The Armistice of 8 September 1943 caught me on the road from the Italian naval operating base at Sevastopol on the Black Sea to our logistic base at Constanta. The roads were completely inadequate for a heavy truck, and ours—full of material and sailors—went off the road into a swamp. A small column of German halftracks (who also were unaware of that morning’s events) got us out of the mess and on our way. When we reached Constanta at 0130, 9 September, I found my assistant, Lieutenant Gambini, very agitated. He had learned through the radio that Italy signed an armistice with the Allies. It was clear that our position in Romania would soon be critical, so I rang up the barracks where our personnel were lodged and ordered them to destroy all papers and publications in the secret files. There was no time, however; within a few minutes German soldiers surrounded the barracks and my villa, seizing our arms and confining us to our quarters.
Through the Romanian servants in my villa, I succeeded in contacting the local Romanian commander, Captain Macellariu. I immediately pointed out to him that if the events in Italy made it necessary to disarm the Italian military, that should have been done by the Romanians and not the Germans. Did Romania consider itself a sovereign nation or a German-occupied territory? My speech had the desired effect. Captain Macellariu was a valiant officer, strict, stem, upright, and very determined not to allow the Germans to consider Romania a conquered territory rather than an ally. That very night he began a vigorous argument with the Germans over the Romanian right to assume custody of us. The Romanians won; they achieved the removal of the German guards and, using their own military units, set up a strict watch on our barracks. With our information about events in Italy limited to fragments coming over the radio, our position in Romania became ever more confusing. Apparently, the personnel of the Italian submarine squadron at Sevastopol, with all other Italian personnel at that base, had signed a declaration that they would continue to cooperate with the German Navy. The personnel at the logistic base in Constanta, however, under the jurisdiction of the Romanian military command, could not be forced to cooperate.
Several days later, two of the Sevastopol pocket submarines arrived in Constanta to undergo repairs with the assistance of German personnel. We had been ordered not to approach the crews or the commanding officers of the submarines, but managed clandestine contacts and confirmed our suspicion that the decision of the commanding officer in Sevastopol had been taken under threat of severe German reprisals. Under such circumstances, I conceived a plan to have the three remaining subs and their crews in Sevastopol come to Constanta, allegedly for maintenance work, so that they could be transferred to the Romanian authorities. The commanding officer of the submarine squadron agreed to the plan, provided it was carried out without his overt participation or consent, because he had pledged in writing his cooperation with the Germans and feared retaliation.
After getting approval from the Italian Legation in Bucharest, I arranged a secret meeting with Captain Macellariu. I proposed transferring the five submarines, once they were all in Constanta, to the Romanian Navy, subject to a written pledge that they would not be put into active service during the war and that, at the end of the war, Romania would in some way pay the Italian government for them. Captain Macellariu was delighted to assist in a plot against the Germans; he resented bitterly the manner in which they interpreted the alliance, in spite of the very significant contribution the Romanians had made to the land operations on the southern front.
A few days later, our squadron commander from Sevastopol arrived to convince us to sign the declaration of cooperation with the Germans. In fact, he had completely reversed his secret endorsement of my plan. He wanted to address our naval personnel and insisted that I return the submarine materials that I had turned over to the Romanians. I said “no” to the commander, and I confirmed my determination not to change my decision—which was the one conforming, both legally and as a matter of military discipline, to our oath as military officers. I added that, if he did not change his position, I could no longer acknowledge him as my commanding officer. I did assemble all our personnel, so that he might try to persuade them to embrace his cause, but none accepted his proposals.
The squadron engineer, Luigi Navarra, was from the same hometown as the squadron commander and had a great deal of influence on him. He somehow persuaded the commander to send his remaining three submarines to Constanta for overhaul and to look the other way as our plans developed. On 30 November, the three submarines from Sevastopol arrived in Constanta. As a precaution against possible German action, the Romanian Navy transferred all Italian personnel at Constanta to one of their barracks in Bucharest. As soon as the three boats arrived, the Romanian authorities withdrew our crews, substituted Romanian personnel, and changed flags. When the Germans arrived on the pier moments later, they found Romanians standing watch on the boats and thought it impolitic to use force against their allies. Using detailed inventories already in existence, the Romanian Navy drew up an official delivery record that specified that the terms of sale were to be regularized by the two governments at a later date.
Our submarine personnel were sent the next day to Curtea de Arges, a resort town on the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. Everybody could circulate freely but were under parole not to leave the area. Altogether, there were about 500 members of the Italian armed services. The Romanian War Ministry authorized the Italian servicemen to work in other locations, and thanks to our numerous fellow countrymen residing in Romania, most of them did. I was summoned to Constanta to take charge of the Italian Consulate General, but my stay there was short-lived. The Germans—who had choked on my action with respect to the submarines—discovered that I was in Constanta and demanded that the Romanian authorities arrest me. For my own safety, the latter insisted that I return to being an internee in Curtea de Arges, a peaceful but boring existence.
