European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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.

The Rubbianino road had two hedges three meters tall; it was absolutely dark.

The difficult thing was to get the cattle moving.

The cattlemen taught us to tie four of them together by the horns with some rope.

We put them in front of the group and set off, leaving the others free.

So we made it to Cerredolo dei Coppi.