European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

We had blown up the bridge so they couldn’t get through with armoured vehicles.

If it had been a question of energy, we could have succeeded, but we could do nothing against heavy artillery, ourselves having none.

At night we moved and slowly reached the saw-mill over Civago and stayed there the whole day. We got there before dawn.

The following night we walked through the Passone, next to the Cusna,

and made it to the area of the Cesare Battisti refuge, which had already been completely burnt down.

We stayed in that area for twelve days.

It rained often and we had nothing to cover ourselves with.

I had been lucky since I was assigned to go to Ligonchio with another comrade

to gather information on the Germans’ movements

and get some supplies to carry back up.

I would head up every night with bread, cheese, carrying the news, too.

Finally, after a few days, the Germans left...

First allied air-drop

We heard there was an airplane flying back and forth.

So we made a triangle with three stacks of fascines.

That was the code word, and we set in on fire.

The airplane was flying in a large circle of quite a few kilometres.

When they noticed the triangle they launched the parachute.

It was a remarkable air-drop.

Afterwards the comrades from Modena came to us saying they wanted the weapons.