European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

April was a boring month.

Every evening we went to hear Radio London

but all we could say was

that we were still patrolling

because we were not ready yet for the big push forward.

When the comander of the battalion came home he told us:

"Guys, get prepared because tomorrow we're leaving!"

"What? What does this mean? Where are we going?"

"Tomorrow morning we're going down, to Reggio".

"Oh, come on!"

"Yes, by now everyone is moving.

Tomorrow morning the whole battalion and our brigade has to move down to Ciano".

I couldn't sleep that night,

the perspective of going down was such an emotional thing that ...

We reached Ciano

very slowly

because we knew that there were the anti-rebels squad

looking for us, ready to shoot at us from every window.

We reached Ciano without shooting.

It was a complete desert, we didn't even meet any local person on the street.