Episode 9 - Ruina

Hello everybody and welcome to this new episode of “Tales from the hideout”. I, as always, am Nicola, and I am here today to tell you the story of the “Ruina” mission, captained by Major John Wilkinson. Their destination was north-western Veneto, their mission was very ambitious. They were in charge of patrolling the whole area between the Garka Lake and the borders with Slovenia. Furthermore, they had to guide the Vento bands towards the formation of a unified command. They soon realized that the first target (patrolling the area) was essentially impossible. The second one resulted to be very hard to reach and very frustrating. The Veneto area had the presence of a brutal kind of Resistance, with frequent rastrellamenti, since the roads which led to the Brennero were the only link between Italy and the Reich. Padova was the center of the Resistance, the city in which Concetto Marchesi led the University students towards a riot. It was the headquarter of the heinous Carità band, which was made by a group of men who liked to torture, payed by the Salò Republic. The local partisans were deeply divided because of different ideologies, and this complicated the life of the mission. This land is narrated, with dark humour, by Luigi Meneghello.

Wilkinson, who was an energetic official, very frank and determined, found himself to face a situation in which all the odds were against him. People were suffering poverty and famine, the enemy was brutal, the partisans’ commanders were continuously quarrelling. Despite this (or probably for this reason), “Freccia” (his war nickname, nom de guerre) became very popular for being a liaison officer; is one of the few officers still nowadays remembered by the people.

After this introduction, we have to start our journey, between the Dolomiti, Asiago and Trento, following the tracks of the Ruina mission.

In August 1944 the British commands had very few news about Resistance in Veneto. The Americans had Pietro Ferraro’s Margot-Hollis on the area since July 1944, but the OSS and the SOE were not collaborating; the things that the Americans knew were unknown to the British. The SOE had already sent on October 1943 a mission made by former members of the SIM, the Italian Secret Service; that mission was the Marini-Rocco Sevice (MRS, also known as Barobraph), named after two of its members. This mission had not been airdropped, but it landed through the sea, starting from S. Benedetto del Tronto. Despite a perfect organization, the SIM’s missions started to be evaluated as scarce by the SOE since the Spring of 1944. This happened not only because they wanted a more strict control on the missions, but also because they understood that the partisans were often sceptical about the men of the SIM, since they used to pursue the anti fascists during the ventennio. They were not in the wrong. These considerations made the SOE believe more in missions with British people; at the same time, the SIM missions still remained. This brought to the existence of many liaison missions by the Summer of 1944. This had been frequently received in the land by SIM’s missions already present in the area. For example, we remember the Cherokee mission which was received by the Bamon.

For the “Ruina” or “Freccia” things went in a very similar way. The commanders wanted on the land somebody reliable; in addition they wanted certain news about the partisan fight in the Veneto area. So, the mission was put together. John Wilkinson, 29 years old, artilleryman's official, was chosen as a commander. Wilkinson was born in Shanghai and spent his teenage in China. He fought in France and North Africa, before being enrolled in the Middle Eastern section of the SOE. He took part to the attempt on landing on the Aegean Island, Kos and Leros. He didn’t got caught only because he was an experienced swimmer. After the mission failed, he swam for 18 km, reaching the Turkish coast. He was blonde and didn’t speak a word of Italian, but at the same time he spoke a perfect French: this was considered to be enough in order to communicate with the Italian partisans leaders. Two more officials were sent with him, Captain Christopher Woods and Corporal Douglas Archibald. Woods was barely 21 years old, he entered in the riflemen corp as soon as he finished the school; he participated in the Italian Campaign in Abruzzo, with the 8th Indian Division. He spoke few words of Italian, for this reason he was in charge as an interpreter in the Nembo division, which should have been airdropped in Emilia, where Johnston and Davies were settled. 

When this plan failed, as we have seen in the Envelope Blue episode, it was all assigned again to the Ruina. As he reported, he knew few words of Italian, about a hundred, but they were “about 90 words known, more than anyone else available at that moment”, for this reason he was assigned to the Ruina as an interpreter. As he soon discovered, those few words could have been useful to understand the partisan commanders, but he didn’t put into account the regional dialects spoken by those men. This made his knowledge of Italian useless. We do not know much about Archibald: he was a Scottish radio telegraphist. The mission’s briefing had been rough. Woods reports that it was something like: “We don’t know what’s happening there, we want you to go and tell us”.

