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No Picnic on Mount Kenya (Italian: Fuga sul Kenya) by Felice Benuzzi is a mountaineering classic recounting the 1943 attempt of three escaped Italian prisoners of war to reach the summit of Mount Kenya.
- Felice Benuzzi
- 1947
- First Impressions at Camp 354
- “A Strange Sense of Envy”
- Benuzzi Begins His Recruitment
- How to Get Out of The Camp?
- “The Sentry Did Not Move… But Neither Did The Key”
- Breaking Out
- Prisoners Again
It was rainy season when he first arrived at Camp 354, and the mountain was hidden by rain and clouds. One morning another prisoner woke him and pulled him outside to see the mountain, which was briefly visible through the clouds. Though a mountaineer, it was the first 17,000-foot peak Benuzzi had ever seen, and he wrote that he remained “spell-bou...
Benuzzi’s second transforming experience happened a few months later when he was heading back to his barracks one night from a chess game. He heard hammering from inside one of the camp buildings and realized someone was busy working on a project. “A strange sense of envy crept into my mind,” he wrote. “That prisoner had set himself a task, whateve...
Benuzzi recruited his bunk mate, Giovanni Balletto, a doctor and mountaineer, and for the third man found Enzo Barsotti, who had never climbed a mountain in his life. The reason why he decided on Barsotti, Benuzzi said, “was because he was universally thought to be as mad as a hatter, and mad people were what we needed.” During this time of prepara...
“Listening to the platitudes of prisoners talking, I sometimes felt that I could not understand them any more. At other times I felt only pity that they should be content to endure this stagnating life without having in mind a project like ours.” With the team recruited and equipment prepared, the men still had one problem left: how to get out of t...
After several failed attempts to get hold of the key, Benuzzi finally found it carelessly left on the British compound officer’s desk and was able to make several impressions in a piece of tar. A prisoner mechanic then cut a key based on those impressions. Benuzzi leaned against the gate on a quiet Sunday afternoon and, watching a nearby sentry, sl...
They then worked their way to the main road, where a passing military car almost spotted them, and crossed quickly into a dark clearing on the other side and under some more thorn trees. At times, they walked backward to leave footprints that would further confuse any pursuers. They had escaped the camp. Over the next 18 days, they traveled first a...
In the darkness, they were not seen by any sentry and slipped back inside as easily as they had slipped out. “We were safe,” Benuzzi wrote, “but prisoners again.” The men worked their way back to Balletto’s tool shed and began to search in the dark for the food and water they had arranged for friends to leave. They found nothing. Later they learned...
Sep 17, 2022 · Felice Benuzzi was an Italian diplomat and mountaineer who escaped a British prison camp in WWII with two fellow soldiers to climb Mount Kenya with improvised equipment and after 18 days broke back into camp.
Oct 6, 2016 · Buy No Picnic on Mount Kenya by Felice Benuzzi from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.
In 1943 three Italian prisoners of war, Felice Benuzzi, Giovanni Balletto and Vincenzo Barsotti escaped from a British prison camp in Nanyuki, Kenya with a single purpose in mind: to climb the imposing and difficult 5,199m Mount Kenya and return unnoticed to their prison camp.
This story is about the three Italian prisoners who broke out of a prison camp to climb Mount Kenya in Africa. Felice Benuzzi wrote a book about this adventure called "No Picnic on Mt Kenya"...
- 10 min
- 1756
- Derek Cullen Outdoors
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May 5, 2016 · Felice Benuzzi (1910-1988) represented Italy as a swimmer (breaststroke), colonial adminstrator and diplomat.
