The Road to Civitella 1944: The Captain, the Chaplain and the Massacre

The massacre and destruction of Civitella on 29 June, 1944 by the 1st Fallschirm Panzer Division 'Herman Goring' as reprisal for the shooting of three German soldiers in the village Dopolavoro-after work social club, left women widows and children fatherless. The book describes the journey of Captain John Percival Morgan and Father Clement O'Shea with the Eighth Army in Italy, to that hilltop village in Tuscany. Even though they had seen much death and destruction during their service in North Africa and Italy, they were moved by the plight of this small community. The two British officers adopted the village, and over a five-month period, regularly brought life-saving supplies and comfort to the women and children. The village organised a farewell Christmas party that survivors still remember today, treasuring gifts they received from their 'Santa in a truck'. Thanks to Keith Morgan, Captain Morgan's son, discovering Civitella in 1997, while retracing his father's wartime journey, this part of Civitella's history would have gone unrecorded and forgotten. In 2001, the village commemorated the work of this father and friends in the naming of a street Costa Capitano John Percival Morgan. A son found his father; a town its hero.