Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years

When Amoré Freed the POW
WORLD WAR II YEARS
139
"Camp" Meade, as we like to refer to it, was the location
of the unexpected and celebrated start to our family.
My father, Marco Antonio Ferretto was captured in
Marsala, Sicily, while serving as a soldier in the Italian army
in 1943. He and several of his unit members would spend
the rest of WWII as Prisoner of War at Fort George G.
Meade. While a prisoner, my father worked in the laundry
alongside other POWs.
When Italy surrendered, the Italian POWs were allowed
privileges the Germans were not afforded. One of those
privileges was the ability to interact with American citizens
outside of the camp.
Guy Sardella, a popular radio host for a show that played
in Baltimore, went on the air one day and encouraged area
Italian immigrants to go to Fort Meade to visit the POWs.
Guy offered to help facilitate the weekly events hoping
the visits would help build a sense of unity between the
already large Italian community in Baltimore and the
POWs who were confined so far away from home.
As fate would have it–or as I like to believe, divine
providence–my grandmother heard the broadcast on
WCBM radio. She mentioned the idea of visits to the
POWs with her children, saying she had hopes of finding
some of her Sicilian family members. Instead of finding
a family member, my grandmother met her future son-inlaw
when my father asked my grandmother for permission
to dance with her daughter. My grandmother agreed.
After that first meeting, my mother returned with
her family for Sunday visits to see my father as often as
possible. For months, she joined scores of other Italian-
Baltimore families who flooded the camp on weekends
for picnics, soccer games and social time. The visits and
their budding relationship was interrupted when my father
was sent to England and then France with American
soldiers as part of the Allied Forces. After the war ended,
my father returned to his home in Italy. This distance did
not deter them. My parents continued to write each other
for more than four years. They were finally married in a
ceremony held in Italy in May 1948.
It all seems quite unbelievable to hear accounts of those
days at "Camp" Meade. The visits from the community
By Gisele Rosa Ferretto
included an abundance of homemade food, music and
Catholic masses delivered in Italian. One of my mother’s
close friends, Gabriella Fabi, had also met her husband,
Bruno Brotto, during those weekend visits to see the
POWs. As a child, it sounded so romantic to hear my
mother and Mrs. Brotto talk about how they met their
husbands and what those days were like at Fort Meade.
Now as an adult, I realize it represents much more than
my personal family history. These memories also illustrate
the warm generosity of the Italian people and the integrity
and honor of the American military who demonstrated
such compassion during difficult times.
***
(Left) Italian soldier Marco Antonio Ferretto along with
several of his unit members were captured in 1943 and would
spend the rest of the war as POWs at Fort Meade. (below)
Ferretto met his wife while at Fort Meade.