James Holland - Italy’s Sorrow - A Year of War 1944–45

Charles DillsAmerican fighter pilot with 522nd Squadron, 27th Fighter Bomber Group

Group Captain Hugh ‘Cocky’ DundasBritish airman serving as wing commander, HQ Desert Air Force, 244 Wing; commanding officer, 244 Wing, RAF

Clara DuseItalian civilian living in Trieste

Tom FinneyBritish trooper with 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers, 78th Division

Dick FrostSouth African lance corporal with D Squadron, Royal Natal Carbineers, 12th Motor Infantry Brigade, 6th SA Armoured Division

Martha GellhornAmerican freelance journalist and war correspondent with Collier’s Magazine . Estranged wife of the writer Ernest Hemingway

Tini GloverMaori sergeant with 28th Maori Battalion, 2nd New Zealand Division

Hans GoldaGerman commanding officer serving with 8th Battery, Werfer Regiment 71

Reg HarrisBritish sergeant with 3rd Battalion, Coldstream Guards

Stephen HastingsBritish liaison officer with No 1 Special Force, SOE in Piacenza

Willi HoltfreterGerman fighter pilot with fighter group III/JG 53

Hamilton HowzeAmerican commander, 13th Armored Battalion; later commander Combat Command B, 1st Armored Division

Jupp KleinGerman commander with Pioneer Company, 1st Fallschirmjäger Division

Hans-Jürgen KumbergGerman paratrooper with 4th Parachute Regiment, 1st Paratroop Division

Norman LewisBritish intelligence officer with 412th Field Security Service

Franz MaassenGerman NCO with 2nd Battalion, 994th Infantry Regiment, 278th Infantry Division

Iader MiserocchiItalian partisan commander of 2nd Battalion, 8th Garibaldi Brigade; later served with 28th Garibaldi Brigade

Peter MooreBritish officer with 2/5th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment

Ken NeillNew Zealander flight commander with 225 Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, RAF

Marchesa Iris OrigoIrish/American/Italian civilian living in Val d’Orcia, southern Tuscany

Cornelia PaselliItalian civilian living near Monte Sole

Francesco PiriniItalian civilian living near Monte Sole

Pasua PisaItalian civilian farmer living on Monte Rotondo, near Amaseno

Italo QuadrelliItalian civilian living at Onferno, near Rimini

Walter RederGerman commanding officer, 16th Reconnaissance Battalion, 16th Waffen-SS

Gianni RossiItalian partisan; served as second-in-command, Stella Rossa, Monte Sole

Wladek RubnikowiczPolish troop leader with 2nd Squadron, 12th Lancers Reconnaissance Regiment, 3rd Carpathian Division, II Polish Corps

Emilio SacerdoteItalian Jew and partisan in Piemonte

Ray SaidelAmerican private first class with G Coy, 1st Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Division

Rudi SchreiberGerman engineer with Pioneer Battalion, 16th Waffen-SS Panzer Grenadier Division

Stan ScislowskiCanadian private with Perth Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade, 5th Canadian Armoured Division

Willfried SegebrechtGerman commanding officer, 1 Company, 16th Reconnaissance Battalion, 16th Waffen-SS

Eric SevareidAmerican broadcast journalist and war correspondent for CBS

Hans SitkaCzech German NCO with East Regiment

Carlo VenturiItalian partisan with Stella Rossa and later 62nd Garibaldi Brigade

Roberto VivarelliItalian volunteer with Bir el Gobi Company

Ernest WallBritish wireless operator/air gunner with 1 Squadron, South African Air Force

Bucky WaltersAmerican sergeant with H Coy, 135th Infantry Regiment, 34th ‘Red Bull’ Infantry Division

Bob WiggansAmerican commanding officer with ‘D’ Coy, 1st Battalion, 338th Infantry, 85th ‘Custer’ Infantry Division

Ted Wyke-SmithBritish officer with 281st Field Park Company, 214th Field Company, 78th Division Royal Engineers

Georg ZellnerGerman commanding officer with 3rd Battalion, ‘Hochund-Deutschmeister’ Reichs Grenadier Regiment (44th Infantry Division)

A few minutes before two o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, 23 March 1944, Rome was a city bathed in spring sunshine and temperatures that were easily the warmest so far that year. But while the promise of summer may have lightened the mood of the majority of Romans, the heat brought no such cheer to twenty-two-year-old Carla Capponi, or ‘Elena’ as she was known amongst her fellow partisans. Clasping a pistol in her pocket, she was already feeling conspicuous for carrying a man’s raincoat on such a beautiful day.

A couple of hours before, she had been too nervous to have any of the beer and potatoes on offer for lunch. Instead, she and her boyfriend, Rosario ‘Paolo’ Bentivegna, and two other partisans of the Roman resistance group GAP Central – the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica Centrale – had left their meal and hurried over to the hideout near the Colosseum. There Paolo had collected the old dust cart that had been stolen the day before, in which there was now hidden a homemade bomb of 18 kilogrammes of TNT topped by a 50-second fuse. While the bomb was big enough to destroy an entire building, the Gappists had planned to bolster their attack with mortars and gunfire. It had been Carla’s job to pick up four mortars from the hide-out and deliver them to ‘Francesco’, a fellow partisan, waiting in the Via del Traforo. Carrying the mortars in nothing more than a shopping bag, she had managed safely to deliver them to Francesco, and then, as she had walked past, had glanced down the Via Rasella. It had been quite deserted; Paolo, with his heavy bomb-laden dustcart, had not yet reached his appointed position.