Hide and Seek: The Irish Priest in the Vatican who Defied the Nazi Command. The dramatic true story of rivalry and survival during WWII.

19 July 1943

Pope Pius XII spent most of the day gazing at the sky through binoculars as wave after wave of Allied bombs pounded his beloved city. From a window in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace he watched as 300 bombers blitzed the south-eastern part of the capital. The attack killed nearly 1,500 people and injured many thousands more. As the Bishop of Rome, he had long feared and indeed predicted this moment. So grave were the Pope’s fears that back in June 1940, on the day that Italy entered the war, he had lobbied Sir D’Arcy Osborne to ask the British not to bomb Rome. The British government agreed to do its best to avoid damaging the Vatican City, but they could not guarantee that their bombers would avoid the surrounding area.

Weeks before this first air raid on the city, Osborne met the Pope and the prospect of an aerial bombardment was raised again. This time the Pope was reported to be ‘worried sick’. He had every reason to be concerned. When the bombs came they tore through university buildings, houses, and struck the medieval basilica and the railway yards in San Lorenzo. The church there was held sacred as the burial place of Pope Pio Nono. The explosions also shook the earth at Campo Verano cemetery, where Pius XII’s brother and parents were buried. Late that afternoon, as the smoke still hung in the air and the light faded, the Pope did something he had not done since the summer of 1940. He called for a car and decided to leave the confines of the Vatican.

Shortly before 5.30 p.m. a black Mercedes, decked out in the papal colours, left the Vatican City and took the Pope and one of his deputies, Monsignor Montini, across the city. They arrived at San Lorenzo to view the damage and meet the victims. Dressed in his skullcap and flowing white cassock, the Pope embraced the crowd that surrounded the car. Held back by policemen and troops, the people shouted ‘Long live the Pope.’ Amid the rubble and close to the bodies which had been pulled from the buildings, he knelt and prayed. He said the De Profundis and for two hours he talked with and walked among the survivors. As the Pope talked, Monsignor Montini handed out cash to the homeless and the bereaved. When the two men returned to the car, Pope Pius’s clothes were marked with blood.

Back in the Vatican, the Pope took stock of what he had witnessed and heard. The city that he regarded as his own was shocked, bewildered and angry. The day marked a turning point in the war. The Eternal City was wounded and Romans were paralysed with fear. Many wondered when more Allied air attacks would happen and others were frightened that the Fascist police would use the opportunity to launch more raids on those who opposed them politically. Their predictions proved correct.

The police believed an illegal radio was transmitting within the city and eventually it was traced to the home of one of Rome’s ancient families. Princess Nina Pallavicini, a widow who was opposed to Mussolini, lived in the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, near the Quirinale. Within hours of the Allied bombs ripping through the city a raiding party came looking for the princess and the radio. Fortune favoured the young woman and she heard the visitors arrive. She quickly prised open a window at the rear of the house and jumped to the ground and ran for her life. She hurried through the streets to the Vatican, where she asked to see her friend Hugh O’Flaherty. The monsignor took her in and hid her in the German College. The princess was the first person to be offered long-term sanctuary by O’Flaherty and would become one of the most useful members of the Escape Line. She would spend the remainder of the war making false documents for Allied escapees and would often escort them around Rome.

Princess Nina was soon joined by another fugitive keen to escape the clutches of the authorities. Private Gino Rosati, a member of the Royal West Kent Regiment, listened to the sounds of the bombing of Rome in his cell in Regina Coeli prison, where the Italian authorities held many Allied prisoners. Born in England to Italian parents, Rosati had joined the British Army and seen action in North Africa at El Alamein in September 1942. He had been wounded and was transferred to Naples before being taken to Rome. Ironically his name may have aided the British soldier’s escape. In the Italian capital he was placed in the political prisoners’ section because the authorities were convinced he was an Italian citizen. Wearing British Army battledress, he had managed to slip past the guards and get outside the prison complex. He encountered a friendly Italian soldier who generously showed him the way to St Peter’s Square.

He was taken into the barracks of the Vatican gendarmerie, where he was interrogated by an officer and then handed over to Sir D’Arcy Osborne. It was essential to establish, through close questioning, the bona fides of escaped prisoners who sought sanctuary in Vatican territory. In Rosati’s case, his name may have initially raised suspicions that he was a spy. But Osborne, ever conscious that he could become the victim of an Italian or German police trap, satisfied himself that the young soldier was genuinely on the run and allowed him to stay in the British legation.

