Early internment policy and tribunals, September 1939–April 1940

To understand what happened during the Second World War, it is necessary to revisit British internment policy from 1914 to 1918. During the First World War, approximately 60,000 Germans were resident in Britain, most of them economic migrants from the late nineteenth century who had travelled to Britain to make their fortune. At the start of the war, spy paranoia left the public believing that Germans were acting ‘as agents on behalf of their homeland’; a fear that later developed into ‘a more sophisticated conspiracy theory which argued that Germans controlled all sections of the British establishment and were frustrating the attainment of military victory’ (Panayi Reference Panayi, Cesarani and Kushner1993, 55). The anti-German feeling was so great that a mere three days after Britain joined the war, on 7 August 1914, it was decided that German men between the ages of 17 and 42 should be interned for the safety of the nation.Footnote ¹ Internment continued in fits and starts in 1914 and 1915 as space to house these internees fluctuated. On 13 May 1915, Prime Minister Asquith stated, regarding government policy:

Many Germans took up this offer of repatriation, with those able to do so being women, children, and men not of military age. By the time the war was over, anti-German feeling had not dissipated, with Lloyd George stating on 5 December 1918, ‘Germans had “forfeited claims to remain” in the country’; ultimately 30,700 former enemy aliens – Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, and Turks – were expelled from the country after the war (Cesarani Reference Cesarani1987, 5–6).

Britain had no desire to repeat such a scenario in the Second World War and made its position clear at the outbreak of war:

With this in mind, a new system was devised with tribunals established throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to examine the cases of all enemy aliens resident in the country. As all foreigners were required to register with the local police, the information about the number and whereabouts of enemy aliens was already known to the authorities. Recent author research indicates that just over 75,500 individuals over 16 years of age were considered by the tribunals between September 1939 and January 1940 (HO 213/459 1942). Files not released at the time of Lafitte's original research (1940), nor by the time Gillman or Stent published in 1980, show that the figures previously quoted as 73,800 (Lafitte Reference Lafitte1988, 63, re-quoted in Gillman Reference Gillman and Gillman1980, 45) or 73,355 (Stent Reference Stent1980, 37),Footnote ² are in actuality higher. Including stateless persons and correctly adding the figures of all those who went before a tribunal means the number is 75,665.

Enemy aliens were classified into three categories: ‘A’ an imminent danger to national security requiring immediate internment; ‘B’ able to remain at liberty but with restrictions, such as limiting the individual to remaining within five miles of their home and preventing him or her from owning binoculars, a camera, or a bicycle; and ‘C’ a genuine refugee from Nazi oppression with no restrictions on individual liberty (Lafitte Reference Lafitte1988, 63). Tribunal decisions were subjective and open to influence from a number of factors, including prejudice towards foreigners or a mistrust of those who did not speak English. Equally, the magistrate could be generously disposed towards refugees, understanding the struggles they had gone through to reach Britain. For those who had established themselves in British society it was possible to get letters of recommendation that could be presented before the tribunal to strengthen a case for exemption from internment (‘Papers Relating to the Internment of Members of the Beermann Family’ n.d.; HO 213/231 1939). General questions asked by the tribunal officials often included questions about employment, why an individual had chosen to come to Britain, and plans for the future (Pottlitzer Reference Pottlitzer1978). Of course, this all assumed that the tribunal was interested in hearing particulars about an individual or their family; in many cases the decisions were already made before the person in question appeared at the tribunal, such as in the case of Ludwig (Lou) Baruch, a staunch Communist, who appeared before a Mr Holmes at his tribunal:

The key factor in any decision by a tribunal was whether or not an individual was likely to be a risk to national security. For this reason, Communists and radical trade unionists were considered as dangerous as Nazis, ‘not from any desire on their part to help the Nazis, but from their policy of provoking and fostering industrial discontent’, as Britain could not afford any interruption in its factories or war production (Anderson Reference Anderson1940). Many anti-Nazis had, understandably, been members of left-leaning German political parties or had joined the Communists in order to fight the rapid rise of Fascism in Spain or within Germany, and this often affected the classification given. After the tribunals were completed, a mere 600 men were interned as Category A, with a further 300 who had been rounded up by MI5 at the start of the conflict. Their numbers were swelled with around 2,000 merchant seamen captured in British ports or at sea who were automatically placed into Category A (CAB 67/6/15 1940). Outside of these Category A aliens, other enemy aliens were left at liberty, though Category Bs were under certain restrictions on what they could own or how far they could travel from their home address.

