Visitor at the Vatican

Petty Officer Albert Penny of the Royal Navy was captured by the Italians in August 1940 and interned at Viterbo, 40 miles from Rome. Last week Penny was back in England with a tale to tell.

After two years' internment Penny escaped, stole a bicycle and pedaled into Rome. Knowing Italian, he hailed peasants with a cheery "buon giorno," nodded to Italian soldiers. Inside Rome he "very coldly spent some time visiting the sights of the Eternal City." As British tourists have done for years, he visited the tombs of Keats and Shelley, admired the stairs leading from the Piazza di Spagna, shuddered at the architectural bad taste of the Vittorio Emanuele Monument, roamed happily through the Coliseum and the ancient ruins in the Roman Forum. At last having tossed a coin into the Trevi fountain (which all tourists do to make sure that they will return to Rome), Penny pedaled off across town to Vatican City.

Acting as if he had always lived there, Penny passed plainclothed Italian police, brightly bloomered Swiss Guards and Pontifical Gendarmerie. Safely inside, he conferred with the British Minister to the Holy See (Francis D'Arcy Godolphin Osborne) and embarrassed cardinals, who finally arranged his exchange in Lisbon for an Italian sergeant held by the British.

Last week Penny met his wife Margaret (now in the WRENS) for the first time in three years. He had presents for her which few tourists to Rome ever took away.

"My audience with the Pope," Penny explained, "was the most wonderful of experiences. I was taken to a small Throne Room of the Pope's Palace. ... He gave me a pearl rosary and one for my wife and a silver crucifix for each of us. Then he gave us his blessing."

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