Chapter 7
It was 2 January 1945 when Michael Lees, drifting beneath his parachute and blown somewhat off course, landed in an icy mountain stream. His radio operator, Bert Farrimond, ended up snagged in a nearby tree, its branches frosted with snow. With help from Lees and the partisans, Farrimond was brought down from the treetops uninjured.
They’d landed on the flank of a wide, open valley. Beyond the high peaks to the south, the crash of artillery fire echoed noisily. It struck Lees as being unbelievable that they could have parachuted so brazenly, this close to the front line. As far as he could tell, this was a heavily populated region; paths led off to left and right, and they were thick with locals leading mule trains, ready to load up the newly arrived supplies. Half a mile further down the valley the SOE agent – or British Liaison Officer (BLO) as they were known in the field – had his headquarters.
That all this could be taking place in broad daylight and in plain sight of the enemy unsettled Lees, but he reassured himself the BLO had to know what he was doing. With an escort of heavily armed partisans, he and Farrimond set off, making for his base. They’d not been walking long when they rounded a bend and came face-to-face with a tall man wearing thick glasses. The iconic tommy gun slung over his shoulder marked him out as being British, as did his bearing.
The figure gestured apologetically. ‘How do you do?’ he called. ‘I’m Wilcockson. So sorry I wasn’t there to meet you chaps in person, but no one told me you were coming.’
It was true. No one had thought to warn Wilcockson to expect Lees and Farrimond. He’d been awaiting a resupply drop only, and he’d entertained few hopes that even that would materialise. Since his deployment in September 1944, Wilcockson had succeeded in calling in just one air-drop of twelve containers, so little more than a single plane-load. He and his local fighters had survived months of terrible winter privations, after which, he reported angrily, ‘the Partisans’ morale was nil’.
They had been left bereft of boots, ammunition, winter clothing and rations. By Wilcockson’s own admission, they saw themselves as being ‘handicapped by a British Mission and alleged supply officer whose record to date was . . . a pitiful show.’ It was hardly Wilcockson’s fault. A former artillery officer, Major Ernest Hulton Wilcockson had carried out small-arms and explosives instruction at one of SOE’s training schools, before going on to smuggle agents into enemy-occupied Crete. He was committed, experienced and capable.
But here in northern Italy he had fallen foul of the same malaise which had struck down Canadian war reporter Paul Morton – the growing rift over whether to back the Italian resistance to wage war against the enemy. During the winter months air-drops had dried up. So few and far between were they that Colin Gubbins had railed against the failures, and Gerry Holdsworth had resorted to almighty shouting matches with those in power, declaring it ‘a bloody poor show’.
The statistics spoke for themselves. In June 1944, 221 tonnes of supplies had been dropped to the partisans, with even more in July. But come the autumn, resupply missions had fallen off a cliff-edge. By October they were down to a third of the summer numbers, and worse followed. It was a situation in which it was ‘impossible to supply even . . . minimal needs’, the SOE complained, ‘and this has meant disaster to many an excellent group’.
Finally, Roundell Cecil Palmer, the 3rd Earl of Selborne and Britain’s Minister for Economic Warfare – so the political chief of the SOE – raised the issue directly with Churchill. ‘When you have called out a Maquis into open warfare,’ he wrote of the Italian resistance, ‘it is not fair to let it drop like a hot potato. These men have burned their boats and have no retreat. If we fail them with ammunition, death by torture awaits.’
This was no hyperbole. Across the eighteen SOE missions presently in place north of the Gothic Line, there was a feeling close to open rebellion. One BLO wrote: ‘If Command has no intention of being interested, it should not have promised arms and materials or have sent Allied Missions to give false hopes . . .’ Others spoke angrily of being ‘abandoned, and that therefore the only thing to do was to hide’.
Wilcockson’s autumn and winter reports echoed this sense of hopeless neglect. Lack of air-drops had made the ‘prestige of the British Mission reach rock bottom and all-out efforts come to [a] virtual standstill . . . The position of the Partisans’ supplies . . . [is] now extremely critical and any offensive operations against the enemy [are] impossible.’
