Mr. Riccardo Iacobini, 36 years old, lives in a small town near Rome, in the region of “Castelli Romani”, south of the Italian capital.

The battle for 731 resulted in a Greek victory, as the Italians failed to break through, thus condemning their attack to failure.

A battle of epic proportions was fought on and around Hill 731. Thousands of men from both sides, fought valiantly and died on the slopes of the blood stained Hill.

Even today, the battlefield is full of war scars, as the legend goes on to say that Hill 731 is now several meters shorter, due to the massive bombardment it received by the Italian artillery.

Monuments erected by both Greeks and Italians pay tributes to the lost soldiers, a bitter reminiscent of war, with bombs, shrapnel and other war material still visible on Hill 731.

www.ww2wrecks.com has asked Mr. Riccardo Iacobini to share his experience, as well as his photos of the sacred ground of Hill 731, a place where so many young men from both sides fought and died.

Quota 731: Nemici in vita, fratelli nella morte

 

“Εχθροί στη ζωή, αδέρφια στο θάνατο” – Η αναστήλωση του μνημείου στο ύψωμα 731

The passion and willingness to research more about the famous hill 731 (in Italy it’s not very known unfortunately) started when during my university days, when I wanted to write my thesis on this subject.

At that time, about more than 10 years ago, I also started to document myself about this famous battle, about the lesser known aspects of a “soldier’s struggle”.

It was during this years that I began to meet some very knowledgable and very interesting people who had the same passion for history as I did.

A Greek author has been a superb source of information and a great friendship started as well.

From that point on, I started to collect other books about the whole campaign. It’s noteworthy to understand that in Italy, the Greco-Italian conflict of 1940-1941, has been “almost” forgotten, compared to the north African and the Russian fronts.

The feeling I had while researching this subject was that of an injustice:  Of the multitude of Italian soldiers who were killed during that conflict, most of them, I believe, did not get the recognition they deserved in our country; at least, they didn’t get the respect given to other fallen soldiers, on the other fronts.

The Greco-Italian war was an unjust war, not felt by the common soldier. Someone once wrote that it was there, in the harsh Albanian alps, that anti-fascism was born…

There are lots of books about the Russian front; probably even more about the north African campaign.

Even taking into consideration that these were two fronts which were battled on for longer compared to the struggle in Greece-Albania, yet, I always felt we were missing a lot.

I was glad to find that the situation in Greece is different. I was also impressed in discovering that, for example, the italian “Puglie” division monument in hill 731 was put standing back by other Greek history-fans, who went there some years ago.

There was a feeling of loneliness while walking above and under Hill 731.

The road that stretches from Hill 731 to the Monastir, passing through HIll 717, is short.

It doesn’t take much to reach both ends while walking normally. Yet, it was on this small stretch of road that many young lives from both sides were spent. Dreams were shattered in a second, agonies and cries surrounded the barren terrain.

It’s incredible the amount of bullets, shells, cases, pieces of any military equipment one can find all around the area.

More impressive is the thousands of shrapnel and artillery splinters that one can find on the soil.

Thinking about it makes even the less sensible person in the world wonder.

The area around Bregu Rapit and the other Hill 717 was also almost unexplored and the Proi Veles river hidden in between is mostly left as it was 70+ years ago.

Climbing slowly on the hill slopes, one can still hear the echoes of war; that’s the feeling I had.

I strongly believe that if the new generations will be forgetting what their grandfathers had to pass through seventy years ago, it would mean that we failed, as “lovers of history” , to do our duty and to pass on our knowledge and in remembering the past.