British soldier returns Second World War souvenir
A 250-year-old antique pistol taken from an Italian museum as a souvenir from the Second World War by a British solider has finally been returned, fulfilling the last request he made on his deathbed.
Stanley Parry, who died last year, had served with the Eighth Army and had been involved in the Allied push up through Italy having also seen combat in North Africa.
At the end of the Second World War while on his way back to Britain across the English Channel he noticed a fellow squaddie about to throw the 18th Century ornately decorated pistol into the sea, stopped him just in time and put it in his rucksack as a memento.
The weapon's coral and silver bodywork the pistol had been too much of a temptation for the solider and he had stolen it from the Stibbert Musuem in Florence in 1944 which had been the British Army HQ at the time.
A report at the time from the museum's superintendent revealed: "The billeting of hundreds of soldier's within the building, who used it for sleeping, eating, washing and shaving caused all sorts of damage.
"They roamed the entire museum, resting their kit bags and their weapons everywhere and at the same time they amused themselves by posing with the exhibits of armour, including helmets, shields all ripped from the walls.
"They threw mattresses down on the floor wherever they liked and emptied the display cabinets with many of the artefacts now being missing and unaccounted."
The report added how among the missing items was an "18th Century coral and silver Turkish flintlock pistol that had been attached to a figure, which is still there."
Museum officials appealed to British authorities for helping in tracing the gun, which is now worth £15,000, but had no success until out of the blue they received a phone call from the Italian Embassy in London telling them the pistol had been found....
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Stanley Parry, who died last year, had served with the Eighth Army and had been involved in the Allied push up through Italy having also seen combat in North Africa.
At the end of the Second World War while on his way back to Britain across the English Channel he noticed a fellow squaddie about to throw the 18th Century ornately decorated pistol into the sea, stopped him just in time and put it in his rucksack as a memento.
The weapon's coral and silver bodywork the pistol had been too much of a temptation for the solider and he had stolen it from the Stibbert Musuem in Florence in 1944 which had been the British Army HQ at the time.
A report at the time from the museum's superintendent revealed: "The billeting of hundreds of soldier's within the building, who used it for sleeping, eating, washing and shaving caused all sorts of damage.
"They roamed the entire museum, resting their kit bags and their weapons everywhere and at the same time they amused themselves by posing with the exhibits of armour, including helmets, shields all ripped from the walls.
"They threw mattresses down on the floor wherever they liked and emptied the display cabinets with many of the artefacts now being missing and unaccounted."
The report added how among the missing items was an "18th Century coral and silver Turkish flintlock pistol that had been attached to a figure, which is still there."
Museum officials appealed to British authorities for helping in tracing the gun, which is now worth £15,000, but had no success until out of the blue they received a phone call from the Italian Embassy in London telling them the pistol had been found....