European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Assault on the base of test pilots

The school in Codemondo was a base for 400 airmen, as well soldiers as pilots.

The Germans had moved their test pilots

and the Caproni factory itself from Milan to the airfield in Reggio Emilia.

Reggio at the time had become an aviation centre.

The school in Codemondo was the base for this 400 Caproni airmen.

We weren’t organized yet. We were sending people to the mountains.

But we didn’t have many weapons, as the Allied hadn’t started airdrops yet.

Still we devised a plan. We wanted to take the sentinel by surprise, while he stood guard.

He was a soldier, and we did not want to harm him, only keep him silent.

Four or five of us went inside the dormitories with their guns, telling everybody not to move:

“Don’t move and we won’t shoot. We’re partisans, we just want the weapons”, the same old story.

Outside four or five SAP teams helped us carry away everything, boots and the like.

There was a lot of stuff. We also got the safe open, taking important documents

we later handed to those knowing a little German. There was a little bit of everything there.

Stealing 110 head of cattle

We found out that the Germans wanted to round up the cattle in Cavriago and take them to Germany.

SAPs, GAPs and all the partisans attacked during the night

and took a cattle herd of one hundred and ten into the mountains with two cattlemen.

It was great, because of the effort it took.