216570 Sgt. Ernest H. Price British Army 1st Btn. South Wales Borderers The 1st Battalion lost around 500 officers and men captured or killed near Tobruk, Libya when it found itself cut off by German forces during a general retreat. Sergeant Price was made a Prisoner of War in Tobruk and ended up in Italy bound for Germany on a POW train. It was on this journey that the Allerona tragedy took place.
On 28th January 1944 at the Orvieto North railway bridge at Allerona, Italy, a train full of Allied prisoners, most of whom had come from Camp P.G. 54, Fara in Sabina, north of Rome, was hit by friendly fire from the American 320th Bombardment Group. U.S. Army member Richard Morris was on the train and wrote that the journey was stopped on the bridge over the river, and that the German guards fled as soon as the bombs struck. The prisoners were left locked inside the carriages. Many, including Ernest Price, managed to escape through holes in the boxcars caused by the bombing, and jumped into the river below. It was a great tragedy of the war resulting in the deaths of hundreds of men.
He survived the wreck with multiple slight wounds to his head and lower left leg. Upon recovery was sent to Stalag 344 in Lamsdorf, Poland.
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