The fake consumption and the conspiracy of silence to save a lieutenant from being shot

If in Rome the imaginary K disease protected several Jews from the deportation of Germans fearful of the infection, in small Furci in the province of Chieti a fake consumption saved an Italian lieutenant from being shot. While the head doctor of the Fatebenefratelli Giovanni Borromeo invented an illness that did not exist to prevent the Nazi raids, the medical officer Ettore Ciancaglini diagnosed a deterrent pathology and the Wehrmacht soldiers never dared to open the door that divided their room from that of the Royal Army officer whom they themselves had wounded in combat and whom they were hunting.

After 8 September 1943 the decision to establish the Blue Legion was made

The story begins on September 8, 1943, the day of unconditional surrender and chaos. Lieutenant Arduino “Dino” Gobbato, originally from Veneto, commands the 267th Anti-Parachute Unit in Abruzzo, stationed in the center of Furci, a town which with its surroundings has a couple of thousand inhabitants. He is 32 years old. Marshal Pietro Badoglio’s proclamation to the EIAR released in the evening takes him by surprise, but does not move him from his coherence as a man and a soldier. He gathers his 25 men to report to the small barracks in the town, to inform them of the direction events have taken. When he tries to contact the command in Pescara by telephone, however, no one answers. There are no orders. Eleven soldiers disappear during the night.

The next day the lieutenant gives a very simple speech to the rest: he has decided to join other officers and non-commissioned officers of the Royal Army at Roccaspinalveti who have decided not to surrender to the Germans. He left his men free to follow him or return home, but declared it openly because he didn’t want to have to consider them deserters. Only Sergeant Spallacci remains with him, while the others will try to reach their families. After a march in the countryside the two joined Major Antonino Valenti, the highest in rank, Captains Umberto Rivolta and Emilio Ainis, Lieutenants Guido Panizza and Mario Sebastiani and Sergeant Giovanni Pirola, for a total of about twenty men who decided to form what they called the Blue Legion.

The baptism of fire in Roccaspinalveti and salvation with the image of St. Rita

Informed by a villager from Roccaspinalveti that an informer had informed the Germans of the existence of the gang and that the next day they would intervene in force, the Italians under Valenti’s command decided to wait for them in an area suitable for an ambush. The ambush succeeded perfectly, and on October 1st the Germans were pinned down for hours by the fire of the Blue Legion. But in the meantime a courier had gone to ask for reinforcements in nearby Carunchio from which a truck with a platoon immediately left. The soldiers tried to take the team of Lieutenant Gobbato and Sergeant Pirola from behind, immediately opening a furious fire with rifle fire and automatic weapons.

To avoid encirclement the Italians attempted to break away but in the clash Gobbato was hit by a bullet which hit his left arm, piercing his lung and exiting his back. He then told Pirola to save himself because he would try to escape the German hunt. He was bleeding profusely. Spotted on the ground by the enemies chasing the Italians, he was left for dead and they passed on. The lieutenant painfully manages to drag himself to a thick patch of gorse. The area will be hit by random fire against ravines and bushes, but miraculously he will not be hit despite the bullets whistling near his head. He later attributed his salvation to having held a small image of Saint Rita, the Saint of Impossibles, to whom he was devoted.

Hospitalization in a farm and the medical assistance network conducted

When the Germans finally left, with his remaining energy he stood up to look for a safe shelter. He was seen by three farmers who rushed to his aid and carried him on their shoulders to the farm of Zia Liberata, as she was called by everyone, who took care of Gobbato, telling him that she had a son in the war of whom she had no news and hoped that another mother could do the same for him. The doctor from Roccaspinalveti, Abele Lalli, was immediately called, who stopped the bleeding and bandaged him. But he had to spend the night sitting in a chair, because he could not lie down. In the afternoon, on the back of a mule, the farm was reached by the doctor from San Buono, Giuseppe Amicarelli, who had been alerted by Lalli and also by his colleague from Palmoli to bring medicines and clean bandages.

The doctor then wrote a note to Furci’s colleague, Ettore Ciancaglini, to reassure him about the condition of Lieutenant Gobbato, who was engaged to Maria, his daughter. The officer remained on the farm for two weeks, also escaping the unexpected arrival of some German soldiers in search of food. Zia Liberata had justified the presence of that young man in bed who was coughing and spitting blood by saying that he was suffering from tuberculosis and therefore the Germans were careful not to approach him. But he had to somehow be taken to Furci to be followed by a doctor. Along less traveled paths, with two people supporting him and two scouting ahead to avoid Wehrmacht patrols, it took two days to travel the twenty kilometers to the town and find shelter in Doctor Ciancaglini’s farm, just outside the town centre.

Doctor Ciancaglini: “The patient is contagious. Better not to enter”

Taking advantage of the fortnightly change of garrison, the doctor took Lieutenant Gobbato to his home, in the same building where some German officers were staying: that could paradoxically be the safest place. The room where he was hospitalized was divided from the one occupied by the Germans by a bathroom which was accessed by two opposite doors. Ciancaglini told the military that the patient was suffering from consumption and was contagious. The notice from Field Marshal Albert Kesselring which threatened the most ruthless reprisals to anyone who gave shelter to the “bandits” and a cash reward to anyone who allowed their capture was posted right at the entrance to the doctor’s house. In Furci everyone knew but no one spoke. For ten days the Germans never opened the door of the room where Lieutenant Gobbato was and didn’t suspect anything. Then, on November 2, Furci was bombed by the Allies and there were the first civilian victims of that war. The front was approaching and at the end of the month the Battle of Sangro would break out. The Germans retreat two days later. The lieutenant was safe.

His career as a journalist and the desire to rest in his “second homeland”

In 1945 Dino Gobbato married Maria Ciancaglini, who bore him three children, and moved to Milan where he began a career as a journalist for “Il Popolo Lombardo'”, “Il Sole”, “Il Mattino d’Italia” and above all as an appreciated professional for “Il giorno”. In 1944 he recorded his memories of the war in Abruzzo in the book “Avventura a Rocca”. Ten years before his death he told his son Ettore that he would have liked to be buried in Furci, “where the love of many Abruzzo people saved my life”. He considered that small town to be his second homeland. He passed away on October 10, 2005, at the age of 94, and rests in the land where he fought for freedom.