It was not until May 1940, after the devastatingly swift fall of Denmark and Norway and the very real threat of a German invasion of Britain after France also fell, that the internment policy was revisited and the decision was made that it was better to be safe than sorry. The plans for mass internment were in place before Churchill became prime minister and when he addressed the House of Commons on 4 June1940 he acknowledged:

By this time, arrests had already been made of all Germans and Austrian men aged 16 to 60 living on the east and south-east coasts of Britain ‘in a zone marked out by the Military Authorities as an area of possible military operations’ (Anderson Reference Anderson1940). Around 4,000 arrests were made in these areas on 12 May 1940, and these were swiftly followed on 16 May by the arrests of men classified as Category B, also aged 16 to 60. Category B women with some of their dependent children were arrested on 28 May 1940; the total Category B arrests numbering some 6,000 (Pistol Reference Pistol, Carr and Pistol2023, 18). The process of internment was, therefore, well underway by the time Italy declared war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940.

Italy joins the war, June 1940

How the British government viewed Italians in the years preceding the war played an important part in determining wartime policy. This can be seen in many ways, including how the Home Office considered naturalisation applications during the 1930s as to whether an applicant's nationalist sympathies were

Furthermore, Italians and Germans were treated differently in their naturalisation applications as Italian applications had to go via MI5, while German applications did not (HO 213/40 1937). The policy of treating Italian citizens differently to those from Germany or Austria was already well entrenched long before 10 June 1940. Britain had been anticipating Italy's declaration of war and strategies were already in place with regard to how to treat Italians as enemy aliens if war was declared. Indeed, one month before Italy joined the Axis powers, the War Cabinet already had plans to intern all male Italians aged 16 to 70 who had lived in Britain for fewer than 20 years, as well as males of any age whom MI5 considered to be linked to the Fascist Party (CAB 65/7/23 1940).

In the lead-up to Italy joining the war, Ministry of Information reports on public opinion showed a growing anti-Italian sentiment, along with some anti-Jewish sentiment, particularly in the Scottish capital. In Birmingham, just three days before Italy joined the Axis powers, there was ‘wide apprehension about Fifth Column, spies seen all over the place. Strong feeling for interning more Aliens’ (INF 1/264/44 1940). The apparatus for internment was well underway by June 1940, and with the heightened anxieties surrounding the possibility of Fifth Column activity, it was inconceivable that a proportion of Italians resident in Britain would escape arrest. Although Italians were, by the 1930s, integrated into British society, they were not always assimilated. Prior to the 1930s, Terri Colpi notes that

Upon the rise of Fascism, this changed to a certain extent. The basic principle of Fascism – Honour, Family and Fatherland – was ‘the very principle by which most lived their lives anyway’, and so involvement with the party was primarily due to involvement within the Italian community. Italians saw many benefits of Fascism, including clubs, Italian language schools, and free holidays to Italy for children. It should also be noted that ‘it became increasingly difficult, in a bureaucratic sense, to conduct one's affairs in Italy, which were administered through the Italian Consulates, if one was not a member of the Fascist movement’ (Colpi Reference Colpi, Cesarani and Kushner1993, 170). As notable Italian historian, Lucio Sponza, concluded: ‘In the end … fascism became synonymous with patriotism to the vast majority of Italians in Britain, and anti-fascist activity was confined to some elder anarchists and even fewer political refugees’ (Sponza Reference Sponza, Iacovetta, Perin and Principe2000b, 259). Ultimately, this involvement in the Fascist movement would cause huge problems for many in the British Italian community.

Public opinion towards the Italians had fluctuated over the years and had significantly deteriorated after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935–1936, as a result of the use of poison gas and the bombing of hospitals and ambulances. The calling of derogatory names was commonplace, as was a general belief that Italians were ‘dirty’ (Ugolini Reference Ugolini2014, 38). As Joe Pieri wrote in his memories of this time

