European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The first airdrop and the Sparavalle battle

They did the first drop at Lama Golese and there we were expecting it.

But the English made a mistake,

they were supposed to do their drop in Modena but did so at our place instead:

they'd set up a triangle with fires, the plane turned around and around and eventually did their dropthere.

They dropped four Bren machine guns and 130 other machine guns.

In our group were about fourty people, so we had far enough weapons.

Later on a local guy came and took all the surplus weapons and brought them away.

"Frigio" wrote right things about this episode, that the arms ...

I knew the weapons because I'd served in Yugoslavia,

I learned to handle them all, all kinds of weapons, antitank cannon, mortar,

I opened them, cleaned them,

taught the younger ones how to use them and how to keep them in good condition.

In Lama Golese there was a non-accessible power unit

We slaughtered a cow to eat it and I taught them to put it into the water to preserve it.

The water of the river was freezing cold so it could be preserved for about twenty days,

cut into pieces. There was some mud on top of it but it was good, anyway.

Many people didn't know what to do because there was no fridge, no dishes.

We were eating on a rock, nothing more than some polenta.

We were able to do it because we were young, if I'd do this now at my age I'd die in one week.