This was the dire situation into which Lees – and Farrimond – had unwittingly parachuted. Regardless, they made their way to Wilcockson’s headquarters, situated in the small mountain village of Gova. Before the war Gova had been a popular winter sports resort, boasting two fine hotels. Wilcockson had chosen to base himself in one, and Farrimond was delighted to learn that it still had electricity with which he could power up his radio.
As Farrimond went about establishing communications with Macintosh, at SOE’s Florence headquarters, Wilcockson proceeded to brief Lees. The partisans that he was scheduled to join were called the Reggiani, after the town of Reggio Emilia, some thirty kilometres away. They’d not seen action for months, their morale was at rock bottom and their supplies and kit were in a pitiful state. It wasn’t the rosiest of pictures.
‘So where are the nearest enemy?’ Lees asked.
‘The plains are thick with them and they have garrisons strung along the main roads,’ Wilcockson explained. ‘The nearest is about two hours’ march away.’
‘But surely they must know you’re here,’ Lees objected. ‘I’m surprised they allow you to exist so close to them.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Wilcockson reassured him, ‘they’ve not got the troops to spare for a full-scale attack. We’ve had no trouble for months now.’
Lees remained sceptical. The weather was still relatively fine for winter in these parts, but sooner or later it would break and then the real test would come. With only a few inches of snow on the ground, the partisans were still able to move relatively freely. Thick drifts and freezing conditions would change all of that. He didn’t doubt that the enemy lacked the troops to man the Gothic Line and to clear out the pockets of resistance permanently, but they could launch swift, stabbing attacks to disrupt operations.
‘Well, make sure your patrols are watchful tonight,’ Lees warned Wilcockson. ‘I’m allergic to Germans. Wherever I land they always seem to cause trouble in a day or so.’
While it had been said with a smile, Lees wasn’t joking. Within forty-eight hours of deploying on his first mission, in Yugoslavia, the enemy had swooped. Lees had escaped by the skin of his teeth, but three of his party of fellow Brits were left dead or mortally wounded. Likewise, upon parachuting in to join Major Temple’s mission north of the Gothic Line, Lees, Morton and Long had been under fire and fighting a series of desperate battles within hours of their arrival.
Of course, such fierce actions would have made for great newspaper copy, if only Morton had been allowed to publish his stories. As it was he had been silenced and Lees had a new and pressing mission to execute.
Wilcockson outlined the strength of the partisan forces. There were four separate brigades, of which three were communist and one hailed from the right-wing Christian Democrats – known as the Fiamme Verdi, or the Green Flames. When serving with Major Temple, Lees had grown accustomed to how Italians of apparently opposing political views seemed to operate happily together, so he wasn’t unduly concerned. The overall commander of the partisans was a former Italian Army officer, Colonel Augusto Monti, who Wilcockson described as being pleasant enough, but hardly a live wire.
That evening Lees, Farrimond and Wilcockson dined in the hotel, waited on by a servant in formal dress and with a table laid for several courses. The food was first class: spaghetti steeped in wine with grated cheese, omelettes made with real butter, and each course accompanied by a fine vintage. The aperitif was a Marsala – similar to sherry – followed by a sparkling red, and to finish an excellent bottle of Sassolino, a strong aniseed liqueur made locally.
They had eaten far better than in so-called ‘liberated’ territory. Lees was amazed, especially as they were surrounded by the enemy. It was somehow so unreal, and he was determined to get down to some real war-fighting as soon as possible. The very next morning he planned to set out for Colonel Monti’s HQ, to get a better sense of the lie of the land, not to mention the fighting calibre of the partisans.
But Lees awoke to find that the weather had turned. A thick blizzard was howling outside. Dressed in every item of warm clothing that he could muster, Lees headed for the hotel’s front door. It was jammed solid with snow. He found an alternative exit on the lee side and stepped into the icy blast. His exposed skin was assaulted by freezing, stinging gusts, his boots sinking into the thicker drifts.
Wilcockson suggested they postpone the trip, at least until the storm blew itself out. Lees remained adamant that a start should be made. With a guide leading the way, they set forth into the tempest. The snow was falling so fast it was impossible to see from one side of the street to the other. They’d been struggling through thigh-deep drifts for half an hour or so, when the guide confessed that he couldn’t find the way.
