An emotive symbol of reconciliation.

In the late evening at the end of our first day in Orkney we visited the extraordinary Italian Chapel on the island of Lamb Holm.

On the 14th of October 1939, the German U-boat U-47, commanded by Günther Prien, crept into the anchorage of Scapa Flow through the eastern passage of Holm Sound. The U-47 successfully torpedoed and sank the Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak with the loss of 833 lives. Mrs Talpa's father was serving on a minesweeper in Scapa Flow that night in 1939 and witnessed the attack.

The eastern passages had been protected by sunken block ships, booms and anti-submarine nets, but the U-47 managed to penetrate the anchorage at night by skillfully navigating between the block ships on a high tide. In order to prevent further attacks, Winston Churchill ordered the construction of permanent barriers between a number of the islands surrounding the anchorage. Work began in May 1940 and the barriers were completed by September 1944.

The contract for building the barriers was awarded to the civil engineering company Balfour Beatty. Much of the labour was provided by over 1300 Italian prisoners of war whom had been captured in the desert war in Tunisia. The prisoners were accommodated in three camps, 700 of them in two camps on the island of Burray, and 600 in camp 60 on the island of Holm, where they built the Italian Chapel.

The chapel was constructed from two Nissen huts, joined end-to-end. The corrugated iron was then covered internally with plasterboard and skillfully painted to represent carved stone-work. Most of the interior decoration, including the beautiful altar piece, was done by Domenico Chiocchetti, a POW from Moena. The metal alter screen, candlesticks were made from scrap from the sunken block ships and the lanterns from bully beef tins.

The chapel is now a category A listed building and a full description is available online. The building is carefully maintained and is a moving symbol of post-war reconciliation.