In addition to the information collection, Wilkinson’s mission was in charge of making the local partisan band choose a single commander for the whole Veneto area. It was essential not only for the coordination of the actions of the partisans, but also because the commands wanted to arrive to the Alps in two-three months; they wanted to maximize the band’s efficiency, in order to make them useful in supporting the Allied armies which were coming closer. The mission had also a million of lira. Wilkinson’s mission as well was born with many predictions; these were so optimistic that we can define them to be illusions.

Anyway, during the night between the 12th and the 13th of August many airplanes left Bari, each with its own mission. Among them there was also the one with Major Churchill and General Cadorna on board, which were going to Milan in order to reach the CLNAI. In the Dakota from the Freccia there were also Majorn Antonio Ferrazza and Benito Quaquarelli, his radio operator (aka Beppo Palla), which were going to Alto Adige. The reaching area was at the bottom of Moun Paù, close to Bocchetta di Paù. On the land, in charge of reaching them, there were men from the Marini-Rocco Service (MRS). The launch was a disaster. The airplane was flying too low and the agents literally fell on the ground. Woods landed on rocks and, as a miracle, he didn’t hit any of them. Ferrazza was not as lucky as Woods: he died few weeks later because of the serious fractures he had.

The agents were reached by about thirty partisans from the Sette Comuni brigade; they were waiting for them with a good glass of Grappa, in their headquarter in Bosco Nero. There, the partisans lived encamped in tents made from old parachutes they found in galleries from the First World War. They were guided by Cervo, Giuseppe dal Sasso, former artillery official, considered to be self discipline and a proud anti communist; he was, indeed, not good for being a partisan. In the following days, Wilkinson met many people in order to understand the situation in the area. He met “Alberto”, Nello Boscagli, commander of the “Ateo Garemi”, a group of Garibaldi brigades. Alberto was a veteran of the Spanish Was and the French Resistance. He was short, with dark hair, e immediately stood out for his wit and his ability of keeping abreast of the situation. “He definitely was one who really was pursuing a good career [...] but also the most able man in all the mountain area”.

Few days later, Marini, head of the MSR, arranged a meeting with the single commander chosen by the CLNAI, Colonel Cugini, aka “Castelli”. Marini was efficient and direct, establishing a courier service between the Ruina and the MSR, which worked without any problem. The main problem was about Castelli and his role. Before the airdrop, Wilkinson was told that Castelli was the commander for the north-east area of Italy; as he soon discovered, this information was not true. Castelli as well, anyway, didn’t hide the truth. For the moment, he was a “military consultant” of the Veneto’s CLN. Castelli told Wilkinson that in Padova they were waiting for new dispositions from the CLNAI, about the regional command. The idea, at least at the beginning, was to unify the formations in Veneto: this was utopian. Not only because the partisan war was, by nature, a war led by fragmented and moving bands (which made impossible to contact other bands outside that area), but also because the political rivalry was very harsh. Wilkinson himself, at the beginning was operating in an area placed between the Garda lake and the border between Venezia Giulia and Slovenia. This was a very wide area, impossible to be properly coordinated in that conditions.

In those days Giacomo Chilesotti, commander of the catholic brigade “Mazzini”, was present; he was operating in level, while Wilkinson wanted to operate in the mountains.

By the end of the month, on August 31st, the “Biplane” mission visited the Ruina; it was made by Icaro, Lorenzo and Gino and was waiting for new orders. They were ordered to patrol the road between Belluno and Trento. The Barograph was re assigned to the sabotage in plain. In those days, the mission prepared also the arrival of Tilman’s Simia and Brietsche’s Gela. With those two missions were arriving also two sabotage instructors: Pio and Conte. Wilkinson sent Woods to Recoaro, where Sergeant Hancock was operating. He was a former pow, who needed help in the preparation of the reach of a new mission, destined to the area at north of Verona. At the same time Wilkinson met Alberto, Cervo and Gino, in order to decide how to place the partisan bands against the Germans, which were retiring. In the whole picture of the Italian war, these are the first days of the “Olive” operation, the attack which would have crossed the Gothic line and finished in October without great results. The Allied managed to pass through the Adriatic front, despite the German forces were resisting: the Po valley was still controlled by the Axis. Anyway, between the end of August and the beginning of September, people were still delusional about the forthcoming end of the war. On September 1st, once they received both the Gela and the Simia, Wilkinson met again Castelli, Tilman and Brietsche, in order to understand which was the best way to create a unified command in Veneto. In reality, they didn’t get much out of that meeting. The only real decision was to move the headquarter from Cansiglio to Altopiano di Asiago. The two missions left the area in order to reach their respective zones. Brietsche left behind Captain Orr-Ewing, in order to let him have another radio kit and reach him on the Grappa in the following days.