Lees wasn’t entirely surprised. If they didn’t retrace their steps they would be obliterated by the storm, and they mightn’t even find the hotel again. By the time they reached it, their clothes were stiff with ice and all were frozen to the bone. They gathered by a crackling fire to thaw out, after which Farrimond went about raising Florence headquarters. He was in excellent spirits, despite the abortive trek, and declared that this was just the kind of mission that he’d been hoping for.
Unfortunately, his good spirits were to be short-lived.
A signal came back from Macintosh at Florence headquarters, which Farrimond duly decoded. It was addressed to Wilcockson, and it suggested that Lees had overstepped his orders. He had not been sent in to take over control of the Reggiani partisans. Any suggestion he’d made to that effect was wrong. While the message fell short of ordering Lees to withdraw – just – he’d had the rug pulled out from under his feet in spectacular fashion, and barely twenty-four hours after his arrival.
Lees sent back a typically robust missive. ‘I should like to point out that this message was received by Major Wilcockson and my wireless operator, and has been the cause of considerable embarrassment .. . If it is considered that I have come into the field to pursue a position not recorded, I should be delighted to return and account for my actions . . .’
Of course, Lees had only just got his boots on the ground and he sensed an opportunity for real action here; to achieve great things. The last thing he wanted was to somehow attempt a return to Florence, to face some kind of dressing down for whatever obscure reasons. Indeed, both he and Wilcockson were left dumbfounded. The source of the growing tension – and confusion – from headquarters eluded them.
In an effort to head off the enemy at the pass, Lees telegraphed: ‘Have placed myself under orders of Major Wilcockson.’ He added, with emphasis, that this message ‘has been read by Major Wilcockson’ – so in other words, the two SOE officers were in full agreement. Lees made clear that the entire exchange should also be copied to London, as he sought some top cover from senior SOE figures.
Unbeknown to Lees, there were hidden reasons behind SOE Florence’s apparent antagonism. Their hands were becoming increasingly tied. In recent weeks, none other than General Alexander himself had issued a series of orders, which on the face of it telegraphed that the military, too, was turning its back on the Italian resistance.
Alexander’s directive – broadcast direct to the senior partisan leadership – had told them to ‘stand-down’ for the winter months. Not only that, they were to go home and conserve their ammunition and abandon all offensive action. Even more shocking, the broadcast had been made without consulting the SOE. The fear that drove Alexander’s proclamation – of the Italian partisans being ‘Reds’ and being poised to seize power – emanated from the Foreign Office, but the orders, coming from General Alexander himself, caused utter consternation.
‘Despair and confusion filled the minds of Partisans and Liaison Missions . . .’ SOE Maryland bemoaned. Key partisan leaders expressed disgust at such an order. ‘The battle continues and must continue,’ declared one. ‘There must not be a weakening of the Partisan effort, but an intensification . . .’
Faced with a growing backlash, Alexander made a telling admission. His ‘go-slow’ order was not of his – not of the military’s – making. ‘You have to realise,’ he told one foremost resistance leader, who raised bitter objections, ‘I am a soldier, not a politician. ’ It was all entirely political, and the naysayers – those who were arguing for the Italian resistance to be abandoned – were gaining the upper hand.
On 8 January 1945 a two-page memo marked ‘SECRET’ was circulated to the British military’s Chiefs of Staff. Signed simply ‘A Cadogan’, its author was the Foreign Office luminary Sir Alexander Montagu George Cadogan, one of the central figures driving British policy. Scion of a titled and wealthy aristocratic family, Cadogan cited in his memo Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, and one of Churchill’s key deputies.
Cadogan’s memo pulled no punches. He wrote: ‘[F]rom the political perspective the situation was potentially dangerous . . . we could not overlook the danger that the Communists who, by all accounts, are by far the best-organised of the anti-Fascist parties . . . would make a view to capturing so useful and powerful a machine, with a view to building it up as a rival of the Italian government in Rome.’ That ‘useful and powerful machine’ was the Italian resistance, armed and organised by the SOE.
The memo went on to warn of the dangers of ‘creating the essential elements for a civil war . . . While not wishing to dispute the value which . . . may be attached to the services which the Italian guerrillas in the North have rendered . . . the Secretary of State feels bound to take into consideration the possible political repercussions which may result if these guerrillas are built up beyond a certain point. He feels, therefore, that the Chiefs of Staff ought to watch the situation . . . with the utmost care.’
