On 8 September 1943 the new Italian government, reacting to evidently irresistible pressure from the advancing Anglo-American forces in the south, proclaimed an armistice. The German military moved rapidly to disarm the armed forces of their former Italian allies, liberate Mussolini and create a puppet Italian state covering central and northern Italy. Shortly after the proclamation of the armistice, Oreste Del Buono was captured by the Germans during the fighting for control of the Island of Brioni He spent a year and a half as a prisoner of war, detained in the remote concentration camp by the Gerlos Pass, located among the high mountains east of Innsbruck. He managed to escape but after finding himself unable to get very far, and briefly taking refuge in another concentration camp in the area where he was "denounced by a Polish inmate", he found himself reporting back to the concentration camp from which he had escaped, explaining to the camp commander – if his later autobiographical recall is to be believed – "You were not there: how could I tell you I was going away?".