British soldier returns Second World War souvenir
A 250-year-old antique pistol taken from an Italian museum as a souvenir from the Second World War by a British solider has finally been returned, fulfilling the last request he made on his deathbed.
Stanley Parry, who died last year, had served with the Eighth Army and had been involved in the Allied push up through Italy having also seen combat in North Africa.
At the end of the Second World War while on his way back to Britain across the English Channel he noticed a fellow squaddie about to throw the 18th Century ornately decorated pistol into the sea, stopped him just in time and put it in his rucksack as a memento.
The weapon's coral and silver bodywork the pistol had been too much of a temptation for the solider and he had stolen it from the Stibbert Musuem in Florence in 1944 which had been the British Army HQ at the time....
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Stanley Parry, who died last year, had served with the Eighth Army and had been involved in the Allied push up through Italy having also seen combat in North Africa.
At the end of the Second World War while on his way back to Britain across the English Channel he noticed a fellow squaddie about to throw the 18th Century ornately decorated pistol into the sea, stopped him just in time and put it in his rucksack as a memento.
The weapon's coral and silver bodywork the pistol had been too much of a temptation for the solider and he had stolen it from the Stibbert Musuem in Florence in 1944 which had been the British Army HQ at the time....