1 year ago
77
Anne Williams describes how her grandfather allowed Italian prisoners to build a Catholic chapel out of Nissen huts
I was interested to read the article about the Scapa Flow Museum (Scapa Flow Museum showing Orkney island’s wartime role up for top prize, 22 May). My grandfather was sent to Orkney during the second world war to be in charge of the prisoner of war camp there. The prisoners were Italian, and were entrusted to build a barrier to stop German submarines. There was no Catholic chapel there and the prisoners begged my grandfather to enable them to build one. It was made out of two Nissen huts.
It is now a tourist attraction, and the prisoners were so devoted to it that some remained after the war to finish the project. Many of their descendants visited the chapel in later years, and some former prisoners wrote to my grandfather until he died.
Anne Williams
Hove, East Sussex