One of our sailors working in Constanta later informed me that the Romanian Navy was getting ready to put the Italian submarines under way. This was, of course, contrary to the terms of our original agreement. I felt that this default on their pledge was my responsibility and that I had to prevent it, so I asked our Naval Attaché in Bucharest to set up a meeting with the Romanian Navy Chief of Staff. Rather than object to their plan to reactivate the submarines, I decided to try a coup: I offered help! I knew that the Romanian Navy had only one Italian-built submarine, and no technical personnel skilled enough to put our subs in operating condition; he accepted gratefully.
A few days later, I left Curtea with a squad of ten petty officers, mechanics, and electricians. I had briefed them carefully on our mission endorsed by the Italian legation: While ostensibly helping the Romanians with the work of normal maintenance, we were to prevent, through sabotage, any possibility of the submarines ever being used against Allied Forces. While the petty officers helped the Romanians overhaul the engines and other equipment, it was not difficult to sabotage the storage batteries beyond repair. At that point we advised the Romanians to hoist the boats out of the water and set them on the dock. In spite of our efforts to conceal our presence in the harbor, the Germans soon learned of it and tried to make us prisoners. The Romanians, however, always on the alert, arrived first and took us back to Curtea de Arges. The depressing life of internment started again; a complete lack of news made it doubly so.
In Romania in August 1944, pretty much what had happened in Italy in September 1943 reoccurred: The Romanians renounced their alliance with the Germans and came over to the Allied side. Fighting continued and much blood was shed until the Russians arrived and occupied practically all of Romania.
Directly after the war the Russians began the systematic despoiling of the country. The industrial plants were dismantled and their machinery shipped to Russia. The oil wells in Ploesti were incorporated into the Soviet organization, which funneled their production to Russia. In a very short time there was a great bleakness everywhere. Food became scarce, the economy fell, and the black market soared. Off-duty Russian soldiers bullied and plundered Romanian citizens without mercy and even accosted and robbed Russian officers.
When the Russians arrived in Romania, the Italian military personnel in Curtea de Arges were set free, and the internment camp was abandoned. The Italian legation sent me back to Constanta to resume the role of acting consul, but they soon recalled me to Bucharest, where the flood of former internees was creating major problems for the legation. At the initiative of the communists, encouraged by Soviet agents, many of the Italian military had joined a Union of Italian Patriots, which demanded that the legation help them find food, lodging, money, and work. Their attitude became so threatening that the minister set up a relief organization, under my direction and with the assistance of officers from the quartermaster corps and medical corps. The legation arranged for financing designed to cope with the multiplicity of demands, but it was never enough, and we were constantly subjected to complaints, protests, and absurd demands. It was then that I employed the two leaders who had the largest following among the agitators. These fellows suddenly realized they needed to calm down the agitators and bring them back to reason. Their efforts succeeded, because their followers trusted them.
By that time, an ever-increasing number of Italian soldiers—who had escaped from German prisoner-of-war camps as the Russians advanced to the west—came to Bucharest. Word had spread of a relief bureau in Bucharest, and the soldiers flocked there en masse, taxing our ability to provide food, clothing, and lodging. Fortunately, word of our struggle reached Vienna, and the Italian Red Cross there. Through them we obtained financial assistance and established contact with our families in Italy— a great relief after such a long time without news. It was at that time that I was appointed delegate of the Italian Red Cross for Romania. The new situation enabled me to turn my attention to negotiating with the Russians for the repatriation of our military personnel, an operation that turned out to be exceedingly difficult. With so many people involved, it could be accomplished only with the active assistance and cooperation of the Russian authorities, and their non-recognition of our diplomatic mission made dealing with them an exercise in frustration.