Increasingly, the British military’s hands were tied by their political taskmasters in London. The Chiefs of Staff responded to Cadogan’s directive by issuing their own orders, marked ‘ TOP SECRET’, directing the BLOs to take the partisans in hand. 15 Army Group declared that ‘future policy regarding the resistance movement in northern Italy will be to . . . concentrate on the supply of food, clothing, boots and money, rather than arms and ammunition . . .’
By January 1945, the Chiefs of Staff were referring to the ‘serious problem’ of the ‘resistance question’ in Italy, which needed to be ‘thrashed out’. The focus was rapidly shifting towards a perceived need for ‘the rapid disarmament and absorption into civil life . . . of all Italian Patriots,’ and the ‘prevention of fighting between Patriots and Fascist forces . . . when the Germans withdraw from those parts of Italy they at present occupy.’
Michael Lees had parachuted in to join a band of partisans who, along with their BLO, had been subjected to the miseries of such directives. A wild man of action, it stood to reason that Lees wouldn’t accept the status quo. As he had on previous occasions, he would find a way to fight. After all, this was a man who, when ordered to abandon offensive operations with the guerrillas in Yugoslavia, had resorted to solo sabotage missions.
Those at headquarters were getting cold feet at Lees being dropped into theatre. Charles Macintosh, chief of SOE’s Florence mission, felt bound by such orders, much that he might abhor them. ‘No new orders were forthcoming and the proclamation was to serve as our official guide to the Partisans throughout the winter,’ he remarked. In other words, go-slow it was, at least until someone decreed otherwise.
Of course, Lees – and Wilcockson – were privy to little if any of this bigger picture stuff. Marooned in a largely deserted and snowbound hotel, and with the enemy to all sides, little of what was happening made any sense to them. In which case, they decided, they would simply bash on regardless. There was, after all, a war to be fought.
The morning after the snowstorm Lees awoke to a wonderfully still and sunlit dawn. It was just what he needed to lift his spirits. After wolfing down a breakfast of fresh eggs and bacon, he set out following the tracks villagers had beaten through the snow. The scenery was bewitchingly beautiful, but the going proved tough, and it was evening before they reached Colonel Monti’s headquarters. The journey had taken fully eight hours, demonstrating the extent to which winter conditions would hamper operations.
Colonel Monti had established his HQ in the priest’s house in Febbio, a village set high in a cleft in the mountains. Only one track led into Febbio, while a narrow twisting path crawled towards a high mountain pass on the far side, now rendered impassable by the snows. It was a veritable fortress, and the colonel’s headquarters was seemingly a hive of activity.
A large stone building set on the village outskirts, the priest’s house turned out to be a warren of rooms. As Lees entered, he could hear the clack-clack of typewriters to all sides and the chatter of women’s voices, as orderlies darted to and fro with stacks of papers. To Lees, it was doubly incongruous. He might have expected this in safe, liberated territory, but a mobile guerrilla headquarters this most definitely was not.
Colonel Monti was a man in his early fifties, tall and distinguished-looking, with a clipped cavalry officer’s moustache and swept-back greying hair. Charming and well-mannered, he didn’t strike Lees as being the forceful and dynamic character that a leader of irregular forces needed to be. Over dinner, the colonel briefed Lees on the forces under his command, which supposedly amounted to some 2,000 men-at-arms.
‘What about defences?’ Lees queried. Again, he’d been struck by how dismissive all seemed to be of the enemy threat.
‘Oh, that’s all taken care of,’ the colonel replied. Where their positions were not shielded by the mountains, they had partisan units holding key paths and roads. But of course, if the British could drop in better weapons – mortars and heavy machine guns, for example – they could be rendered doubly secure, the colonel argued.
‘What about sabotage operations?’ Lees probed. ‘What kind of things have your men been up to?’
It was now that the colonel became evasive. He kept trying to change the subject, waxing lyrical about the intelligence they had gathered and propaganda leaflets distributed around the towns. Lees kept pressing him, and finally the colonel admitted that over recent months offensive action had been woefully thin on the ground.
