Family Memories of the Italy Campaign

We have a family mystery. My father Henry Everhard (everyone called him Harry) was in the Italy campaign and his brother (Vic Everhard) was also in Italy at the same time, also in the army. During this time my father's brother Vic disappeared from his unit yet managed to arrange a meeting up with my father. I was told my Uncle Vic had joined the Italian partisans. There appeared to be no repercussions from this, no accusations of desertion. We assume that this absence must have been sanctioned by my uncle's military unit.

My father, Henry Everhard (Harry) was in the 8th Army in Italy and was in the Royal Artillery, rank Gunner but he was a signaller. When I asked him what the war was like he told me to never read the account of military historian Corelli Barnet, saying his accounts of the 8th Army "were rubbish". He said if I wanted to know the truth, I was to read Spike Milligan's accounts in his autobiography as he did the same job as my father.

I used to watch on TV war films with my father and he said American GIs were just like the way they were portrayed. He recalled being stopped whilst in Italy by Americans in a Jeep who stopped him and asked, "Which way's the war bud?".