Several years before, I had made the acquaintance of a young doctor who was serving as a naval intelligence officer in the Italian consulate at Odessa. He spoke Russian perfectly and had a number of friends in the Russian community. One day, he turned up in my office in Bucharest and announced that he had a Russian friend who wanted to meet me. His friend told me that when the Russians conquered Constanta, the complete files of the German Navy fell into their hands. Within those files was a report on the coup de main, effected by Lieutenant Ciccolo of the Italian Navy, whereby the five Italian subs had been consigned to the Romanians. That report, in return, gained me the goodwill of the Soviet occupation authorities. I lost no time in taking advantage of this chance to bring about the repatriation of our personnel. Among other things, I obtained a Russian document that ordered the commanders of prison and internment camps in the Soviet zone—in which many of our military personnel were still being held—to release to me all the Italians I requested. I found many in the border zone between Russia and Romania and soon sent off the first load of Italian military personnel for Italy, which arrived without incident after some ten days. The succeeding convoys departed fairly regularly, with the total number of those repatriated amounting to several thousand. That figure includes both the military and civilian personnel evacuated by the frequent flights of the Allied Commission from Bucharest to Rome and other Western capitals. By November 1945, the repatriation of nearly all personnel was complete. There remained, however, about 30 people who could not be repatriated by plane or train, because they were military personnel hospitalized with serious health problems. Several women in the advanced stages of pregnancy also remained. I decided to use what I had at my disposal—a large bus, a truck, and a Fiat 1100 motor car—and transport our problem passengers to Italy myself. With all three vehicles conspicuously marked with the Red Cross symbol, and carrying official papers which were stamped and countersigned by the Red Cross, the convoy left Bucharest on 14 December 1945.
I thought that we would be home in two or three days; however, we had just begun the ascent of the Carpathian slopes, which would take us to the border crossing with Hungary, when the bus broke down. Signs indicated that we were near a village equipped with both a Romanian hospital and a railroad station. I drove to the hospital and explained our situation to the director, who sent several vehicles to pick up our personnel and supplied us with a dormitory, beds, and a meal. Early the next morning I set off for the railroad station, hoping to procure some sort of rolling stock on which to load our three vehicles and continue the trip by rail. The station master claimed that he had no authority to furnish me with flatcars and that I would have to obtain the consent of the Russians guarding the station. Before I left Bucharest, the Italian Minister had given me $200 for the trip; I had a hunch that the time had come to tap that precious reserve. Money changed hands; the station master approached the Russians, then pointed out the car-yard nearby and told me to look for what I needed. I found a long Russian-built flatcar with eight axles used to transport cannon. The station manager objected, saying he would be shot if he gave away Russian war equipment, but more money changed hands, and I received the flatcar. The Romanian station personnel helped in tying down everything firmly and then hooked the flatcar onto a train headed for Budapest.
Everything went smoothly at the Hungarian border. The Soviet military saw our Red Cross emblems, studied the documents, checked the number of people in our convoy against the number registered on our travel papers, and let us continue. We had just left the Romanian border when two strangers appeared, having secretly boarded the flatcar at the border and wanting to go to Budapest. They were Polish Jews who spoke fluent Russian, German, Hungarian, and a little Italian. I realized how much assistance their knowledge of languages might be and decided to let them ride with us. However, there was a difficulty: The two did not appear on our official documents, and any head count would show a discrepancy. Thus came about the first falsification of our travel papers. I had one of them insert two names in Russian, at random, so we were in order numerically. It was obvious that they had some serious motive for avoiding discovery by the Russians, so we could only hope that they would not be recognized.
The border guards in Budapest checked our documents, counted the people, and found everything in order. Since Budapest was our official destination, our flatcar was left there on a siding. Emboldened by the success of the first falsification, I had one of our skillful stowaways add “Vienna” after “Budapest” on our travel documents. Accompanied by him, I went to see the Hungarian station master who was flanked by the usual Russian soldiers. They all passed around, turned over, and studied the unusual documents, but finally gave us the go-ahead. The two Poles could not believe that they could ride with us to the Austrian capital.
When we arrived at the East Station in Vienna, I decided to try a third falsification of the travel documents: After the destinations of “Budapest” and “Vienna,” I added “Rome.” I presented the document to the station master, who shared an office with the Russian soldiers. The latter, half-asleep on two armchairs with bottles beside them, were visibly drunk. The Austrian railroad functionary said he could not possibly give the go-ahead to a group that intended to cross from the Russian to the American zone. Once again, however, the prized currency worked wonders. Softened up, the Austrian informed me that there was a Russian military train departing in one hour from the West Station across town. I suggested that a switch engine be used to transfer our flatcar from the East Station to the West. That was done, and our strange convoy arrived just as the train for the border was ready to leave. Because of the very visible Red Cross emblems, examination of our documents was merely perfunctory, and we soon found ourselves en route to the American zone at the tail of a Russian train.
I was more than a little worried about what would happen at San Valentino on the Austrian-Italian border. The Russian train would stop there; our problem was to get across it. The two Poles had left us in Vienna, so I found myself without a good interpreter when I needed one the most. For hours, Russians and Americans had lengthy conversations, made various inspections of the strange flatcar, examined the three motor vehicles, and checked the passenger list (from which I had expunged the names of the two Poles). Meanwhile, my anxiety kept growing. Finally, there appeared a locomotive operated by U.S. personnel marked USA. It hooked up to our flatcar and towed us across the border to the U.S. checkpoint. We were attached to a train headed for Italy. At last, we were safe!