A Mass Observation study undertaken in the four days preceding Italy's entry into the war had Italians described as ‘wops’, ‘yellow’, ‘rotten fighters’ and ‘lousy scum – not fit even for the dustbin’ (Kushner Reference Kushner2004, 182–184; Sponza Reference Sponza, Burrell and Panayi2006, 71; Ugolini Reference Ugolini2014, 41). Ministry of Information reports in the same days included comments such as ‘Italian shopkeepers in Glasgow may fare badly if Italy comes into war’ (INF 1/264/44 1940). Yet, knowing that this was the sentiment in the general population, no measures were taken to protect the Italian community when war was declared. Anti-Italian riots broke out in major cities around the country on 10 June 1940, and these were ‘particularly vicious’ in Edinburgh and Glasgow (Ugolini Reference Ugolini2014, 122). The violence was not limited to these two cities, however, with the Greenock Telegraph reporting:

Hundreds of shops and homes were damaged across the country, with Italian restaurateurs putting signs in their windows saying they were British to try and prevent violence against their property or person (Colpi Reference Colpi, Cesarani and Kushner1993, 175).

Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, as had already been executed in the case of Germans and Austrians, some 5,346 Italian men and 16 Italian women were interned, making up approximately one in five of all civilians interned by the British government in the UK in July 1940 (FO 371/29174 1941).

Temporary and transit camps, May–July 1940

The police, who had already arrested Germans and Austrians living on the east and south-east coasts on 12 May 1940, male Category Bs on 16 May 1940, and female Category Bs on 28 May 1940, were well prepared to arrest Italians on 10 and 11 June 1940. After arrest, internees were initially held in local police stations before being moved to temporary camps on the British mainland. Some of the temporary camps were internment camps that had been in existence since the early months of the war, whilst others were hastily constructed only a few weeks previously. Accommodation could vary from prisons, army barracks, or grandstands at racecourses, to disused factories, partially built housing estates, or fields surrounded by barbed wire and filled with bell tents. The camps that sent Italian internees to be embarked upon the Arandora Star were Lingfield Park and Kempton Park racecourses in Surrey, Warth Mills in Lancashire, Paignton in Devon, Southampton in Hampshire, Pembroke in south-west Wales, Milton Bridge and Donaldson School in Edinburgh, and (briefly) Huyton, near Liverpool.Footnote ³

One of the earliest camps where Italians were sent had been in existence since September 1939 – Dixon's holiday camp in Paignton. Paignton was a more luxurious camp and had previously been an option for ‘Officer Class’ internees who could afford to pay 4s. 6d. per day for superior accommodation and better food. Only a few people had enough money to pay for this arrangement, which gave internees greater privacy, amongst other perks. Internees lived in ‘pairs in the separate huts, which are heated by oil stoves, and have a dining room and lounge, with easy chairs, and the use of an entertainment hall, with stage’ (FCRA/25/40 1939–1941; Kochan Reference Kochan1983, 7). A handful of Italians enjoyed the better facilities at Paignton before they were boarded onto the Arandora Star.

Many of those arrested, particularly those living in the south of England, including London where the largest concentration of Italians was located, were sent to Lingfield Park racecourse. Uberto Limentani, later a professor of Italian Literature at Cambridge University, recalled of his time at Lingfield that he ‘slept in a horse-box with at least 10 or 12 other internees on a mattress stuffed with straw. Here we suffered, quite literally, from hunger’ (Limentani Reference Limentani1980, 41). In the German part of the camp, George Leiser said he

Conditions at Lingfield were not bad, but there were, as in all these camps, tensions between different nationalities, factions, and political groups.

Of all the transit camps, by far the worst that Italians, Germans and Austrians were sent to was Warth Mills, an abandoned cotton mill on the outskirts of Bury, near Manchester. Many hundreds of Italians were housed at Warth Mills, including Victor Tolaini, who described the camp as follows:

Camillo D'Allesandro described the camp as a ‘disused cotton mill … dark dirty lofty rooms, several storeys, no light at night, strife among the internees, no chairs or tables’ (D'Allesandro Reference D'Allesandro1981). Monsignor Gaetano Rossi, a young priest interned during the war, recalled that the internees were ordered not to lie down on their beds during the day, ‘There were no chairs or stools, so we had to stand around, not knowing what to do’ (Rossi Reference Rossi1991). Rossi was given permission to celebrate Mass in the camp for the Italians, and an internee who later perished on the Arandora Star, artist Severino Trematore, painted a triptych using watercolour on paper for the altar. ‘The idea that everybody had forgotten [the internees], that no one was caring about them was widespread … from this mood it was easy to fall into sentiments of despair’, which is why it was so important to give the internees some form of distraction (Rossi Reference Rossi1991). The Society of Friends visited Warth Mills on 10 July 1940 and recorded that:

It was from this camp that hundreds of the Italians were embarked upon the Arandora Star. Camps like Warth Mills, along with the ships that took the internees and prisoners-of war abroad, were the most chaotic elements of British internment policy.

