A mysterious English army officer caught and killed by Nazis in wartime Rome has finally been given a name after 63 years but other details of who he was remain elusive.
The officer is remembered on a white stone memorial in a northern suburb of the Italian capital as the 'Unknown Englishman' and until recently he was just that.
But Second World War veterans and local historians in Rome have now identified the mysterious figure who died on June 4, 1944 as Captain John Armstrong.
He is believed to have been working for British intelligence in occupied Rome and liaising with the Italian resistance.
"We think he must have been working under cover, on a secret mission, and that is why so little is known about him," said Harry Shindler, spokesman for the Italy Star Association, which represents veterans who fought in the Italian campaigns.
Armstrong was held for several months in early 1944 at the infamous Gestapo headquarters in Rome's Via Tasso. The headquarters, where prisoners were frequently tortured, was made famous in Roberto Rossellini's film Rome Open City.
The Englishman was one of 14 prisoners of the Gestapo who were taken in a lorry by German forces retreating northwards up the Via Cassia as Allied troops moved into the Italian capital from the south.
The lorry stopped at a place near the village of La Storta and the Germans decided to get rid of the prisoners they had brought with them.
The prisoners were herded out into a wood, forced to their knees and shot in the head.
A monument on the Via Cassia records the massacre, trees planted at the site carry plaques bearing the names of the dead and a ceremony is held every year on June 4. One plaque, however, has until now simply read 'The Unknown Englishman'.
On June 4, the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of Rome by Allied forces, a ceremony is to be held at the site so that Armstrong can be remembered by name and in the presence of British military representatives.
Shindler, who played a key role in identifying Armstrong by spotting references in several books, said he is hoping that eventually it will be possible to find the victim's family.
"We want the family to know their relative is remembered and honoured," he said.
"We're also hoping to find out some more about Armstrong himself. We know practically nothing about him, probably because he was on a secret mission for intelligence, helping the Italian resistance".
Research by experts working for the British embassy, coupled with evidence collected from Italian sources, has apparently confirmed Shindler's hunch that the nameless 'inglese' was indeed Armstrong.
It is not known where his body was buried. His corpse and those of the other 13 victims of the massacre were taken to a Rome hospital and later given a funeral but records showing what happened next have been lost.
Shindler is appealing to any Italians still living who know anything about the circumstances of the 'La Storta massacre' or the fate of the bodies to come forward.
Last year Shindler led a successful campaign to have a memorial to the Allied troops who liberated Rome erected in the central Piazza Venezia, next to the white marble Victor Emmanuel monument housing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The memorial depicts an Italian woman gratefully embracing an Allied soldier.
