Arandora Star tragedy: Can you help put a face to Francesco?
Researcher’s search for relatives of mystery Italian drowned in WWII
Friday, 8th September 2023 — By Charlotte Chambers
Francesco D’Inverno’s links to Islington have been revealed
WAR historians are calling for descendants of an Italian man, drowned in one of the worst losses of life aboard a passenger ship during the Second World War, to come forward after an 83-year mystery about his identity was finally solved.
Calling the identification of the body a “happy mistake” – significantly his is the only body ever recovered from the Arandora Star tragedy along the Scottish coastline – researcher Michael Donnelly is now calling on those related to Francesco D’Inverno, an Italian man from Lazio living in Islington at the time of his death, to come forward.
“The initial purpose [of contacting the Tribune] was could we get a picture of Francesco to put a face to the unknown body?” he asked. “Are there any of his living relatives in that area that could give us more information?”
According to a marriage certificate unearthed by Mr Donnelly earlier this year, Mr D’Inverno was married to widow Ginevera Tasselli on April 20, 1939 – a year before his death – at St Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell Road, Clerkenwell, and worked as a “head plateman,” at Selsdon Park Hotel in Croydon.
The couple, along with her four children from a previous marriage, lived at 57 King’s Cross Road until he was arrested as an “enemy alien” and forced aboard the doomed Arandora in June 1940 when Italy entered the war.
Researcher Michael Donnelly
Italians and German nationals living in Britain at the time of the war were sent away to Commonwealth countries at the behest of the then-prime minister Winston Churchill.
The former luxury cruise liner sank just hours into the journey, off the coast of Ireland, after she was torpedoed by a German U-boat, taking more than 800 lives with her – the majority of them Italian internees.
A fundraiser has now been launched to raise £5,000 for a gravestone at his burial site in Girvan near Glasgow, until now unmarked and only designated as being the final resting place of an “unknown” man.
Mr Donnelly added that if Mr D’Inverno – or indeed his wife, Mrs Tasselli – did have descendants in the Islington area he wanted them to know he had now “received a proper burial, and we want to agree a stone on his grave”.
Describing the significance of identifying Mr D’Inverno’s body, Mr Donnelly said a gravestone at his burial site was “symbolic” for all the families who lost relatives in the tragedy, particularly in Scotland, as his was the only body to wash ashore there, while in total there have only ever been 22 bodies identified from the disaster.
“It’s a symbolic thing,” he said. “So, so many families, all they got was a letter from the Foreign Office or the Home Office saying ‘here’s the name of the person and it said Missing, Presumed Drowned’ and that’s all they got. It’s just very cold. They couldn’t have a proper funeral for their loved ones.”
The scene of the tragedy in Scotland
One message left on the JustGiving page, by Raffaello and Shona Gonnella, states: “It is so important that we get this gravestone because so many men were lost and never found – my donation is also in memory of my maternal Nonno (grandfather) Quinto Santini who was one of those men.”
The crowdfunder is being organised by the Italian Garden Improvement Group and the Girvan and District Great War Project (GADGWP).
It states: “We are hoping to trace any of Francesco’s living relatives and we are following leads in the UK, Italy and USA.
“On 2nd July this year, probably for the first time in over 80 years, flowers were placed on Francesco’s unmarked grave by Ritchie and Lorna Conaghan of the GADGWP. Ritchie and Lorna have also made contact with the then nine-year-old evacuee from Rutherglen who found Francesco in 1940. For over 80 years he wondered about the man he found on the shore and now, aged 92, the mystery has been solved.
“We believe it is important to both honour the memory of Francesco D’Inverno permanently and to maintain awareness of the Arandora Star tragedy by erecting a suitably inscribed gravestone at Doune Cemetery.”
Francesco’s grave and, below, marriage certificate
The sole memorial to those from London who lost their lives in the tragedy can be found at St Peter’s Italian church.
It is not clear whether Mr D’Inverno’s name will now be added to it. Mr Donnelly said for decades it had been the “forgotten affair” of the war.