It took some time for the authorities to separate Nazis and pro-Nazi sympathisers from the racial and political refugees in the German and Austrian camps. Fascist and non-fascist allegiance was less clear-cut amongst the Italians and proved problematic during their internment. A Home Office memorandum dated 3 September 1940 noted:

Questions were raised in parliament over this lack of willingness to deal with the problem of separating Fascist from antifascist Italians. Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, for example, asked the Home Secretary on 8 August 1940 if ‘Danilo Lebrecht, known as Lorenzo Montano, an Italian refugee and anti-Fascist journalist’ could be immediately released due to his antifascist credentials. Sir John Anderson answered that he did not feel there was justification to provide ‘preferential treatment in the matter of release’ as he thought the information provided was insufficient to prove his credentials (HC Deb 8 August 1940). In the same parliamentary session, Mr S.O. Davies asked the Secretary of State for War the reason the late Giuseppe Conti was taken from Warth Mills and placed on the Arandora Star, leaving a widow and two young children. The response from Mr Law was because ‘this man was reported to be a member of the Fascist party’ (HC Deb 8 August 1940). The truth of the matter was that the British security services had a very limited understanding of who was or was not a Fascist, particularly when it came to Italians. Gaetano Rossi, the young cleric at Warth Mills, wrote in his memories of internment about the diversity of identities and conflicting political beliefs amongst the Italians. At Warth Mills, they put together a few bricks in a corner they called ‘Hyde Park’, in reference to Speaker's Corner, where Italians were able to have their say, be they pro-Mussolini or anti-Mussolini. Rossi noted:

Although descriptions of these internment camps are broadly consistent regardless of the nationality of the internee, one striking fact was that Germans and Austrians were generally kept segregated from Italians. Each nationality was either kept to its own part of the camp or moved into a camp after another nationality had been relocated. Evidence of the differing views MI5 had of Germans and Italians in the years preceding the Second World War continued throughout the war. Part of the reason for keeping the nationalities segregated was because many of the Germans and Austrians were refugees and Britain expected to be able to release them in order to help in the war effort. In 1939, most Germans and Austrians had not long been in Britain, in marked contrast with most Italians, who were well settled with families and established businesses at the outbreak of war. German and Austrian refugees had been forced out of their countries of birth due to horrific persecution, which meant that such individuals would not profess loyalty to the Hitler regime. By direct contrast, most Italians had family members in Italy and were proudly Italian or British-Italian, resulting in potentially conflicting identities and ‘divided loyalties’ in wartime (Sponza Reference Sponza2000a). Germans and Austrians had already been before tribunals prior to internment, which proved useful as soon as the White Papers on ‘Categories of Persons Eligible for Release from Internment’ were published (Pistol Reference Pistol2021). When Italy joined the war there was no time for tribunals; consequently, all individual examinations had to be conducted after arrest and during internment itself. It was not until the more permanent camps were established on the Isle of Man, along with those in Canada and Australia, that such evaluation could be undertaken. By this time the deportations had already taken place.

Deportations to Canada and Australia

With the haste of the arrests and the numbers involved, suitable space to house the internees was soon exhausted within the UK and enquiries were made elsewhere (Gillman and Gillman Reference Gillman and Gillman1980, 166). Several of the Dominions were approached to take some of the ‘most dangerous characters among the Germans and Italians’ (Radok Reference Radokn.d.). Canada agreed to take 4,000 internees and 3,000 prisoners-of-war; Newfoundland agreed to accept 1,000 internees; and Australia and New Zealand were expected to accommodate 6,000 and 4,000 respectively (Chamberlain Reference Chamberlain1940). In the end, only Canada and Australia were called upon to take internees and four ships were dispatched to Canada and one to Australia. The idea initially was for only Category A internees to be sent abroad. This category covered not only the Germans and Austrians who had been classified as such by a tribunal, but also all Italians who were on an MI5 list detailing members of the Partito Nazionale Fascista and those associated with the Fasci. Such individuals were also automatically classified as Category A, considered sufficiently dangerous to warrant being transported abroad. However, as there were not enough internees falling within these two groups – Category A Germans and Austrians and Italians Fascists – to fill the number of places available on the ships the government had prepared for deportation, it was decided to broaden the categories of those to be sent overseas to include B and C Categories.