As a servant of the Church, O’Flaherty knew he had to keep his activities clandestine and could not publicly do anything which might undermine the neutrality of the Vatican. As the British government’s representative to the Vatican State, Osborne also knew he had to tread a fine diplomatic line. He was an official guest of the Pope, so his work with escaped prisoners had to remain hidden, and it made practical sense to remain distant from the everyday running of the group. Nevertheless, one evening he told O’Flaherty he could offer some assistance. ‘I will help you personally with funds as far as I am able, but I cannot use official funds, even if I could get enough, and I must not be seen to be doing anything to compromise the tacit conditions under which I am here in the Vatican State.’

Osborne’s financial support was accepted gladly. But the diplomat went further by volunteering the services of his butler. John May became the unofficial liaison officer between the monsignor and the minister. Fluent in Italian, with a wealth of contacts across Rome, May was an ideal choice and in the months ahead it was his job to source supplies for escapees and to identify those Swiss Guards who were ready to turn a blind eye to the escape operation, which was still in its infancy. May and O’Flaherty started to work in tandem, and soon many more escapees would arrive on their doorstep.

Kappler’s men continued to closely watch Hugh O’Flaherty and Sir D’Arcy Osborne, still convinced that they were passing information on to the Allies. But Kappler’s surveillance of the Vatican temporarily took a back seat when he became involved in one of the most dramatic twists of the war. For some time Italians had voiced criticism of Mussolini’s regime. Across the country people were hungry and in the south many were close to starvation. There was little support for Mussolini’s regime and within days of the Allied bombing of Rome his colleagues turned on him when the Fascist Grand Council met and voted by 19 to 8 to have him removed as leader. The next day King Victor Emmanuel knew he had to act. He sent a message to Mussolini and called him to a meeting at the royal residence.

Rome was bathed in sunshine as the Fascist leader made his way to Villa Savoia. At 5 p.m. his driver swung the car through the iron gates leading into the royal grounds and stopped in front of the steps of the house. Their host was waiting near the entrance, dressed in the uniform of the Marshal of Italy. The two men shook hands and walked slowly inside.

In the familiar surroundings of the drawing room they began to talk, first about the weather and about the Grand Council’s vote. Mussolini dismissed the vote, saying it had no legal standing and he remained confident of his position.

Then the King struck. Turning to his guest, he said, ‘At this moment you are the most hated man in the country. I am your only remaining friend. That is why I tell you that you need have no fears for your safety. I will see you are protected.’

Mussolini listened in silence and was now pale. When at last he spoke again, he intoned quietly, ‘Then it is over.’ He said the words several times. The meeting ended, the two men shook hands, and outside Mussolini was placed in a waiting ambulance, which quickly left the royal estate. The twenty-one-year Mussolini era had ended. The King was now in charge.

Mussolini was replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio, formerly Governor General of Libya. Now in his seventies, Badoglio had enjoyed a long career as a soldier and had led the Italians to a military victory in Ethiopia. He was an odd choice. He had no political experience but had a reputation for being a ditherer and was an alcoholic. However, within hours he had established a temporary administration made up of generals and civil servants. Badoglio may have performed this task with a touch of Schadenfreude, since Mussolini had sacked him in 1940.

As the former Fascist leader was experiencing his first evening in protective custody, the King announced on the radio to the Italian nation that he had accepted Mussolini’s resignation. Badoglio also went on the airwaves, to proclaim that the war against the Allies would continue and the alliance with Germany would continue.

Hitler was sitting in the conference room in the ‘Wolf’s Lair’ when he heard the news. The building, tucked away in dense evergreen forest in East Prussia, was an inner sanctum where the Führer met members of his high command. When he learnt what had happened in Rome, he was furious. The coup had caught him unawares and, while he knew there was anti-Mussolini feeling across Italy, he had not believed it would be acted upon. Moreover he distrusted Pietro Badoglio, fearing correctly that he was preparing to negotiate a peace deal with the Allies. Hitler suspected that the Americans and the British were in some way involved in the Mussolini coup. In addition he judged that further Allied landings on the Italian mainland could prompt an Italian surrender and that therefore it was essential to organize a countercoup in Rome and seize the city. Hitler was in a race against time.

