European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The English had written that whatever happened they would have rewarded us.

So I had this letter and I told them not to shoot at the car

since the men in it were three partisans who were coming to blow up the bridge.

Everything went well that day and I stayed there even the day after,

because it took me more than a full day to go back down from Baiso to Soliera.

I wrote it in a book in order to remember where it was: Cortile, near Campogalliano.

I walked through the ditches, following the canal as it went down,

after Modena, around Rubiera, and managed to deliver the letter.

The following day they arrived with the car.

If three Germans had arrived at this farmhouse, a small house right in the open,

they would have been immediately killed by the partisans.

They would have thought: “What are they doing here? They came for us”, and they would have shot at them.

But everything went well, they waited for night to fall, placed the bombs, and succeeded in derailing the train.

They stayed near the bridge the whole night, since the partisans had taken us to the right places.

If they weren’t covered properly they couldn’t have done anything.

Maybe they could have managed anyway, but they would have been in danger.

That time they were taken to the right bridge to set the mines.

The train arrived at five in the morning and at that point they said they killed a lot of people,

having derailed six or seven railway wagons full of ammunition.

The mission went well, and after two days they made it back to Secchio, pleased with their brilliant action.