Living under Allied Military Government in Southern Italy during the Second World War: A Case Study of the Region of Molise

For residents of many rural areas of southern Italy, the arrival of the Allies in 1943 was their first direct experience of the Second World War. Popular history has often focused on stories of Allied POWs cared for by selfless peasant families who were keen to join the fight against fascism. However, for many southern Italian areas the experience of war was quite different. The closing years of the war became a struggle with hunger and disease and a coming to terms with an Allied occupation that brought about more casualties and destruction than action by German forces had caused. This article focuses on the little known region of Molise, in central southern Italy. It uses primary source material from the Archivio di Stato (state archive) in Campobasso, the capital of Molise, substantiated by more than thirty interviews with elderly residents of the area, to piece together the experience of Allied military government from an Italian perspective. In doing so, it seeks to offer a new and more complete picture of the Allied military occupation of Italy.