A 14-year-old boy
In the spring of 1945, I was about 14 years old.
In my home in Gaggio Montano, which is close to the Church, and which usually since long before the war had been used by my family as a summer home, I met in the second decade of January 1945 Sergeant Guerino Del Bianco (or Delbianco) from São Paulo, who was in charge of opening, checking , reading and censoring (erasing with a big black pencil, forerunner of the marker pen) all phrases or words of strategic military importance from the correspondence drafted by the Brazilian military of the F.E.B. and directed to their families in Brazil.
On the wooden exterior door of my house, there was nailed a large sign written in English and Brazilian :
“BEF - Brazilian Expeditionary Force / FEB - Força Expedicionaria Brasileira”.
I remember that in the newspaper “O Cruzeiro do Sul,” in a column in the middle of the page, almost immediately below the headline, appeared the picture of the said sergeant with an article describing the fact that the sergeant, in addition to doing his duty, had learned to peel potatoes in my mom's kitchen; I think the newspaper carried a date that might have been between mid-February 1945 and mid-March 1945.
I have never been able to recover a copy of such a military newspaper.
A few months earlier, that is, from the second decade of October 1944 until about the middle of January 1945, in Granaglione, in my aunt and uncle's house in which we had taken refuge by fleeing from Gaggio Montano with only the clothes we had on after the massacre carried out by German soldiers against the civilian population in the area of Ronchidos from 9/28/1944 to 10/4/1944, I met the first Brazilian soldiers including one De Oliveira, who told me that he was the son of the owner of the De Oliveira Metallurgica ritengo of São Paulo.
Said soldier was part of the “ Segundo Pelotãon de Cavalaria Blindada, Esquadrão de Reconhecimento” commanded by the Lieutenant Plinio Pitaluga, of course in addition to many other soldiers, some of whom would issue me little paper cards on which was written their name and address in Brazil.
Such cards were kept by me for many years, but later almost all lost.
At that time and that is in the winter of 1944/1945, I did not realize the reasons why the Brazilian military handed me those pieces of paper, it seemed to me a kind gesture, almost an invitation to start an exchange of correspondence when the war was over.
It was only much later, as I grew older, that I understood that in those cards were the addresses of their families, to whom I could write if the soldiers did not return after the frequent actions of assaulting German positions.
In fact, we were very close to the combat lines.
As for the relationship with the Brazilians, I can say with all sincerity, that on the part of the military (called PRACINHAS), it was always marked by a great sense of humanity towards the civilian population and especially towards us boys.
A slight similarity of language, favored contacts, although at the beginning we were all a little fearful, because of the fascist propaganda that described us black troops as..... savages.
I remember that they arrived in Granaglione, in the middle of winter, with light olive-green canvas uniforms and in any case not suitable for our harsh climate, moreover some came from inland areas of Brazil and had never seen snow.
They suffered enormously from the cold.
We welcomed them into our miserable homes, made them sit by the hearth, tried to create around them a family environment , where they could talk about their loved ones and their Homeland ; but the “SAUDADE” was a lot.
They would give us some chocolates and some cookies, but we also noticed that the “RANCHO” provided by the U.S. (the K ration) was not to their liking. And only much later could they have their traditional foods : mingao, tapioca, cassava they would prefer their black beans.
I remember that at the time of the “RANCHO” in Granaglione, I would wander among the soldiers who were eating standing and in the 'open and, with a pan in my hand, I would collect the leftover food that the soldiers generously dropped into my pan.
With those leftovers, at least once a day, my family of four would have dinner.
Some sergeants would ask me - in return - for the conjugation of some Italian verbs.
And so in the open air, in the cold and between bites, NCOs would come to learn about the difficulties of Italian irregular verbs.
The civilian population waited in front of the military field kitchens, to contend for what remained at the bottom of the large pots.
One afternoon, towards evening, in Granaglione with a Brazilian soldier nearby, both of us sitting along the communal road on a pile of frozen snow, while each of us was inserting bullets into the black metal magazines of the machine guns with the fingers of our hands red from the cold and removing instead from the 250-round belts of the North American Browing machine guns, the bullets with red-colored tips (the tracers), to replace them with bullets with black or blue-colored tips, in preparation for an immediate night assault on Monte Castello, a small group of officers, including Commander Gen. João Baptista Mascarenhas de Moraes.
The General , about six feet tall or even less - with his round glasses - stopped in front of me, looked at what I was doing, said a few words to the other officers and then moved on. The military man who was with me did not flinch, did not get up, did not salute anyone, the only one who was amazed as he was used to seeing the iron German discipline was me.
I recognized-among the officers who were in his retinue-a military man in Italian uniform; he was the lieutenant of the Kingdom of Italy, Umberto II, son of King Victor Emmanuel III.
During the day, with a 25-liter metal container, I would go to the nearest fountain to fetch water for the services of the Brazilian military kitchen.
I would also make my small contribution.
As soon as the opportunity presented itself, we attempted at night and secretly to return from Granaglione to Gaggio Montano evading the strict control of the North American Military Police carried out on the Silla Bridge.
My mom and I were lying in the body of a Brazilian truck, under a nice pile of woolen blankets.
The M.P.'s did not notice and so we passed the checkpoint.
It was almost the middle of January 1945.
Back in Gaggio Montano, we found in our house the soldiers of the F.E.B.
I was concerned about pointing out to the Brazilian artillery observer officers, the movements of German troops in the area of Bombiana and Case Guanella. And for the Germans it was cannon fire.
One day, my mom wanted to prepare for the soldiers who were in our house, a characteristic Bolognese dish “tagliatelle”.
There was a frantic search for wheat flour and eggs.
Neither one nor the other was found.
