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Rating: Sicily. July 10, 1943. The landing of the Americans in indirect aid to the partisans, against the retreating Nazi-Fascists. The “Operation Husky" begins, led by General Patton, thanks to the invaluable information from Lucky Luciano. Endre Erno Friedmann, better known as Robert Capa, lands in Sicily through a nighttime parachute operation. With his trusty camera always in tow, he heads towards Troina, where several divisions had established the General Headquarters. The rocky village, almost perpetually beaten by the sun and inhabited by some ten thousand people including cacti and prickly pears, will be a sad protagonist of a seven-act war drama. A week of violent clashes between Anglo-American militias and Italian-German resistances. The aftermath will see about a hundred civilians killed and the almost complete erasure of the village from the provincial area of Enna, due to relentless cluster bombings by the United States air force. A well-rehearsed practice for the future as well.
This famous image, arid and beautiful, depicts a young American militiaman, at least twice as tall as a hunchbacked farmer armed with a stick but with no intention of offending. Some floral patches thicken a few areas of the predominantly bare peaks. The soldier, in a light shirt for the summer climate, scrutinizes the horizon with attention, smiling with satisfaction. The old shepherd is pointing out something that piques his interest. Perhaps the area swept by the retreating Germans, a hiding place, a possible escape route. The soldier appreciates the suggestion, and the old man takes pride in that small satisfaction obtained with a simple piece of information, maybe in close rural dialect. In this photo, a splendid tenderness overflows. The farmer, who has known nothing but his land and his beasts, the mandatory toil for presumably daily bread, and the burden of years heavily perched on his shoulders. Clothes of circumstance on and makeshift rags on his feet. A cloth wraps his forehead to fend off the scorching sun. A father leaning on an unknown son who seems to love him as if he were his own. The Germans went that way. Go get them and kick them out. Go...
Capa snaps and archives a photo that will become the focus of a dispute between the municipalities of Troina, claiming its authorship, and Sperlinga, countering with a similarly crafted hypothesis complete with a witness. Where was this photo taken? Who is the shepherd pointing out the Germans’ hiding place to the American soldier? A mystery that seems not to end yet.
According to the municipality of Troina, the captured area is Contrada Quacirì and the farmer would be a certain Giovanni Maccarrone. However, the outcome is tragically sad, as Maccarrone, then fifty-nine, would have paid with his life for revealing that information to the American soldier. Some Germans hidden in the area would have followed the scene, then captured him at the opportune moment and shot him. Indeed, a Giovanni Maccarrone is carved on the plaque commemorating the civilian victims of the Second World War, and based on some testimonies, it appears he was indeed shot by the Germans on August 5th, the day Capa immortalized him on celluloid.
For the municipality of Sperlinga, a village with about a thousand inhabitants, there is even a testimony from the daughter or supposed daughter of the famous goat herder. The area would be Ponte Capostrà, and the man of the controversy, according to Santa Coltiletti, would be her father Francesco, who passed away naturally in 1950. In 1943, Santa, then sixteen, recounts that her father, known by everyone as Mastru Ciccu, was taking the goats to pasture when he was stopped by the soldier seeking information about the Germans. The problem is that no trace exists of this Francesco Coltiletti. He doesn’t have a corner for a prayer at the cemetery, doesn’t appear in the municipal demographic records, and there are no civil registry records as they would have been burned along with many other documents under mysterious circumstances.
Giovanni Maccarrone or Francesco Coltiletti? As far as I'm concerned, the Troina hypothesis is more than credible. Who will tell Sperlinga?
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