This serenity and optimism didn’t last long. We already know that a catastrophe was about to come. The Piave operation against the Grappa’s partisans was about to be dropped, thanks to the end of the offensive from the Allied on the southern front: things were about to become very difficult. The first signals were showing on September 6th, when the area garrisoned by Wilkinson and Archibald was caught by a rastrellamento. This was one of the operations that led to the Hannover operation, the one that wanted to send away the partisans from the Sette Comuni and Bosco Nero. The Germans used a tactic improved in Yugoslavia and in Eastern Europe: localize the partisans’ positions, dismantle it using the artillery and then attack it directly. At that point, the two agents moved towards Conco (in the report it is written as “Conca”, but considered the other topographic indications it is clearly the village of Conco). Orr-Ewing had already been moved to the Marcesina area in order to get a new radio kit after the failure of the airdrop; he decided to go back, unfortunately, right in the middle of the rastrellamento. Woods clearly didn’t have the faintest idea about what was happening, so he tried to go back from Recoaro; he was forced to leave the path he was travelling because he was surrounded by stray bullets. Three days later, on the 9th, he managed to reunite with the other men from the Ruina, after going around the enemy. On the next day, despite the danger, Orr-Ewing tried again to reach his drop in the Marcesina; the area got caught by a rastrellamento and the Captain had to stay away from everything until the 18th. The Germans were moving forward, with the help of Russian - Ukrainian soldiers. The Hannover operation would have lasted until the 15th; his final phases overlapped with the beginning of the Piave operation, airdropped on the 26th. Despite this, the partisans managed to resist. The brigades managed to hide through the enemies’ lines, thanks to their superior knowledge of the area (if we compare to the one the fascists had)but also to the organization of the plans, which resulted to be strong enough to permit a tidy retirement. This included also the sacrifice of some partisans nucleus: while they were resisting, others could hide and run away. Among them there was the vice-commander of the Mazzini brigade, “Loris” Rinaldo Arnaldi, who died with other 23 men in the night between the 6th and the 7th of September 1944. The partisans had lost all the supplies, but at least the men and the weapons managed to stay safe.

On September 19th, Wilkinson met Colonel Castelli, Marini (both from the MRS), Cervo (from the “Sette Comuni”), Alberto (from the “Garibaldi”) and “Nino” (described as commander from Vicenza; for this reason, he should be Gaetano Bressan, but we are not so sure about it because of the lack of information). The aim of the meeting was to find an agreement in order to build a mountain command which would have helped the unity of the partisan action. They decided that Alberto should have been the commander, anyway this decision didn’t have good effects. As we can read from the reports, Wilkinson tells that the non-communists never accepted his authority, only on official occasions. Furthermore, Alberto was very suspicious and didn’t want to leave the command of the Garibaldi brigade “Garemi”, he never created a unified command with representants from other formations. In the end, the regional command was very detached when it received the news of Alberto as a commander; it didn’t seem to be interested on helping to improve the situation. As Woods reports, this matter regarding the unified command was a waste of time and resources. It distracted them from things such as the sabotage or the training of the partisans, without producing satisfying final results.

On the 20th, the enemy’s operation started in the Grappa area. Orr-Ewing tried to reunite with Brietsche, but he failed and was sent back once again. On the 22nd, Wilkinson (at this point pretty tired about the continuous quarrels about the unified command) established his headquarter in Mount Fiara. He was with Alberto and the Garibaldini, while Woods joined him on the 29th and Orr-Ewing on the 30th. In the meantime, Icaro from the Biplane got caught; Wilkinson decided to move towards Mount Zebio on October 3rd, going closer to Asiago in order to meet Sergio (Andreetto Attilio), commander of the Garibaldi brigade Pasubiana, which was under the control of the Ateo Garemi group of brigades.

This marked the first phase of the Ruina mission. As we have seen, they didn’t bring so much “ruin”. While they were stuck with the matter of the unified command and the continuous attacks by the enemies, the agents couldn’t get much at all, spinning around like a dog biting his own tail. The lack of materials was a plus to this situation, since they couldn’t attack the Germans, nor start other sabotages. The partisans were told by the mission to dig some tunnels in order to put mines under the Brennero highway. They asked for 5 tons of explosives, which arrived only in February. It was very hard to properly work in this situation, in addition the commands were not replying to Wilkinson’s angry messages. As he wrote, the moral was low and they were losing vantage day by day. “We are blamed largely for losing the Grappa owning no drops. You are prejudicing the whole show. Your name is mud”. While the operations were going bad, Wilkinson’s name, Freccia, kept on becoming famous. The Major knew how to be good with everybody, thanks to his friendly disposition and his energy.

