World War II
Giuseppe
Torcasio fought in North Africa for three years during World War II
(known as the Campaign of North Africa)The Italians were in joint forces
with the German army. Giuseppe was in the Italian heavy artillery
a battery of 40 men with 2 x Obice da 149/19 model 37 heavy howitzers, He
saw action at Tobruk, El’ Alamein, and the surrounding areas, Giuseppe
was very fortunate to have survived the war from all of the allied
aerial bombardment and machine-gun fire.
By 1943 the war had ended in North Africa and shortly after that Italy surrendered. The
last two years of the war he spent in the mountains north of Italy It was
unsafe for him to try and get back to the south of Italy where he lived
because if he was caught by the Germans he would have been shot. He had several close calls in those two years spent in north Italy as Giuseppe worked on farms the Germans would visit these farms and speak to the owners asking if they had seen any Italian soldiers in the area, The Italians were terrified of Germans and did not tell them anything, and then there were also the spies and traitors.
On one occasion in the middle of the night, Giuseppe was woken by the farm owners barking dogs he got up and saw two German soldiers walking up the hill towards the shed where he was sleeping he ran back behind the shed and into the forest where he stayed till daybreak,
This happened again the very next night, But this time the Germans had burnt down the shed If caught Giuseppe would have been killed!
These were ” white paper” years in Europe,
Giuseppe had just spent three long years fighting in the sands of the desert
of North Africa he didn’t plan on being killed back in his own country, This farm owner was shot dead not long after this incident happened for being a spy and supporting fascism.