Letter to Online Defense: "Aurelio Barnabé bersagliere"

20/01/18

My father Aurelio, in his civil life as a bank manager, at the outbreak of World War II was recalled as a cpl officer at the VI RGT bersaglieri of Bologna. With this formation it was first on the Yugoslav front and then on the Russian front (both CSIR and Armir). On the Yugoslavian front he remembered the continuous inter-ethnic violence (only Titus, with an iron fist, could have held together peoples who so hated each other).

On the Russian front he renounced the appointment as an officer-instructor of the Bersaglieri Petty Officers' School of Bobrusko-Villa del Nevoso in Istria (which would have been the senior captain of his appointment) so as not to abandon the 300 men of his III company to their fate.

On the banks of the Don the 13 August 1942 was wounded in the left hemithorax in the precordial area by a parabellum shot from a few meters. He remained for hours to lose blood in the no man's land to be finally saved by the Fifth Scion of Cervia. He, a university student and president of the Catholic action of his city, put it on his shoulders and carried him ("I sweat, the captain dripping with blood") instead of dressing. Ascione would have fallen a few days later deserving the gold medal for military valor "to the memory". My father, in his turn, decorated in many ways, after months of life threatening in military hospitals, recovered and returned to civilian life.

At the beginning of the 70 years with friends of the Imola section of the Blue Ribbon, he carried out a research on the Valor Militare decorations of the Imola area from the Risorgimento to the II World War. The resulting volume received, among others, the congratulations of Luigi Durand de La Penne and Paolo Caccia Dominioni of Sillavengo.

I was a medical lieutenant in the VI BTG Genio Pioneers of Bologna from the 1972 to the 1973. During this period I was often on guard at the local military hospital. In one of my guards, both Umberto Salvatores and Ercole Felici, former commander and major adjutant of the VI RGT Bersaglieri on the Russian front, were simultaneously admitted. According to the regulation, I presented myself before them as senior officers. I learned that I was the son of Aurelio, who called "one of the most valiant officers of the RGT" expressed the desire to meet him again. The meeting took place the same afternoon and saw the 3 veterans moved at the memory of so many ups and downs.

In the 80s, gen. Aldo Gianbartolomei, who was a motorcycle officer in the VI RGT bersaglieri on the Russian front, was commissioned to write a volume on the strategies of the Italian troops on the Russian front. He contacted some old friends and comrades in arms (including my father) and cited their testimonies in the volume. In the early 90s my father was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the role of honor. In 1993, when the remains of Ascione returned from Russia, he was invited to the ceremony. Although he was already in a precarious state of health he wanted to be accompanied by me to Cervia. Here, placing his hand with grateful affection on the small urn, he pronounced a few touching words amid the intense emotion of the numerous present present on that bright day at the beginning of March. A few months later my father too would finish his earthly race. At the funeral, according to his instructions, he wanted the tricolor, the decorations and the feathered hat on the coffin. The VI RGT bersaglieri sent a representative in uniform to pay homage to him and the trumpeter to perform the "silence out of order". In 1995 in Bologna, inside the Mameli Barracks, the barracks of the III Company were registered to him, already under his orders on the Russian front.

In the 2007 in Imola, edited by the journalist Gianfranco Borghi, a biography was published entitled "Aurelio Barnabé-Cincinnato imolese". In the same year, with unanimous vote of the municipal council, he was entitled the public garden of Piazzale Michelangelo (the closest to his house). The Army sent an ARMS department to make the honors and notes of the Bersaglieri fanfare accompany the event. In the 2008 the Municipality of Castel del Rio decided to reserve a space for it in the local War Museum. On one wall a bronze bust is surrounded by the motives of the decorations, while at the foot is his historic Bersagliere bike. On the adjacent wall, in a showcase, are placed his uniforms, decorations, saber, feather, blue scarf and the CREST of the VI RGT bersaglieri and the Nastro Azzurro. Of the events Ascione and Barnabé has been written in various volumes, publications and websites.

Mario Barnabé (1st Medical Captain of the Supplementary Reserve on leave)