With regard to the interned Italians, those who were believed to have links to the Italian Fascist Party from the MI5 list were embarked upon the SS Arandora Star. The other ship that sailed for Canada with Italians on board was the MV Ettrick. Just over 400 Italians were boarded onto the Ettrick, not because they were considered Fascisti, but because ‘being single and between the ages of 20 and 30 it was considered that they were suitable for deportation since no hardship of separation from wives or children would be involved’ (HO 213/566 1940). The Arandora Star and the Ettrick were the second and third ships to set sail for Canada. All ships bar the MS Sobieski sailed from Liverpool. The first ship to depart on 21 June 1940 was SS Duchess of York, which transported some 2,100 German and Austrian internees (including merchant seamen), the vast majority of whom were Category A, alongside just over 500 prisoners-of-war. The next ship to sail, on 30 June 1940, the Arandora Star, was embarked with 707 Italians (Pacitti, this issue) and around 475 Category A Germans and Austrians, some of whom were merchant seamen. On 3 July 1940 the third ship, the Ettrick, carried over 1,300 German and Austrian B and C Categories who were purportedly selected because they were single men between the ages of 16 and 50; plus the 400 supposedly single Italians mentioned above, and approximately 885 German prisoners-of-war. The fourth ship, which set sail on 4 July 1940 from Glasgow, MS Sobieski, contained around 550 prisoners-of-war, alongside just under 1,000 German and Austrian men in Categories B and C, again between the ages of 16 and 50 and supposedly single. The final ship despatched as part of the deportation scheme, on 10 July 1940, was the HMT Dunera, which carried some 251 Category A Germans and Austrians and 200 Italians, all of whom had survived the sinking of the Arandora Star. They shared the ship with 2,095 B and C Category Germans and Austrians (HO 213/566 1940; HO 215/257 1940). The mix of different nationalities and categories, merchant seamen, civilian internees, and prisoners-of-war created a maelstrom of confusion for the Canadian and Australian authorities to work out. It was not until the end of July that Canada and Australia were officially informed via memoranda of exactly who the ships were believed to have transported (HO 213/566 1940; HO 215/257 1940).Footnote ⁴ These memoranda fully detail the rationale behind internment and deportation, and explain how the British had originally intended to send only the ‘most dangerous’ enemy aliens abroad, but which quickly became all those available of any internment category, with the hope the Dominion governments would figure out what happened and treat refugees with leniency. Such confused communications caused many problems for the internees, who suffered as a result of the delay in accurate communication between Britain, Canada and Australia. Australia succeeded in separating the competing factions within two weeks (Morgenroth Reference Morgenroth, Carr and Pistol2023, 249). However, it took Canada seven months to separate the Jewish refugees sent aboard the Duchess of York from the Nazis in Camp ‘R’ Red Rock (Zimmerman Reference Zimmerman2015, 281).

The deportation policy evolved, even within the short space of time between the departure of the Duchess of York and that of the Dunera. For example, the reason no new Italians were deported after those on the Arandora Star and the Ettrick (those who were shipped on the Dunera were part of the original deportation policy as they were all survivors of the Arandora Star), was because the British government was considering, at that time, a scheme of exchanging Italian citizens for British citizens in Italy (Chamberlain Reference Chamberlain1940). This moved German and Austrian Categories B and C up in terms of priority for deportation and led to calls for volunteers from those most likely to be refugees to fill the ships. However, the Home Secretary hoped that internees who would be required for war production, those interned in error, or ‘married men with wives and children in this country, upon whom special hardship would be imposed by separation’ would not be sent abroad (Chamberlain Reference Chamberlain1940). In the haste of the deportations, this was a vain hope; indeed, much conflicting information was provided to the internees before they were sent overseas, including being told wives and children would follow or that going abroad would help future emigration (‘The Dunera Memorandum, No. 7 Camp’ 1940; HC Deb 13 August 1940). It is perhaps no wonder that so many men ‘volunteered’ for the Dunera, though such an option was not given to internees dispatched on the earlier sailings. In the case of the interned Italians from Warth Mills who were embarked onto Arandora Star and subsequently Dunera, they were not given any information at all so had no idea they were being sent abroad.