He spoke on the telephone to senior commanders, held meetings and read briefing papers, then started to put together a plan which he would christen ‘Operation Oak’. On paper it looked straightforward, but in practice it would prove very different. The mission consisted of three stages: Mussolini would be found, he would be restored to power, and the German–Italian alliance would be strengthened. First, the former Fascist leader had to be traced. Twenty-four hours after the kidnapping Hitler hand-picked the man to lead Operation Oak. Otto Skorzeny, a young Austrian commando captain, six feet four inches tall and well built, was his choice.

Skorzeny set up his headquarters in the ancient town of Frascati, a picturesque suburb of Rome about ten miles from the capital. Known for its vineyards, it was also home to the General Headquarters for German troops in Italy and housed the offices of Marshal Albert Kesselring, the Supreme Commander of the Southern Front, in charge of military operations in the Mediterranean region and North Africa. For the next six weeks it would also be the command centre of Skorzeny’s secret mission.

Skorzeny needed local help and called on the services of Herbert Kappler and Eugen Dollmann. Like Kappler, Dollmann was an SS man and had lived in Rome for a number of years. The two were rivals and did not get on with each other. Dollmann, a colonel, was highly rated by Himmler and was his personal representative in Rome. Kappler may well have been envious of Dollmann, who was better educated and also was the favourite of General Karl Wolff, the commander of the SS in Italy.

When Skorzeny told Himmler he needed help in Rome, Kappler and Dollmann were volunteered. The two SS men were summoned from Rome to Skorzeny’s headquarters in Frascati to have dinner with him.

After they had eaten, Skorzeny explained to his guests what his plans were. Privately both Kappler and Dollmann thought the mission was flawed. They saw Fascism in Italy as finished and believed there was little point in bringing Mussolini back into power. However, they kept their thoughts to themselves. When Skorzeny met them both at Kappler’s office some days later, Dollmann had considered being honest with the commando captain. ‘Once again it would have been heroic of me if I had told the State Security Bureau’s agent flatly what I thought of his plans for Rome, but I naturally refrained from doing so,’ he would later record in his diary.

Like his colleague, Kappler kept quiet, but eventually he made an attempt to change Skorzeny’s mind. He flew to meet Heinrich Himmler and expressed his reservations. He said that the operation planned by Skorzeny was pointless and advised Himmler that Mussolini would only be able to return to power by ‘the strength of German bayonets’. It was a pointless trip. As Reichsführer-SS, Himmler was Skorzeny’s boss and one of the most important men in the Third Reich. He was committed to the plan.

So Operation Oak began in earnest, with a reluctant Kappler an important part of it. With a small staff Kappler could not offer manpower to Skorzeny’s operation. But what he could provide was good local knowledge and a wide range of contacts. Skorzeny provided forged banknotes, and with these Kappler was able to tempt his spies to sell information about Mussolini’s movements. For the next few weeks seeking out the former Fascist leader would become the police attaché’s priority.

Chapter Six OPERATION ESCAPE (#ulink_2736ce0e-c096-5ea6-902b-8ebe78260c98)

‘God will protect us all’

Henrietta Chevalier to Hugh O’Flaherty

One evening in 1943, as the light was fading, Hugh O’Flaherty left the Vatican and made his way to the other side of Rome. At Piazza Salerno he walked round a corner, then went through an archway between a grocer’s shop and a butcher’s. Slowly he climbed three flights of steps. He read the numbers on the doors and then, finding the correct address, rang the bell.

He was quickly ushered in. Once inside the flat in Via Imperia, he towered over Henrietta Chevalier, who stood just five feet four inches tall. The attractive middle-aged woman had neat hair and wore earrings and a necklace. A widow from Malta living on a small pension, she had lost her husband just before the start of the war. Her English was perfect, though she spoke with a trace of a Maltese accent. She had six daughters and two sons, and one of her boys worked at the Swiss embassy, while the other was being held in a prison camp. Although her home was small she had agreed to house two escaped French soldiers. O’Flaherty was delighted that she was willing to help, but he needed to impress on her the dangers of taking in escaped prisoners.

