GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
At the unveiling of a memorial to Captain Keany at Cingalo in April 1988 - Pickering left, Professor Max Salvadori, D.S.O., M.C., centre
Reception:
‘I was impressed by the speed and efficiency with which we were spirited into the surrounding countryside. Captain Keany and I were hidden by a farmer and his wife just outside the village of Monesiglio and only about 400 metres from the occupying German troops ... We slept in the house overnight and everyday just as dawn was breaking we would move into a small wooden shed about 200 metres above the house, where the farmer’s wife would cover us with dry leaves. She would come up twice a day to bring us food, almost in sight of the German garrison, taking terrible risks to make sure that we were well looked after.
Every evening after dark we would we would come down to the house and operate the radio from the attic, transmitting messages to our base in southern Italy. Many of the neighbours had their houses burnt down and their menfolk killed for such acts, but this did not deter our hosts in any way from helping us.
Meanwhile, Max Salvadori had left to make his way to Milan. The German troops seemed to be everywhere and were carrying out a rastrellamento [’a raking in’ operation]. After lying low for a few nights we commenced our journey to Cisterna d’Asti ... ’
An intercepted radio transmission:
‘Eventually after a two-hour journey, we arrived at a small farm building which was to be our transmission site. One of our guides went 400 yards along the dirt track beyond the farmhouse. The other waited 400 yards short of our destination. There was no sign of the farmer, who had vacated the premises after the leading Partisan had a word in his ear.
As usual I jammed a stone into a loop at the end of 50 feet of copper wire. This was my radio aerial. Then I threw it as high as I could up a tree to maximise the signal strength. The wire was connected to my radio inside the farmhouse and I was in business. I told Bari I was safe and well with Keany and we were ready for any messages. After I had taken down coded gobbledegook for 15 minutes, I handed the pad for Keany to translate into sense. Meanwhile I sent his coded messages back to Bari.
We had been transmitting for another 15 minutes when the balloon went up. Our excitable partisan friend came running up the road like an Olympic sprinter with his backside on fire. I did not need to be a keen student of the Italian language and its colourful dialects to get the drift of what he was gabbling at 300 words a minute. He had spotted a German direction-finding vehicle and it was heading straight for us. It would be arriving any minute.
Keany grabbed the batteries. I sent another QUG signal, disconnected the aerial and put the set in my back-pack. We dashed outside, but when I tried to pull the aerial out of the tree, it snagged on one of the branches. The harder I pulled the firmer it became stuck. By now I was sweating, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. Our guide had gone ahead to tell his comrade to run for it. The courageous Keany stayed to cover me. Every second seemed like an eternity and I could feel a wave of mild hysteria starting to grip me. But I managed to pull myself together with the most supreme mental effort. To leave the tell-tale wire behind would spell almost certain death for the farmer and his family. It would also show the Germans they were hot on our heels. So, after regaining my shattered nerves and patching them together, I became cool and detached again for a few vital seconds. I tried to flick the wire upwards away from the branch which was snagging. At the second attempt the wire freed itself and fell at my feet. I grabbed it and ran round the side of the farmhouse just as the German lorry’s spluttering exhaust came into earshot.
Keany and I darted into an orchard as I continued to stuff the awkward wire into the pocket of my battledress. We just reached the cover of the first trees in time to look back and see an armoured car halt outside the farm building 100 yards away. A swivel machine gun was mounted on top, attended by a soldier who was scouring the area, using the gun like a searchlight to seek out his quarry. A second armoured car arrived along with the radio direction-finding lorry.
We waited until they were occupied with a search of the building before we made our way through the orchard, hopping from tree to tree. One of our Partisan friends found himself sharing our hide and seek ordeal. I neither knew nor cared at this stage of the operation what had become of our other Italian comrade. I simply assumed that he was making his own arrangements to get the hell out of there.
Each time the German machine gunner on the armoured car turned away from us, we set off deeper into the orchard. Little by little we made our way out of sight. Just before we disappeared from view I saw the Germans questioning the farmer, who had returned to the scene to face the music. He was looking suitably perplexed by the Germans’ interrogation and I hoped that we had not compromised him in any way. I felt sure that as long as he kept his nerve there was nothing to fear. Easier said than done, perhaps ... ’
An enemy ambush: ‘Renato left Keany to tell his men what had been decided and I walked over to my comrade to express my fears.
‘I don’t like this one little bit,’ I said with as much urgency as I could muster. ‘It’s those Germans down there. I haven’t seen sight or sound of them since they went into that building.’
‘You worry too much,’ said the ever-confident Keany. ‘They don’t enjoy scouring the countryside looking for Partisans and wondering when they might get ambushed. They’re probably just skiving off and keeping out of harm’s way for a while.’
I remained unconvinced. ‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ I insisted. ‘During the past two hours I’ve seen about sixty Germans go in that building in threes and fours. I haven’t seen one come out. If you ask me they’ve spotted us and they’re creeping up to attack us.’
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