He offered excuses, some of which – such as their lack of ammunition – were entirely valid, but still Lees suspected that much was not as it should be with the Reggiani partisans. They were living in the mountains but not fighting in them. He worried about how he might catalyse them into action. Getting proper supply drops was key, but so too would be reigniting the partisans’ belief in themselves and their ability to wage war against the enemy.
Lees sensed that the partisans needed a jolt into action. A kick up the proverbial backside. As luck would have it, they were about to receive it, but not from him. It would come from the enemy, and much sooner than even he had imagined.
Early the following morning Lees set out to return to Wilcockson’s hotel base, in Gova. It was another glorious day and he had an unusual escort – a village priest turned guerrilla fighter. The warrior-priest’s real name was Domenico Orlandini, but everyone knew him by his nom de guerre, Don Carlo. Don Carlo had founded the local right-wing partisans, the Fiamme Verdi, and he’d earned something of a reputation for fearlessness.
The priests tended to constitute the backbone of the Italian resistance. Like many, Don Carlo was a stickler for the weekly mass. One Sunday he’d been officiating with a pistol tucked under his cassock, when a messenger arrived to say that the enemy was approaching. With a remarkable coolness Don Carlo had detailed a patrol to break off from the service and take on the enemy, while he finished mass, after which he’d joined them in battle.
From the path’s vantage point Don Carlo proceeded to point out the key features. To their backs lay Monte Cusna, the second highest in the Apennines at 7,000 feet, its humped expanse thick with snow. To their left reared Mount Prampa, a little over 5,500 feet, with one of the few roads that cut through the region snaking around its lower slopes. To their front lay the village of Villa Minozzo, which had been twice burned by German troops in reprisals for partisan actions. Beyond that lay the Secchia river, one of the Po’s main tributaries, and beyond that again lay the nearest German garrison.
‘What’s the strength of the garrison?’ Lees asked, as he eyed their position through binoculars.
‘About three hundred, normally,’ the priest answered. ‘But I hear a battalion of Brigate Nere arrived last night.’
The Brigate Nere – Black Brigades – were more formally known as the Auxiliary Corps of the Black Shirts’ Action Squads, a Fascist militia loyal to Mussolini. Equipped with standard Italian Army uniforms, they tended to favour items of German military dress. They wore a distinctive badge: a death’s head skull with a dagger gripped between its teeth, very similar in design to the SS’s own Totenkopf. Raised to fight the Allies and the partisans, they’d proved ill-disciplined and ineffective, earning a reputation for brutality, especially against civilians.
But Lees’ chief concern was what the arrival of this battalion, some three hundred-strong, might signify. ‘Any idea why they’ve been brought in now?’
Don Carlo shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe to reinforce the front line, though Brigate Nere don’t normally serve a front-line role.’
They set off again. The route before them had been well trodden, and it carved a path between deep banks of snow that glittered in the fine January light. It was mid-morning when, without any kind of warning, they rounded a bend and came face-to-face with Wilcockson. Behind him stretched a long mule train, and Lees could see that his wireless set, weaponry and other kit was loaded aboard one of the heavily laden pack animals.
‘Hello, moving house or something?’ he called.
Wilcockson stopped and stared. ‘Good God, haven’t you heard? The Jerries put in an attack last night . . . They captured Gova this morning and we only just managed to get out in time. You’re a bloody Jonah, you are! Your arrival’s broken our luck.’
Wilcockson’s ‘Jonah’ reference was to the biblical figure popularised in the story of Jonah and the whale – more commonly referring to a person who brings bad luck. It struck Lees as being a little unfair. After all, he’d warned Wilcockson to be doubly vigilant. It also struck him that despite Colonel Monti’s expansive set up, they’d received zero warning of the enemy attack.
Clearly, whatever kind of bush telegraph the partisans relied upon to spirit warnings around these hills, it wasn’t working very well. As Lees garnered a hurried briefing from Wilcockson, what news there was appeared worrying. Resistance by the partisans was piecemeal and chaotic, Colonel Monti’s so-called leadership seeming non-existent. There was an air of panic, as enemy forces closed what looked to be a carefully set trap.
They’d sent in a full division of German troops – some 10,000-plus soldiers – on a massive sweep of the territory. Organising such a push must have taken weeks, so it was sheer coincidence that it had happened a day or so after Lees’ arrival. Enemy commanders had clearly been awaiting the first heavy snowfalls, in the hope of trapping the partisans and wiping them out.