‘You do not have to do it,’ he told her, adding that those found harbouring prisoners of war could be executed. He said he would take the men away if she had any doubts about their staying in her home. If Henrietta was scared, she certainly did not show it. In fact she seemed quite relaxed about the priest’s warning. ‘What are you worrying about, Monsignor?’ she replied. ‘God will protect us all.’

A quick glance round the flat showed the monsignor how important Henrietta’s faith was to her. Fittingly, a tapestry of Our Lady of Pompeii, who traditionally helped those in need, hung in one of the two bedrooms. On a table sat a small statue of St Paul. Prayer was an important part of Henrietta’s daily life. She firmly believed she and her family would be safe and told her visitor she was happy to help for as long as possible. O’Flaherty’s new-found Maltese friend would stick to that promise.

From that night on, the Chevaliers’ tiny flat would never be the same again. Their military guests would sleep on mattresses and Henrietta and her children would share the beds. Space would be at a premium and soon there would be a daily queue for the bathroom. The changed circumstances would have to be kept secret. The flat was now out of bounds to all but family members. The Chevaliers’ friends couldn’t come to see them and the girls could not invite visitors. But it wasn’t all bad news. For the younger daughters the new male house guests were a novelty and brought a sense of fun. Within days flat number nine would echo to the strains of endless gramophone records and Henrietta’s young girls would have a choice of dancing partners.

Back in his room in the German College, Hugh O’Flaherty was happy in the knowledge that he had secured shelter and a willing host for the two escapees.

By September 1943 the Germans were edging closer to taking over Rome. In the same month O’Flaherty had three new arrivals to welcome. Henry Byrnes was a captain in the Royal Canadian Army Corps. He arrived in style at the Holy See. A prisoner of war, he was being marched to the Castro Pretorio barracks in Rome when he and two colleagues gave the soldiers guarding them the slip. Byrnes, John Munroe Sym, a major in the Seaforth Highlanders, and Roy Elliot, a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, met an Italian doctor. Fortunately Luigi Meri de Vita was a friendly soul, well disposed towards escaped Allied servicemen. He put the three escapees in his car and drove them across Rome to the Vatican. After managing to get into the Holy See, the three men quickly found their way to Hugh O’Flaherty’s door.

The monsignor immediately put Byrnes and Elliot to work. The pair began to compile a list of Allied servicemen they knew were in hiding across Italy. Once the paperwork was complete, Byrnes passed the details on to Father Owen Sneddon, a contemporary of the monsignor who was now assisting the Escape Line. Sneddon, a New Zealander, worked as a broadcaster for the English-language Vatican Radio service. The station was part of the Vatican’s communication network and, although the Pope technically controlled it, it was run day to day by the Jesuit Father Filippo Soccorsi. The station was an important tool for the Escape Line, but broadcasters had to be careful because the Germans monitored the output and each broadcast was translated.

Once Father Sneddon was ready he peppered his broadcasts with the names supplied by Byrnes and Elliot. The details were picked up by the War Office in London, which informed the men’s families that their loved ones were alive. It was an old trick that O’Flaherty had first perfected when he was an official visitor to the POW camps. When the monsignor returned to Rome from seeing prisoners, he would pass on their personal details to Father Sneddon. It was a simple way to let people know that their relative was alive, and this method went undetected by the Germans.

The Vatican reflected the outside world and the atmosphere in the Holy See was nervous and apprehensive. Osborne and O’Flaherty wondered what their lives would be like in a post-Mussolini world. Rumours filled the void of uncertainty. There was much talk about an Italian surrender followed by a German invasion of Rome. One fear that wouldn’t go away was a suggestion that the Germans would capture the Vatican and seize the Pope and take him abroad.

There was good reason for this worry. Days after Mussolini’s kidnapping, in the Wolf’s Lair an angry Hitler berated the Pope and the Holy See: ‘Do you think the Vatican impresses me? I couldn’t care less. We will clear out that gang of swine.’

Hitler was considering kidnapping the Pope, arresting the King and Marshal Badoglio, and occupying the Vatican City. The threat to seize Pope Pius XII was believed to be so likely that, in early August, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, summoned all the cardinals in Rome to a special meeting. He explained that the Germans had plans to seize Rome and then take control of the Vatican buildings and remove the Pope. The threat was regarded as so plausible that the commander of the Pope’s Swiss Guards was ordered not to offer any resistance when the German troops tried to gain access to the Vatican.

