Published on 06/20/2024
We summarize an interesting article that reconstructs the story of a paratrooper from Reggio Emilia, missing together with three others after the jump in the Po Valley, published by Giulio Verrecchia and Marco Capriglio of the Emilia Romagna Military Studies Association APS – ASMER. Prandi is the only one whose remains have not been found.
Prandi Pasquino, the Reggio Emilia paratrooper of Operation Herring
Pasquino was struck by the event (8 September 1943, ed.) in Sardinia; he was a paratrooper, assigned to the 184th Mortar Company of 81, Nembo Division.
From the matriculation source, preserved in the State Archives of Modena and digitized, it appears that he returned from Sardinia on 12 May 1944.
There is no further news of him until 30 September 1944, when the Division was disbanded and reconstituted as the “Folgore” Combat Group, part of the Italian Liberation Corps: Pasquino was placed in the 76 Mortar Company, i.e. the transformation of the 184th Mortar Company from 81.
In 1945 there was the well-known airdrop in the German rear: Operation Herring, which took place between 20 and 23 April of that year.
The mission began on the evening of April 20, when thirteen Douglas C – 47 Dakota aircraft of the 64th Transport Group of the USAAF took off from Livorno with 223 paratroopers belonging to the Centuria “Nembo” and the “F” Squadron. The landings were scheduled in the Po Valley, between Poggio Rusco, Sermide, Vigarano Mainarda, Poggio Renatico and Mirandola.
The article examines the story of four paratroopers belonging to the “Nembo” Centuria, who were the only ones to fight near Sermide, in the lower Mantua area. Although Pasquino Prandi’s matriculation role reports the date of presumed dispersion “in metropolitan territory” as 20 April 1945, his launch took place on 22 April. The following were declared missing on that occasion: the paratrooper Corporal Vietti Giovanni Battista from Chivasso (Turin), the paratrooper Landi Olinto from Lucca, the paratrooper Stefanelli Giuseppe from Milan and, indeed, the paratrooper Prandi Pasquino from Reggio Emilia.
Their bodies are presumed to have been collected by civilians, now without any signs of recognition, and buried outside the cemetery in the town of Sermide, together with about fifteen Germans, as they were mistaken for their own compatriots. Only in the nineties, thanks to the research of Carlo Benfatti, author of the volume “The Nembo Regiment and the F Squadron in the Herring 1 operation”, an identity was given to the corps. Thanks to ONORCADUTI and by the family’s will, the remains of three paratroopers rest at the Military Shrine of the Tradate Cemetery (Varese).
The only missing body is that of Pasquino Prandi, probably still somewhere near that village cemetery.
The aforementioned volume contains the interview with the paratrooper Vicenzo Piscioneri from Fiesole (Florence), witness and veteran of that feat: «On the 24th I go in search of the four missing paratroopers […] but I can’t find any trace of them.” The Florentine paratrooper continues: «After 48 years of exhausting research […] of the fourth, Prandi Pasquino, no clue has yet been found, even if it is certain that he died fighting with his companions on 22 April 1945 in the hinterland of the Corte delle Mondine (Malcantone di Sermide)”.
Today the memory of Pasquino and his companions is honored by a monument near Corte delle Mondine in Sermide. 
All articles next >>
