A personal quest to find more information about her father's war service and escape from an Italian prisoner of war camp led Katrina Kittel on an exhaustive but rewarding eight year journey of research, trips, tracking down documents and people to hear their tales.
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The result has been the publication of her first book, Shooting Through: Campo 106 escaped POWs after the Italian armistice.
"I had no idea that I would learn what I did when I first started researching," Ms Kittel said. "It's an incredible piece of history that a lot of people know nothing about."
The graduate historian from Nelson Bay, who moonlights as a librarian in Salamander Bay, said it felt "amazing" to see her book, which covers so much more than life in and escape from Italian POW camps, in print.
At its heart, Shooting Through highlights a unique shared history between Australian escapers and the Italians who risked severe retribution to host and guide the POWs from camps.
Drawing extensively on first-hand accounts sourced from Australian and British archives, as well as memoirs and oral accounts by ex-POWs and Italian witnesses, Ms Kittel shares the stories of 30 escaper groups, their evasion routes and various outcomes that befell escaped POWs.
From her perspective as a historian and daughter to a former POW, Ms Kittel uncovered a richer story behind the few enigmatic details that her father, Colin 'Col' Booth, and many of his fellow POWs chose to share with their families.
Shooting Through includes a nominal roll of Australian POWs interned at the Campo 106 rice farms in Italy as well as a roll of New Zealander POWs who escaped camps to reach Switzerland.
From 790 Allied soldiers in these camps in 1943, the year Italy signed the armistice with the Allies, 400 POWs escaped to Switzerland by undertaking a long and dangerous trek through the Alps. Col undertook this trek on September 10, 1943. He and a group of fellow escapees made it to Switzerland on October 4, 1943.
"I can map his entire journey now," Ms Kittel said.
The inspiration to begin her massive research project, trawling through war archives and drawing on hundreds of first-hand accounts to shine a light on the plight of Australian POWs in wartime Italy, came from within her own family.
While Ms Kittel knew her father had been a POW, he had not spoken much of his service. And, as a youth, Ms Kittel said she never thought to ask. Col died in 1989 still "fairly silent" on his war experiences.
"When I look back, I question why I didn't ask. But in hindsight, I didn't know enough to ask."
The idea to learn more about her father's war experiences grew in 2011 when Col's grandchildren wore his medals on Anzac Day.
"When they asked me questions about his war service, I couldn't fully answer their questions," Ms Kittel said.
To learn more about the grandfather her children had never met, she opened Col's brown Globite case where he had stored his papers, photos and paraphernalia from the days when he had been a fresh-faced soldier. In a family photo album full of tiny black-and-white pictures emerged unfamiliar faces and places stuck in time.
Col's handwriting on the reverse of some snaps and postcards hinted at people, places and events from his war. But they only added to the mystery. How much more was there to know and how many other Aussie families faced a similar puzzle? Ms Kittel decided to investigate.
What she gradually uncovered was insightful, highlighting the lives of ordinary individuals caught up in hazardous times.
As she writes in Shooting Though, escape for most POWs after the 1943 Italian surrender was easy. What followed was hard. Trying then to escape Germans instead, the month on the loose, foot-slogging to the frontier, trying to scrape up food in hostile territory, facing betrayal while trying to find shelter daily was a worrying ordeal.
Ms Kittel paid tribute to former POW Bill Rudd, who put her in contact with military associations and families to assist with her book. Mr Rudd, who Ms Kittel said was "always nudging me along" during the eight years it took to complete Shooting Through, was able to see the final product before his death last year, aged 101.
To buy a copy of Shooting Through, email Ms Kittel at katrinakittel9@gmail.com. Books are $35 each. Books can also be bought from Harry Hartog stores. Anyone who contacts Ms Kittel directly will receive a signed copy of the book.
