Italian World War II memoirs

Salvatore Torre, a private in the  V Battaglione Genio Alpino  (5th Alpine Engineers Battalion), was assigned to the communications unit of the divisional headquarters of the 5th Alpine Division “Pusteria”, stationed in Montenegro for occupation and anti-partisan duties between July 1941 and August 1942. He thus remembered, many years later, the battle of Pljevlja, fought in early December 1941, when the “Pusteria” repelled an assault by some 4,000 Yugoslav partisans: " I was in Pljevlja, on the night of 1 December 1941, at the divisional headquarters. Already on the previous day, the I [Intelligence] Section, headed by Lt. Peduzzi while Colonel Castagnero was away on leave, had forewarned us of an impending attack by the partisans. That night, therefore, few men went to bed, and even those who did remained fully dressed. I remember that someone ordered me to go to General Esposito’s room in order to help his orderly. The General was not there, but he came shortly afterwards...

Bruno Causin (from "Gela città di mare") An interview taken by Giovanni Iacono from Bruno Causin, from Padua (Veneto), then a 22-year-old corporal in the 54th Artillery Regiment, about the battle of Gela and subsequent events: Mr Causin, when where you called to arms? "I enlisted on 10 January 1941, in Ferrara, in the 2nd Artillery Regiment. I was a pointer, but later I also followed courses for detachment commander, driver, a short course on ammunition and a course as a corpsman."   In July of '43, what unit did you belong to?   "I belonged to the 54th Artillery Regiment, "Napoli" Division, more precisely to the 9th 75/18 mm Battery, aggregated to the Mobile Group "E" of the XVIII Coastal Brigade, which besides us also included a company of tanks, an infantry company and one of Bersaglieri".   Where were you located?   "We were in Sicily since September 1941. In March of '43 we had moved to Niscemi. Here we were accommodat...

Agostino Beraudo, then 21 years old, from Boves (Piedmont), was a soldier in the XV Battaglione Guastatori (15th Sapper Battalion). This account comes from  La strada del davai  by Nuto Revelli, a collection of accounts of former Italian POWs in the Soviet Union. Unlike most other Italian prisoners in Russia, Beraudo was not captured during Operation Little Saturn in December 1942/January 1943, but in a smaller action in August 1942.   " On 19 August [1942], at noon, we receive order to leave for the frontline. The “Sforzesca” [Infantry Division] has caved in. We eat hurriedly, we pick up our weapons, we rush towards the frontline on the Lancia Ro trucks, a thousand men. (…) The following day, at dawn, we are on the frontline. (…) We are deployed at seven in the morning. The terrain is slightly uneven, many little mounds all over the horizon. We are armed with Carcano Mod. 38 rifles, with three magazines and six SRCM hand grenades. Unit weapons consists of four submac...

Mario Casanuova, a medical lieutenant in the 22nd Infantry Division "Cacciatori delle Alpi", thus describes in his memoirs the execution of fourteen suspected partisans from the Slovenian villages of Case, Skrjlje and Dolica Golo, rounded up during Operation "Primavera" ("Spring") on Mount Krim in July 1942: "Fourteen men were brought out of the town. They were all rather calm, poor fellows. They probably thought they would be recruited for digging work. We marched for about one kilometre, and during this time I was able to find the father of the two children and the other young man, whose documents I had taken. I returned them to him, ordering him to go back immediately, as fast as he could. They probably understood, because they darted away and were never seen again. But nobody paid attention, because everyone, officers and soldiers, had become completely brutalized. Nobody seemed resolved to do the deed, but at one point along the path we were wa...

Father Odorico Tempesta, parish priest of the church of Jesus and Mary, thirty years old at the time (he died in 2003, at age 90), wrote a detailed account of the raid of 22 July 1943, one of the heaviest ones, some years after the war, using the notes he had taken back then: " After holding Mass, I went to the railway station and sent a letter to my relatives, who were worried because of what they heard about what was happening in Foggia. (…) I started the walk back to the church a few minutes after 9:30. After reaching Piazza Carmine, I heard the infamous, bloodcurling noise made by the engines of the Flying Fortresses, and immediately after that, the piercing howl of the sirens (…) I urged the people who were in the square and in front of the houses to follow me inside the church, to take shelter there. I dragged with me a trembling man, from the Gargano, he was accompanying his son to the Military District. In the so-called air raid shelter of the church, the friars from the...