Advancing from the east, they had overrun the key defences on that flank of the valley. Simultaneously, the Brigate Nere – the same force that Don Carlo had identified – had advanced from the north, crossing the Secchia river and thrusting deep into the valley. Even the high mountains to the south had proved no block to the enemy: a battalion of Austrian alpine troops equipped with skis were even now assaulting Febbio, site of Colonel Monti’s HQ.
In short, Lees and the warrior-priest had escaped by a combination of sheer luck and good timing. But only so far. Panic seemed to be the order of the day, and partisans were donning civilian clothes in an effort to escape. Worst of all, little reliable information was available about the exact whereabouts of the enemy. In short, the legions of the resistance had buckled, broken and run.
Blind to enemy gains, the only option open to Lees and Wilcockson was to avoid every track and path, no matter how little used. Only by so doing might they evade the enemy. So began a nightmare march, as long bursts of gunfire echoed across the terrain. Struggling through the deep snow they dropped towards the valley floor, beyond which lay the uncertain refuge of the high ground. To reach it they would need to push north across the Secchia and the main road, which hugged the river’s course.
It was dusk by the time their exhausted party reached the nearside river bank. The scene was utterly bleak: a deep carpet of white fringed the roaring waters, which snaked through flat, open, windswept terrain, with flanking mountains to either side. The small village of Costabona lay just ahead of them, a satellite of the larger Villa Minozzo. If the enemy were watching, now was the time when Lees and his party would be hit, out in the open and devoid of cover as they were.
To make matters worse, one of the mules refused to enter the water. Nothing would persuade the pig-headed animal to move. As daylight faded and the moon rose eerily from behind the hills, that lone mule remained stubbornly immobile. In desperation, Lees, who’d spent much of his youth riding on his family’s Dorset estate, climbed into its rough wooden saddle, but even he couldn’t budge it. There was no option but to unload the obdurate beast and pile the extra kit onto aching shoulders.
Thus doubly encumbered, Lees waded into the raging, waist-deep waters. Inching ever further and with feet struggling for purchase on the boulder-strewn river bed, he staggered through the icy torrent. He reached the far side, throwing an evil glance in the mule’s direction. It stood resolute, seemingly laughing at their predicament.
They began to climb towards the road, which ran along the spine of a low ridge. The approach was steep, the snow sculpted into wind-driven drifts, the moonlight glistening off their surface. Dressed in their dark clothing, the long column of men – and the mules – stood out for many miles around. If the enemy were smart, they’d have placed sentries along the road to guard the back door to their trap. Lees couldn’t imagine that they hadn’t done.
Struggling through the thick drifts and bowed under their loads, the column of figures moved at a snail’s pace. Lees felt utterly exposed. It struck him that a pair of German machine-gunners sited on the road could mow them down with ease. Unbelievably, they reached the ribbon of tarmac only to discover that it was unguarded. For some inexplicable reason the enemy commanders had failed to lock and bolt the exit.
It was twelve hours’ solid marching before they reached Ranzano village, higher up the mountainside and a place of relative safety. They’d slipped through the noose, but few felt any sense of triumph. As they collapsed exhaustedly, they noticed a ragged line of fighters emerging from the moonlight. It turned out to be Colonel Monti with his headquarters staff, who had likewise fled before the enemy onslaught.
They stumbled past in disarray. Figures trudged forward, their weapons strapped to the mules, their feet painful from frostbite. But as Lees watched them shuffle past, he felt a curious upsurge of hope. Perversely, a part of him felt glad that this rout had come so quickly. No longer could Colonel Monti and his deputies pretend to be leading a potent and effective guerrilla force. The Reggiani partisans needed rebuilding from scratch, and Lees felt confident that he had the ability and the experience to do just that. By demolishing any semblance of battle-worthiness, the enemy had done him a favour. Sometimes, you had to destroy to start anew.
Over the next forty-eight hours Lees went about putting flesh on his plans. He called a meeting with Colonel Monti, explaining just what he intended: they would rebuild the guerrilla movement, armed, trained and fully equipped to take the fight to the enemy. As delicately as he could, he explained how dissatisfied he was with the colonel’s leadership, and how he would need to take over command.
