Simon Pocock

Hi there!

My name is Simon Pocock and I have been researching and writing books on the Second World War in Southern Italy since 2000, with my books appearing in print from 2009 onwards. Until this year, 2025, they have been written in Italian and have appeared in paperback edition, as per lists of my books on various Amazon domains.

From this year onwards, however, I shall be publishing on Amazon and on Kindle eBook, in English. This has involved a lot of work, translating from the original Italian-language versions back into English, which is my native language. The first five books to appear - shortly - will be dedicated to the American Sector of Operation Avalanche, which opened with the landings on the Paestum shoreline in the early hours of 9 September, 1943. Watch this space!

I am British by birth (1951), parentage (both my parents fought in the Second World War - my father in the RAF and my mother in the WRNS at the Bletchley Park Government Code and Cypher School) and upbringing. In 1974 I moved to Naples, and during the next 45 years I graduated at London University with a degree in Italian Language and Literature (1986) and a PhD in Linguistics 1997. From 1975 to 2007 I worked for the British Council in Naples and only returned to live in the UK in 2019.

I can say that "Italy made me". I owe an enormous debt to Italy and Italians for having helped me to become a better human being.