Miles and Miles and Miles - Guiseppe Maniscalco

Miles and Miles and Miles, The story of a man's lone war-time hike from Ethiopia to South Africa - Guiseppe Maliscalco - 1968, first edition - Howard Timmins - 169p - Black & white photographs - Ex-library book (no stamps) - Hardcover and dustcover show shelf wear and rubbing but no paper loss - Internally clean and tightly bound.

This story of how an Italian soldier walked from Sudan to South Africa is surely one of the most amazing of its kind. It took him two and a half years. Here is the report of Johannes van der Spuy - on the staff of the Intelligence Division during the war - which speaks for itself.

"In October ,1946, I was asked, as the only officer fluent in Italian, to interview a man thought to have escaped from the Zonderwater Italian Prisoner-of-War Camp. For the first time then met Guiseppe Maniscalco. He was accompanied by a police escort.

"My first impression was that Guiseppe resembled somebody released from Buchenwald concentration camp. His face was a pathetic sight. His whole body was just skin and bone. His clothes were grimy and treadbare. He was over 6 foot tall and had immense hands. I looked at his shoes - only the uppers were left and his feet bled in places.

" There was a look  in his eyes of tremendous strain. In a way I thought of him as a wild animal. He was in great despair, a man who had stopped hoping, and his whole being seemed to cry out the plea 'Please, try to help and understand me!' He had no money and no identity papers whatsoever and told me he was 36 years old.

"I then took a statement from him in which he related to me in brief outline the unique story which is unfolded in this book. I did not for one moment doubt the truth, incredible as it was, of his tale. There was obviously no guile or invention about this man. The forthright way he spoke to me of his adventures had the unmistakeable then and there to do what I could to help him."