To his credit, the colonel was in enthusiastic agreement. If he could remain the nominal figurehead, he would happily give Lees the lead. If nothing else, this would prevent the communists from seizing control, which they had been agitating to do for some time. That was the last thing that anyone wanted. The Reggiani partisans had to remain resolutely apolitical and to concentrate totally on taking the fight to the enemy.
In this regard, the British captain and the Italian colonel could make common cause. Of course, by seizing command Lees didn’t doubt that he would be seen as going against orders, but he really didn’t give a damn. He was here to wage war, and right now the partisans weren’t capable of doing so. Only by taking control could he turn that around.
It would be days before the Germans departed the Reggiani valley. While Lees couldn’t know it, they were here on Kesselring’s personal orders, charged with exterminating the Reggiani partisans. Exhibiting what Lees observed was a typical Teutonic lack of lateral thinking, they combed the partisans’ known hideouts, burning villages and looting, but never thinking to widen the net or to leave ambush parties in wait.
Lees was likewise busy, but utilising a somewhat more outside-the-box mentality. He got Farrimond to radio through a shopping list of kit and supplies, chief among which was explosives, while he set about raising an elite sabotage squad. He chose as its head one Glauco Monducci – war name ‘Gordon’ – formerly an Italian alpine trooper, so a man well versed in mountain warfare. Monducci was tall, strong and confident, not to mention striking-looking with his long dark hair. Armed with a letter of authority from Lees, he was despatched on a tour of the surviving partisan bands to recruit forty of the best fighters.
Lees told Gordon not to return until he had those men. In exchange, he would ensure that they would be fully equipped with arms and ammunition from the first air resupply, presuming that he could persuade Florence to send flights. They would be trained in all forms of sabotage, something in which Lees himself was an expert. That done, they would be sent out to train the various partisan bands, after which they would be unleashed upon the enemy.
That done, Lees sought to organise an intelligence-gathering apparatus. There were to be no more surprise attacks by the enemy. He wanted to be forewarned and forearmed of everything the Germans might be up to. Lees appointed Giulio Davidi as the head of his intelligence service. Davidi had adopted the nom de guerre ‘Kiss’, which was inordinately peculiar, even among a band of fighters who seemed to affect the oddest war names.
Kiss was no Romeo. In an otherwise unremarkable face, his one arresting feature was a pair of huge, icy, penetrating grey eyes. He had a slow and very deliberate way of speaking, and a strangely secretive manner, which made him an obvious choice as spy-master. Lees explained that he didn’t just want information brought in. He wanted a body of agents who could be sent out with urgent messages, or on bespoke spying missions. Kiss was adamant that it was the female partisan members who would be best suited to such tasks.
Lees agreed. From what he’d seen, the women had courage and front in abundance, and they were clearly not averse to using their not-inconsiderable feminine charms to hoodwink the enemy. Equally important, a pretty woman ‘innocently’ pedalling a bicycle through a German position could pass without suspicion, where any number of men might fail. Lees and Kiss decided to christen the female recruits their Stafettas – ‘couriers’ in English.
Twelve days after having been despatched, Gordon returned. He’d managed to garner twenty recruits for his elite sabotage force, and somehow he’d managed to arm them, including acquiring two Bren light machine guns. Though half the number that Lees had asked for, they were a first-class band of toughs, and he certainly favoured quality over quantity. Arming them had been a touch of genius, especially as Lees had been warned that he would receive no air-drops until he had returned to his base of operations.
Two of the recruits struck Lees as being particularly promising. One, called Reubens, was a wiry little hard-case who’d worked for years as a doorman at a shady Paris nightclub. The other, a Sicilian, had a particularly stirring story. Captured by the enemy, he’d been taken to their base to be beaten and tortured. He’d managed to break free and leap through a second-floor window. Miraculously, he’d escaped unharmed, but the brutality he’d suffered had left its mark and he hungered to exact revenge.
Lees and Gordon christened their elite force the Gufo Nero Brigade – the Black Owls. In Lees’ mind he wanted them to operate along SAS lines, executing highly mobile hit-and-run attacks, melting into the hills before the enemy had a chance to retaliate. That was the kind of tactics that he figured the target-rich Reggiani valley was crying out for.