Staff inside the Holy See started to take precautions should the Germans seize the site. Sensitive Church documents were hidden across the Vatican and some diplomatic papers were burnt. Sir D’Arcy Osborne, now beginning to worry that his personal diary would be seized if the Nazis took over, had to think carefully about what he was committing to paper. He made some entries designed to fool prying eyes and others which were light on detail. At one stage he wrote: ‘I wish I could put down all the facts and rumours these days, but I can’t. It is a pity for the sake of the diary.’

The Germans were continuing to watch the Vatican intently, and the behaviour of Badoglio’s administration was put under constant scrutiny. The Nazis knew that an Italian surrender was coming after German code-breakers listened to a conversation between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in which the two leaders discussed an armistice. The Nazis had also discovered that secret talks were underway between the Allies and the Italians and were able to dismiss Badoglio’s official response that he was fully supportive of the Nazi war effort. Because they suspected that it was only a matter of time before the Italians surrendered, the discovery and restoration of Benito Mussolini as leader was becoming urgent.

The events in Rome and the questions surrounding Italy’s future in the war had initially overshadowed the efforts to find Mussolini, but now senior Nazis were becoming restless. They put pressure on Kappler, making it clear that he must locate the former dictator within days.

Kappler’s network of informers, who were being partially funded by Skorzeny’s fake banknotes, had so far failed to deliver solid intelligence on Mussolini’s whereabouts. Rumours abounded as to his precise location. Every time a story surfaced or there was an alleged sighting of the man, Kappler and his team had to investigate it. One rumour suggested that he was being held in hospital in Rome awaiting an operation, but Kappler discovered this to be untrue. There was another story that Mussolini hadn’t left the royal residence at Villa Savoia, but that also proved a false trail. Each alleged sighting of Il Duce contradicted the last one.

Trying to stay one step ahead of the Germans, the Badoglio administration began to move Mussolini around. Through a contact in the Italian police, Kappler had learnt that the country’s most famous prisoner had first been taken by ambulance from Villa Savoia to the Podgora barracks in Via Quintino Sella, a thirty-minute high-speed drive from the royal residence. Kappler was also able to establish which part of the building Mussolini had been held in. He now knew that he had slept in a camp bed, in a small office which overlooked the parade ground where the cadets marched.

Fascinating though this information was, for Kappler it was all too late. Mussolini’s captors had already moved their precious charge on. He had been driven from Rome to the port of Gaeta, where he was put aboard a vessel named the Persefone and taken to the island of Ponza, twenty-five miles to the north. Ponza, which was around five miles long, had a history as a penal colony.

Kappler’s efforts to find Mussolini did not go unnoticed. The Führer himself was keeping an eye on his attempts to track down the former dictator. The previous month, August 1943, Hitler had called the police attaché in to see him. Having completed four years in Rome, Kappler thought he was about to be moved elsewhere in the Third Reich, but Hitler had other ideas. For the young SS man the meeting went better than he had expected. Hitler praised him and made it clear that his work in Rome was very important. He told him that he valued his contacts and that he was needed in the hunt for Mussolini and for future work organizing surveillance in the city. Ironically the very mission that Kappler had doubts about, the rescue of Mussolini, had secured his future in Rome.

Day by day Kappler’s office tried to piece together Mussolini’s secret journey from Villa Savoia. The police attaché’s staff tried a variety of methods. Pro-Nazi officers in the Italian Army and police force were constantly badgered for titbits of information. Staff also monitored the airwaves for any unusual reports or coded messages.

Finally they made a breakthrough. One of Kappler’s agents, who had been listening to Italian communication networks, came across an intriguing phrase. He heard the words, ‘Security preparations around the Gran Sasso complete.’ The message had been sent by an officer named Gueli, one of Mussolini’s captors, and was meant for one of his superiors.

At 9 p.m. on 5 September Kappler sent a cable to senior offices in Berlin informing them that it was extremely likely that Mussolini was in the vicinity of the Gran Sasso mountain. He also informed that he had sent out a fresh reconnaissance party which would report back shortly.