Archive for May, 2012

We were 350 people dressed to war (but only for love of history) and with a lot of vehicles. We based ourselves in Cervia. A bus service collected us along the road from the hotels to concentrate in a municipal deposit. It was strange to see a bus full of people with helmets and automatic weapons. Here the start of the event in the morning. Later I’ll show you when we started to move to reach Cesena and Cervia city centres.







A column is a long strip made of vehicles and people that move at the velocity of the slowest. Often we were stopped by something but we didn’t know what. A boring thing. It is not lack of organisation, it is the reality of a large amount of troops that have to travel. As the logistic problem to find an area to park all this. And the queue to the petrol pump. I heard that to start a Sherman you must consume 20 litres. We had to collect money for the fuel, because these old cars have a high necessity of it. Moreover, when a vehicle is out of order, the first thing to do is to throw out it off road. We were not so cruel, but I saw some blocked in the rear for mechanical problems. The column march towards glory consuming itself…



Share

This is the biggest WWII reenactment event in Italy, Colonna della Libertà (Liberty Column), an opportunity to celebrate the official day of the end of the war in Italy with a military column constituted by military vehicles and troops of that historical period, with a prevalence of jeeps and other Allies materials.

Every year a different location. This year, for the first time, I had the possibility to participate with my friends to the event, but only for the 28th of April, a column visit to Cesena and Cervia. We had Italian uniforms of the South Reign, the part of Italy that after the end of the Italian nation, the infamous 8th September, passed to Allies side. A nice gentleman from Verona offered us a passage on his jeep. Here you can see a video about our trip along the column. More on next posts.

If you want to know more on this event you can examine the official programme.

Share