 In his memoirs, Morris wrote that the train was halted on the bridge over the river when the Allied bombs started to fall, and that the German guards fled the train, leaving the prisoners locked inside.Many, including Morris, escaped through holes in the boxcars caused by the bombing, and jumped into the river below.Anglo-American historian Iris Origo wrote in her diary, "War in Val d'Orcia", that "some of the carriages plunged into the river