On October 8th, Orr-Ewing (who never managed to reunite with Brietsche) was sent to control the situation on the Grappa; for this reason, the mission moved to Conco. Unfortunately, Orr-Ewing met another rastrellamento and was forced to stay hidden in a shelter until the 15th.

The mission then moved to the village of Laghi. On October 16th, the situation was still uncertain, for this reason Hancock was sent on the Grappa to see what was going on- On the 20th, Wilkinson had a meeting about the drops with Alberto, Sergio and Pio Marisili “Pigafetta” from the Pasubio brigade; Woods was sent to Asiago and Orr-Ewing was sent back to the Marcesina, but once again this operation was not successful for him. On October 29th, finally, Hancock came back with many news about the partisans on the Grappa: anyway, he had just bad news.

October was very similar to September. The drops were still few, the mission and the partisans were still not able to get much from it. The only difference from the previous month was that time had only made things worse, for this reason the situation became even more complicated. The moral was really bad, frustration was growing among the men of the Ruina, while they were trying to risen the situation. As Woods reported, their perspectives were “grim”. The lack of drops was not the only problem: the headquarter didn’t have any explanation about it. Silence was the only answer to the protests from the agents. The men got to know that Icaro had escaped from his prison, for this reason Wilkinson wanted to meet him. A first meeting was cancelled because of a German incursion, but luckily it didn’t end well. A second meeting was scheduled for November 4th in Val d’Astico, but Icaro never showed up.

On November 1st, Wilkinson was in Tonezza for another meeting with Alberto, Gino and the Garibaldini men from Padova regional command. They decided to arrange a firework day, in order to improve the partisans’ moral, which had been destroyed by the events and the repression from the nazi-fascists. It was scheduled for the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes Night, the night in which in the UK people are celebrating the failed attack to the English Parliament, the “gunpowder plot”; they usually have fireworks and light huge bonfires. The idea was to sabotage the access roads to the Adige valley, demolish six roads in Valsugana and others between Verona and Vicenza. A huge plan. Anyway, as usual the requests for supplies were not listened, they didn’t have any explosive and the plan was then abandoned.

On November 2nd, Wilkinson was told to prepare Brietsche’s extraction from that area. As a response to this order, Wilkinson violently protested, since he was convinced that this would have destroyed the British credibility before the partisan’s eyes. The partisans would have felt abandoned, after all the difficult times they had to face. Moreover, the order arrived late, since we know that Brietsche had already accepted Tilman’s proposal, becoming the Nannetti’s new liaison officer, in the Cansiglio area. In the meantime, the mission was reinforced not only by Hancock, but also by Holland, a former pow, New Zealander.

On November 4th Wilkinson, in Tonezza, met again Castelli, the supposed designated single commander, and Marini, head of the Barograph mission. Castelli expressed his frustration because Padova’s CLN was very slow on nominating the commander; they were also worried because of recent captures in Padova. Few days later, Castelli would have resigned, going back to his family. On the 7th Wilkinson was again in Tonezza, since he was trying to arrange this command and, possibly, also a meeting with Padova’s CLN. He received a letter from Tilman, which warned him about the German presence in the Grappa area. For this reason, he sent again Orr-Ewing on the mountain. For this reason the Captain, originally airdropped with the Gela, joined the Ruina.

The final shot arrived from the Allied commands which had produced the Alexander proclaim, asking the partisans to disperse themselves in the area and wait for better times. On the Veneto side of the Alps, the cold weather and the lack of food obliged the partisan commanders to send away many men. Many of them hid their weapons in the houses or in the caves and started to work for the Todt organization. Doing so, they could keep a low profile, without being too noticed. Each formation kept a small group of men on the mountains, where they entrenched themselves, building small shelters with the logs. At the base of the Alps, many groups were still active, doing small incursions and sabotages. 

In this dreadful way, the first part of the Ruina mission’s history ends. Airdropped with great expectations and sustained by huge promises, few of them became reality. The partisans and the mission found themselves obliged to spend the Winter on the mountains. In addition, they had been totally ignored by the commanders: they didn’t send materials nor explained why these supplies have not been sent. While the agents were protesting, silence was the only answer they received. As Woods said, their perspectives were “grim”.

This first phase of the mission is a series of failures. Failures on sustaining the partisans and on trying to unify them. They totally lost the count of the meetings held in order to find a solution for the unified command; at the same time, they were trying to follow Wilkinson’s movements on the area. 

I, then, wait for you on the next episode, for new problems, failures and frustrations while Wilkinson and his men try to end their mission in the best way.