European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

One night we stripped the machine guns from three airplanes in the airfield.

Before we set the airplanes on fire we removed their three famous 7-7 guns, which were very powerful anti-aircraft weapons.

They were bolted to the bearings, in order to rotate,

but we took them down and then set the aircrafts on fire, all three of them.

The machine guns had no tripod though. Fiorello was very good in mechanical work.

He had worked at Bagni’s in Via Toschi, manufacturing and repairing scales, he built the tripods himself.

Once he was stopped by a Black Brigade near the cemetery of Via Cecati while he was taking one home.

They asked him what that thing was. He replied that he was taking that tripod to the dairy in San Bartolomeo.

Fortunately they let him go, since he had two guns on him.

I told him what would have happened if he was searched. He replied: “I would have done like Tomix (a movie hero fast with his guns)”.

That’s how we always joked around.

The death of Fiorello

The Black Brigade, together with Germans, was going through the Ghiardo.

A twenty-year-old boy was walking on the road.

He started running as soon as he saw the Black Brigade and the armoured vehicles.

He jumped over a hedge and ran into a small road towards the barn we were lying in in ambush.

As we saw the Black Brigade truck coming in the courtyard we were forced to shoot.

If they came inside they would have killed us.

Then we moved out of the house and towards the hills. There the battle took place.

They lined up behind a hedge and started shooting. Fiorello was shot in the heart and died there.