Kym Isolani

Kym Isolani, who has died aged 87, was the British Army intelligence officer responsible for forming F Recce Squadron, the first Italian military unit to take up arms against the Germans occupying their country.

After the Allies landed at Reggio in September 1943, Isolani, a half-Italian officer attached to 1st Canadian Division, found eight parachutists of the Italian Folgore Division in the mountains in Calabria. In the confusion following the Italian armistice, they had been left to their own devices. The men resented their treatment by the Germans, despised the corrupt fascist authorities and were disgusted at the poor leadership in their own army. They had sub-machine guns and two trucks, and declared themselves ready to fight the Germans.

Isolani found the staff at HQ Eighth Army "cheerfully and refreshingly unconcerned with the political implications of co-belligerence", and persuaded them to integrate the group into 13th Corps. The Italians became known as F Recce Squadron, and were put under the command of an Italian officer but were answerable to Isolani.

Operations began in the Majella mountains north of the Sangro river, and the force quickly grew to about 120 men. Isolani escorted small groups through the Allied defences to the front line where they would cross, wearing civilian clothes, on reconnaissance missions.

On one occasion, returning from an operation, his Jeep was fired on in error by USAAF Mustangs. "We played hide and seek around a prickly pear bush," he recalled afterwards, "until they eventually got bored and flew away."

Soon the parachutists were trusted to go on armed patrols, and began to take their first casualties. An officer and an NCO were captured and tortured to death; then many were killed in the final battle at Ferrara.

In a farewell message at the end of the campaign, General John Harding, the corps commander, wrote: "F Recce Squadron was the first Italian unit to take up arms against our common enemy and to show by its spirit and deeds that Italy would fight alongside the Allies to regain its liberty. You have written a bright page in the liberation of your country."

Casimir Peter Hugh Tomasi Isolani was born on September 2 1917 in the Anglo-American Hospital near Milan. His father, Count Umberto Isolani, an Italian infantry officer, had met his mother, an Englishwoman, in the course of her nursing duties at the front. She was determined that her son should not become indoctrinated by the fascists.

Young Casimir, or Kym as he was known, was educated at Aldenham before going to Clare College, Cambridge, where he took a First in Modern and Medieval Languages.

At the outbreak of war, Isolani joined the Royal Artillery and was appointed ADC to the brigadier commanding Admiralty Pier, Dover, who put his name forward for intelligence work.

Isolani was posted to the War Intelligence Course at Matlock, Derbyshire, where he was trained in intelligence-gathering, interrogation, air photography and captured documents before being attached to HQ 11th Battalion Staffordshire Regiment at Tiverton, Devon. The CO had some difficulty in defining Isolani's duties and arranged for him to be billeted in a country house and to take part in intelligence exercises.

Isolani moved to 36 PoW Camp, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, as an interpreter. In 1943, he was attached to HQ Combined Operations to gather information in advance of the Allied landings in Sicily before being promoted captain and posted to 1st Canadian Division.

He was given the name of "Arnold" because he had been an Italian subject until 1938, and risked being shot if he was captured. In July 1943, he took part in a landing near Pachino, Sicily. His landing craft got stuck on the sandbanks but the defences were lightly manned and there were few casualties. Isolani was ordered to reconnoitre the fishing port nearby. Returning by dinghy to his motor launch he came under heavy machine-gun fire.

Ten days later, near Piazza Armerina, he was run over by a Canadian carrier which was trying to avoid an enemy air attack. His ankles were crushed and he was evacuated to a hospital in Tripoli.

In 1944, Isolani entered Rome with S Force, a group formed to take over and run the media. He worked for the Psychological Warfare Branch and was put in charge of Italia Combatte, which broadcast to the partisans in northern Italy.

He transmitted instructions for sabotage operations and also for the killing of notorious SS officers. The latter was carried out within a few days by partisans or other irregular forces and resulted in deteriorating morale among the retreating Germans. In 1945, after moving to Florence, he announced the capitulation of the German forces in Italy over the radio.

Isolani was appointed head of the Allied Publications Board in the Veneto before taking command of Civil Liaison with the task of reintegrating partisans into civilian life. On demobilisation in 1946, he was appointed MBE (military) and made an "Honorary Partisan".

Isolani joined the information section of the British embassy in Rome, where he demonstrated that he was a first-class press attaché. But he was concerned about his pension, and returned to London in 1961 to become Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies.

Two years later, Isolani rejoined the Foreign Service with a nine-year posting as regional information officer at the British embassy in Paris. In 1972, he moved to Brussels as counsellor at the British embassy and to the UK Delegation to Nato.

On retiring to London, he spent some years working for the United Nations University and was an active member of the Anglo-Italian Society. A modest, retiring man, he had a Christian faith which deepened in his later years.

Kym Isolani, who died on September 10, was appointed LVO in 1961 and CBE in 1975. He married, in 1943, Karin Zetterström, who predeceased him; a son survives him.