Italians in Stalingrad

[GLADIVM]

You are welcome , is good to know that somebody appreciates

Yours

GLADIVM

[Königstiger]

I appreciate too! Excellent information!

Auke

[GLADIVM]

Seeing the enthusiastic response I will add a few more bits of infos :

Medical unit: Dr Cattaneo had with him only one male nurse assistant and both disappeared during the fighting .

The 248th had two dead during the siege , one soldier in undetailed circumstances and under Lt. Giusberti in the hospital fire .
All other soldiers survived the battle but all except Furini died during transportation to camps , Furini was the only one to walk out of the cattle truck at the end of the journey which took them to imprisonment .

127th had no casulaties during battle and at least some of the soldiers ( Poli was separated early after capture form them being an officer ) arrived at prison camps in asian soviet union , there they died within spring 43 of sickness and epidemic ( for some of themtere are written records of their death ) .

There was one more Italian in stalingrad , a sergent mayor from an eminent tuscany family , detached as a translator (his mother was german and he spoke the language fluently ) with a german unit trapped around Stalingrad . He received a german uniform and had to fight alongside german comerades duirng the siege . Taken prisoner survived till april 43 when died of typhus in a camp .

Yours

GLADIVM

[GLADIVM]

Last infos I can add are that :

248th Group base was at Millerowo

127th group base was at Voroscilowgrad

Most probably the two groups (surely the 248th) were caught in the siege because ordered to make a full load of wood before going back to their bases .
One of the two groups , (probaly the 248th ) went to Stalingrad to take a specialized pioneers unit ) and both were trapped because of some delay in turning back since they arrived in Stalingrad 2 days before russians closed the trap .
One more group was almost trapped inside Stalingrad but managed to slip away leaving their trucks behind

Yours

GLADIVM

[FRANCY RITTER]

Bravo GLADIVM..

[Luca Rovetta]

The italians blocked in Stalingrad were the 127º e il 248º autoreparto.
See the book by Alfio Caruso, Noi moriamo a Stalingrado, for more info.
http://www.alfiocaruso.com/stalingrado_cap.html
Bye

[Rimorini]

My grandfather was an Italian major Sergeant in Stalingrad, he kept some trucks, fuel and ammunitions and came back to Italy with 35 soldier under his command.

In a previous thread , that cannot find out now , was mentioned the possibility that some Italian soldiers were also caught in the pocket , I also contributed with a post that cited the book Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor as source for such a statement , but there was some skepticism and other members voiced the opinion this to be only a legend as in fact the Italian 8th Army was quite far away from Stalingrad .

Now in another book also entitled STALINGRAD by Joachim Wieder , who was a staff officer in the pocket , there is his witness statement of an encounter with some Italians stranded in the pocket and he says at page 121 that just few days before surrender he remebered an encounter which took pace may be one week or ten days before final surrender of the North pcket :
QUOTE " Only a few days before i had been there and , surrounded by an helpless horde of overjoyed Italians , had delivered a wounded lieutenant who was the leader of their group .On this occcasion I had once again to look deeply into the misery of the overflowing dressing stations and hospitals . Having been denied entry at every door we had unsuccesfully gone on from place to place with our sad burden until finally a merciful doctor had taken pity on the wounded man and made the virtually impossible happen .
Incidentallly there had been about thirty Italians with a large convoy of vehicles sent to Stalingrad in november to forage for wood for their army in the bend of the Don . Fate had caught up with them there . In the hell of ice and snow I felt a secial pity for these sons of the sunny south . Trapped in the battle far from their unit , they had probably to suffer additional misery . They could hardly make themselves understood and no one really wanted to feel responsible for them at a time of extreme need when it was every man for himself " UNQUOTE

So it seems some Italins were really in Stalingrad , only one thing strikes me as odd , if it was a large convoy of trucks it should have been at least few hundred soldiers (Beevor mentions up to 300 ) giving two men for truck
. so possibly a lot of them already died at time of the encounter and probably also the these 30 men did not survive russian gulag . It stands to reason that the leader of such a convoy was a lietenant . Or might be they were part of a larger of mixed axis troops and therefore only a few italians were there.
To which unit did they belong? I think not to the Alpini but probably to the divion nearest to the Rumanians . At the moment I do not have an operational map of the sector so cannot identify any unit , may be some member could help .
Another thing the mention that the Italians were overjoyed might mean that Wieder was able to speak italian and therefore they found somebody who could understand and help them .

Yours

GLADIVM