Two weeks had passed by the time Lees’ Stafettas reported that the enemy were in the process of withdrawing. He formed up his column to march back into the Secchia valley, putting Gordon and his Black Owls in the vanguard. They proceeded as a fighting patrol, with the mules carrying their all-important radio in the midst of the column. Upon nearing the main road, Gordon sent his Bren-gunners ahead to secure the crossing.
As Lees flitted across, he felt a thrill of excitement. He was returning ‘home’, to a region from which he fully intended to unleash merry hell. But first, he was to make an unexpected acquaintance . . . The column was nosing its way into the heart of the valley, when they came across a bunch of partisans wearing the red star of the communists. Lees had just begun to question them in his pidgin Italian, when a quite extraordinary figure stepped forwards.
Round-shouldered, portly, and leaning on a heavy alpenstock – a primitive, long-handled ice-axe – he was instantly recognisable as being non-Italian. Something of a cross between a hobbit and a mountain troll, a pair of bulging blue eyes peered through jam-jar glasses, above a bearded red face, which came complete with a permanently open mouth and drip on the end of a hooked nose. Lees couldn’t help but be intrigued.
‘How do you do, sir,’ the mystery figure announced, in somewhat archaic but crisp English. ‘I am Fritz Snapper, Reserve Lieutenant of the Royal Dutch Army.’
Lees could barely contain his laughter. While he’d stumbled upon any number of nationalities in the Italian mountains, he couldn’t for the life of him conceive of how a Dutch soldier had ended up with this ragged band of communist partisans.
‘How the devil did you get here?’ he asked.
Snapper endeavoured to draw himself to his full height. ‘I have the honour, sir, to have been attached to the Reggiani partisans for some months now, in an honorary capacity.’
That, plus the Shakespearian English, was just too much for Lees. He sat down in the snow and practically wept with laughter. As Snapper remained remarkably unperturbed, Lees felt he’d better recruit him.
He waved an arm at his column of fighters. ‘You’re such a tonic, you’d better stick around. Will you do me the honour of joining us . . . in an honorary capacity, of course?’
Snapper looked almost tearful. ‘That, sir, is a compliment which it gives me the greatest pleasure to accept.’
With that, Fritz Snapper – alpenstock in hand – formed up next to Lees, and they marched onwards. Lees was keen to hear the man’s story. It didn’t disappoint, and from just about anyone else Lees would have found it utterly unbelievable. In May 1940, as the German blitzkrieg had steamrollered across Holland, Snapper, a Dutch Army lieutenant, joined the Dutch resistance, before deciding to make his way to Britain and the real war.
For some reason, he’d reckoned the best way to get there was via neutral Switzerland, where he’d sought in vain for a flight. The odd aircraft did of course leave for England, but seats were reserved for far more important personages than Lt. Snapper. After a year’s wait he decided he’d cross the Alps, find his way into Italy and from there to Tunisia, to join up with British forces in North Africa. The plan fell through on a small oversight: Fritz Snapper spoke barely a word of Italian. He was picked up by the Italian Fascist police and charged with being an Allied spy. Taken to court, the case fell apart when the Italian judge ruled that even the British wouldn’t be stupid enough to send a man to spy on a country whose language he didn’t speak. Saved from execution, Snapper was sent to a POW camp. There he managed to convince the camp commander, a German, of his love for all things German. He was duly released, and promptly made his way into the mountains to join the partisans, fully intending to show the Germans what he really thought of them.
Lees sensed that Snapper was ‘quite mad’, but who wasn’t among this ragtag band? More importantly, he’d carved out for himself a unique niche with the partisans. Snapper had taken charge of running a courier network via which messages were spirited across the lines. Incredibly, this service – often employing young boys who could slip through undetected – proved highly effective. In time it would enable Lees to write a missive to Florence headquarters, with the confidence that it would be delivered in three to four days.
For his part, Snapper saw in Lees the salvation of the Reggiani partisans. After months of non-existent supply drops, near-starvation and in-fighting, they were desperate for a figure behind whom to unite. Lees was it. He was the unifying force that the partisans were crying out for. Snapper would write of his arrival that the ‘new BLO for Reggio Emilia saved the situation . . . Capt Lees completely understood Partisan mentality.’
Love him or loathe him, Lees was the man for the job.