who engraved this tin too.
I can see CERATI in that monogram. The letters CER all become one followed by -ati, imho.
The way that monogram is constructed suggests a person who was a professional artist. The block lettering on the lid is extremely well done. He was also quite literate.
But did he survive?
I have seen on an Italian site that many of these Italian prisoners were transported to India and to Canada, I think. One of the boats carrying prisoners to Canada was sunk with the loss of many lives. I will post these details later.
As I mentioned above I found an Italian site that mentions the fate of some of the POW's after the Battle of Keren.
The period between 1941 and 1943 was also characterized by the creation of the refugee camps, concentration camps and the transfer to military and civilian prison camps in the various British colonies - for example the fatal sinking of the transport ship "Nova Scotia", unknowingly torpedoed by a German U-boats in the waters of Lorenço Marques on November 28, 1942, which claimed the lives of, among others, 651 Italians. ......
"Il periodo tra il 1941 ed il 1943 fu caratterizzato anche dalla creazione dei campi profughi, dei campi di concentramento, dal trasferimento nei campi di prigionia nelle varie colonie inglesi di militari e civili - come quello funesto legato all’affondamento del trasporto “Nova Scotia”, silurato da un inconsapevole U-boot tedesco nelle acque di Lorenço Marques il 28 novembre del 1942, che costò la vita, tra gli altri, a 651 italiani - dalla disintegrazione di migliaia di famiglie, dall’inizio dei rimpatri con le “Navi Bianche” per decine di migliaia di donne, bambini, vecchi ed infermi e dallo smantellamento sistematico delle più importanti infrastrutture dell’economia del paese con il solo evidente scopo di ridurre al minimo possibile la presenza degli italiani in Eritrea."
http://www.ilcornodafrica.it/st-sci01.htm
An update on the sinking of the Nova Scotia here:
http://www.witness.co.za/?showcontent&global%5B_id%5D=15123
Can I suggest you change the order of the pictures.
At the moment the two postings are getting lost from each other.
A way to link them is move back photo 3 to the first position.
To do so is easy. You can edit the posting and then drag the photos into a different order.