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Looking for Martin - WW2 Soldier killed in action

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Olwen

Olwen Report 3 Apr 2009 11:30

This is nothing to do with me personally but I find this story quite touching and wondered if anyone in GR could help as every little clue will help in the search. Or if anyone hears if the search was successful I would be very pleased to know.

There has been a recent story in the press about a WW2 soldier who came to the aid of a pregnant woman, Maria Mancini who was in labour with twins and needed to get to hospital urgently. This was in January 1944. Her home was in Casalanguida near Chieti in Italy's Abruzzo region.

Martin drove her to hospital in a journey fraught with danger, through fierce snowstorms and mined roads, and several times coming under German sniper fire.

Unfortunately Martin, whose surname was unknown, was killed in action shortly afterwards and it was Maria's wish to locate his daughters but could not speak English and didn't know how to go about it. Sadly she died recently and whilst going through her things her daughter Angela, the only surviving twin, found a picture of Martin's two daughters and would like to try to find them.

Martin was most likely a member of the British Eighth Army who landed in Italy in the summer of 1943 and involved in bitter fighting as it advanced across two vital rivers the Sangro and the Moro.

An Eighth Army veteran of the Italian Campaign and Italian representative of the Italy Star Association, is trying to help and has asked the War Graves Commission in London who will be sending him names of the soldiers called Martin who were killed in action during the Sangro campiagn and from that we will hopefully find his family. It's also known that Martin was a lance corporal as he had a V on his uniform.

For picture of the daughters and fuller details see the Telegraph story by Nick Pisa last Updated: 10:56AM GMT 26 Mar 2009 or thread 'Hunt for Soldier's Family' on www.ww2talk.com . I'm sure there will be other articles out there too if you Google it.

I hope it doesn't break GR's posting rules but I thought as there is a vast sea of knowledge and experience on here someone might be willing to put a in piece of the jigsaw.

Thanks.