So my mom had to make do with a very white flour (I think it was white corn flour, or rice flour, or who knows) and freeze-dried egg yolk powder.
The seasoning for the noodles was limited to butter (which we had to call MANTEIGA) because butter in Brazilian, means: donkey.
So the classic meat sauce was not there.
On my hot egg noodles, topped with butter, a soldier sitting next to me poured a certain amount of vinegar, to my initial disdain; but the hunger of us all was so great that quickly the plates found themselves empty.
Before the arrival of the Brazilian troops, the food situation for civilians was very precarious.
We had fled Bologna, as we lived near the train station, a frequent target of the Allied air force.
In Granaglione the only food was chestnut flour or dried chestnuts , as long as there were any, then it was starvation.
We ate the boiled roots of the radicchios.
The memory of the war, left in me a deep aversion to firearms.
Whenever I return to my little house in Gaggio Montano, for a summer period, and see the ridge of the Serra di Ronchidos and the nearby Monte Castello, a symbol of heroism of the Companies commanded by Captains Everaldo Josè da Silva and Paulo de Carvalho , respectively of the 1st Btlh. of Major Olivio Gondim de Uzeda and 3rd Btlh. of Major Franklin Rodrigues de Moraes of the 1st R.I. Sampaio , I cannot forget the sacrifice of hundreds of human lives, civilian and military.
I know the reasons that led to Brazil's entry into the war against Nazi-fascism, as I am in possession of various Brazilian military publications.
I also know about the initial opposition of part of the Brazilian civilian population of German origin, and the political pressure on the government and President Getulio Vargas not to accept the invitation of the U.S. to collaborate with the Allies.
I remember the account of an episode that began to circulate among the “PRACINHAS” and that is that a Brazilian (perhaps an officer), after covering himself with a white sheet and camouflaging himself in the snow, which in those days was very high, managed to get as far as under the bunker of a German position, dug within the mountain.
From the slit, a German MG42-Maschinen Gesellschaft machine gun with 1,200 rounds per minute(called LOURDINHA by the Brazilians) was firing on the soldiers, preventing them from advancing.
The aforementioned Brazilian waited for the Germans to replace the machine gun's exhausted metal strip, grabbed with one hand-protected by a large glove-the red-hot barrel of the machine gun, slipped it out of the slit, and with his other hand threw a pineapple-type, 48-shrapnel grenade, already without a safety catch, inside the bunker, with the easily imaginable effect.
In contrast, another incident to which I was a present witness took place, I believe in the first decade of February 1945, near my home.
A small Brazilian unit was housed in a nearby house.
It was under the command of a tall officer, powerful build, blond, son of German emigrants.
I knew him because he used to come to my house to eat, however, I do not remember his name now.
One day he arrived from the nearby fire line, a jeep with a trailer driven by a soldier.
The driver got out of the jeep and went to introduce himself to the officer.
Out of the house came two more soldiers, speaking in low voices and with much sadness.
I could understand that those sacks that were on the trailer, belonged to soldiers who until a few days ago were among us and had been killed by mines.
Slowly began the opening of the sacks with the extraction of the clothing and belongings of the fallen soldiers.
The personal items that had belonged to the soldiers were collected in a separate pile, viewed, listed by the lieutenant who was sitting on the ground, and then sent to Brazil to the families of the fallen.
Together with one of my peers, I would watch the sad ritual with sadness, observing the various photographs being removed from wallets and other personal mementos.
With a little imagination we were trying to guess who the people in the photos might be.
I, too, was crouched on the ground.
Suddenly, a rolled-up vest was pulled out from a sack that showed large passing holes.
The vest lifted with the military man's hands, was opened and I saw that it bore large holes.
Unfortunately, wrapped in the vest and unknown why, was a hand grenade.
The shrapnel that had pierced the bag and the garment, had also removed the first safety (the one with the pineapple-type bomb ring).
In lifting the vest, the bomb fell to the ground, rolling and passing in front of my feet; meanwhile I saw that the second safety had also blown off.
Within 7 or 8 seconds the explosion would occur.
My friend and I, with four jumps, quickly took cover behind a nearby wall.
My friend was curled up on the ground with his hands against his ears.
My unconscious curiosity was stronger than fear.
I looked out from behind the wall and saw a scene I can never forget : while the three Brazilian soldiers had thrown themselves to the ground, also covering their ears with their hands, shouting “ A MINA” (a bomb) , the lieutenant approached the grenade, bent over it, picked it up and threw it far into the air, in the direction of the old Gaggio cemetery, then he too threw himself to the ground.
The bomb, just in the air , exploded with a flash and a deafening roar.
The shrapnel hissed close and lodged in the wall of the house opposite.
No one was injured.
The three soldiers stood up, white in the face like corpses and, something never seen done by Brazilian soldiers, stiffened at attention in front of their lieutenant who had saved our lives.
The lieutenant responded to the salute and, as if nothing had happened, resumed the sad task of informing the families of their soldiers who had fallen in war action, for the liberation of my country.
At this point my nervous tension, collapsed.
The above is a part of a long speech I gave at a Conference in Genoa, to which I was invited and held on September 11, 2004, with university professors Rodolfo Passagrilli, Fabio Giannelli, Amina Di Muno and another in attendance, on Brazil's participation in the war.
I spoke for about two hours; I also recalled the presence of the 67 Brazilian volunteer nurses, (who did not speak English and who were assigned to field hospitals where U.S. surgeons who did not speak Portuguese operated), holding the Brazilian flag on their shoulders; (a bandeira do pais com o céu azul cheio de estrelas), in fact on the Brazilian flag is the Southern Cross constellation.
The following photos refer to the Genoa Convention.