The deportations took place against a changing background of events, and this somewhat altered public opinion. There had always been dismay from intellectual circles over the premise of internment, although internment in general received popular support from across the country. As early as 2 July 1940, Ministry of Information reports noted that the ‘indiscriminate internment of aliens is strongly deprecated in intellectual circles and the distress which internment has brought is being reflected in morale’ (Addison and Crang Reference Addison and Crang2010, 180). By 6 July,

As news became public about the overseas transports, relatives and friends of internees expressed dismay ‘that interned aliens will be sent to Canada without appeal or second tribunal. Intellectual circles uneasy at arbitrary treatment of refugees; e.g. several Italians who lived for years in England taken on Arandora Star without trial; remaining Italians bitter at apparent injustice’. There was particular outrage about the treatment of Italians: at the end of July, in London there was a ‘sense of injustice reported among British citizens in districts where Italians ran small businesses at summary internment of people they had known for many years’(Addison and Crang Reference Addison and Crang2010, 238). Once news leaked out about the Arandora Star disaster, public backlash and pressure from Members of Parliament, coupled with the fact that pressure had eased on the British camps because of internees starting to be released, ultimately put an end to the controversial policy (Burleston Reference Burleston, Cesarani and Kushner1993, 116).

The end to the deportation policy broadly coincided with the Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson, announcing a change in policy with the development and subsequent publication of the first White Paper with the first 18 categories for release at the end of July 1940 (Lafitte Reference Lafitte1988, 195–196). Italians were eligible for release under the same categories as Germans but had to go before an Advisory Committee to assess their case because they had not appeared before a tribunal (Pistol Reference Pistol2021). Through this, the emphasis shifted from interning enemy aliens to developing strategies to get enemy aliens out of the camps into roles that would assist the British war effort. The critics of internment grew more vocal in parliament, even regarding the policy of release. Rhys Davies MP compared the idea of releasing individuals who could be useful to the country as something that smelled ‘a little too much of Hitlerism’. Davies went on in the same speech to parliament to say:

The haphazard nature of how deportation was organised meant that records of selections and embarkations were either non-existent or inaccurate and it took some time to unravel exactly what had happened in the heat and secrecy of the moment (HO 215/260 1940). However, it was too late for anything to be done for those who had lost their lives on the Arandora and those already abroad beyond trying to figure out how they might return to the UK. In the meantime, thousands of individuals had endured long and arduous journeys to Canada or Australia and faced an equally dangerous return.

No matter what information was or was not provided to the internees, nothing could have prepared them for the conditions they endured on the transport ships, where the internees were overcrowded and held in insanitary conditions for the duration of their voyage (Stent Reference Stent1980, 98–100; Kapp and Mynatt Reference Kapp and Mynatt1997, 116–120; Pistol Reference Pistol2017, 46–50). The first voyage to Canada, on the Duchess of York – like all of the transport ships – was terribly overcrowded. The merchant seamen and prisoners-of-war outnumbered the British guards on the ship but there was a reasonable amount of freedom of movement on board. This led to a tragedy when British officers ordered the internees to clear the deck: there was a delay, and shots were fired, killing one man. One of the Jewish refugees on board recalled: ‘The excitement was terrific. Passions ran high, and some demanded immediate action such as to throw the officer in charge overboard, or to burn or to sink the whole ship’ (Spier Reference Spier1951, 140). The effect of this loss of life was to have huge ramifications, leading to increased security measures and barbed wire on future transports (Stent Reference Stent1980, 100).

A ‘not for publication’ summary of the conditions on board the Ettrick makes for uncomfortable reading and had much in common with the conditions on all the transports abroad:

The smaller Ettrick was even more overcrowded than the Arandora Star, Footnote ⁵ and ‘was nothing less than a potential floating coffin’, exactly what the Arandora Star turned out to be (Pieri Reference Pieri1997, 31). Conditions were no better on the one ship that travelled to Australia with the Arandora Star survivors on board. The British guards on the Dunera systematically looted their charges and their sometimes violent behaviour created an atmosphere of fear. One internee on board recalled how he

It is perhaps surprising that only three men died during the voyage – one committed suicide, one died as the result of a fight, and the third from a heart attack. Compensation was eventually agreed to be paid by the British government to internees who had lost belongings on the Ettrick and the Dunera (HO 215/213 n.d.; HO 215/209 n.d.). The government accepted its liability for physical possessions lost or stolen in transit, but no such responsibility for casualties of war. This is perhaps best summed up by the last Italian survivor of the Arandora Star, Rando Bertoia: