Recent trip to Asiago

[Rockdoc]

Ruth and I spent three days last month in Asiago with Forum Pal Kibe, his son Andrea and his friend Paolo Terzi. We had a great time, thanks to them, and saw a lot but not, I'm sure, anything like everything there is to see there. In another thread in this sub-forum I mentioned photos contained in the Diary for the AA units that served in Italy from December 1917 to the end of the War. Kibe got us close to the position of the unique AA gun on a field carriage at Tresche, although it meant walking along someone's drive! The church is still there but the ground in front of it has changed to allow buildings to be put up.

The other picture shows two guns on Cima di Fonte, although the Diary also calls the position Cima del Porco. Kibe didn't think we could find the site because the slopes of these two ridges have become heavily wooded in the last 90 years but took us to the area anyway because, as with most positions, the thin soils over solid limestone mean that the trenches blasted out of the rock and the sangars built from the rubble are still clear. As we got out of the cars, parked near the junction between the two cimas (ridges I think would be the translation) I saw a very large and high dry-stone wall in front of us on the slope. This supported an area of about 10ft by 30ft and there was what appeared to be the remains of a small, round-topped concrete building on the same level. Paolo then called out he'd found another, larger levelled area further up the slope. Again it had a dry-stone retaining wall but considerably larger. Once on top we could see it was about 20ft by 40ft, with the upslope having had about 10 feet blasted out of it and the downslope had been built up by a similar amount. Nearby was the remains of a second levelled area but it was in much poorer condition, with much of the rock having slipped down the slope. We compared it to the photo and there was a distinct similarity and, of course, it's hard too imagine why anyone except an army would go to so much trouble in what is, in truth, the middle of nowhere.

The retaining wall:

The levelled area:

We also visited Monte Rasta, the Sacrario Militare di Asiago, San Sisto ridge, Boscon, Granezza and Barenthal CWGC cemeteries and the museums at Canove and Tresche. I was surprised and delighted at the number of Italian families visiting the cemeteries, which are immaculate as CWGC sites always are.

There are other photos of Asiago and the rest of the trip in the same Photobucket album at:

http://s637.photobuc...4/Holiday 2012/

Keith

[P3zi]

Ciao Keith.

for me a great pleasure to know you and your wife.

A big pleasure to walk with you on the places that have seen to fight your grandfather.

I have succeeded in returning in the day of Tuesday and we have returned to make a turn in the trenches....this the result.

Is a collar Badge of the 1/4 Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire light infantry

[Rockdoc]

Ciao Paolo,

I cannot say how grateful we are to you and Kibe for looking after us so well. I hope that we'll come back to the area before too long and be able to see some of the many other places along the Italian Front. That badge is a great find.

My Grandfather never served in Italy. His original unit, 25 Battery RFA in 35 Brigade, did come as part of 7th Division but he was transferred to the RGA and sent to Greece, as a member of 99th Anti Aircraft Section, where he stayed until January 1919. My interest in the AA positions at Tresche and Cima di Fonte/del Porco are from the interest in AA gunnery that's grown from researching his time in Greece.

The levelled area we found makes a lot of sense, now that I've seen it. There was no road that went to that part of the slope and building one that would have allowed a lorry of the period to reach it would have required a huge amount of man-power and time, neither of which was available. Although levelling the slope would have still required considerable work, it would have been much less that making a road and two, even larger platforms to allow them to bring two gun-lorries into action. The two similar sites for a single gun-lorry that we found in Greece last year were about 10m x 30m, a considerably bigger area that the one we found.

I'm not worried about the position being on the rear slope of the ridge, either. Attacking planes would have had to fly at a reasonable altitude or they would be vulnerable to machine-gun fire from the infantry. With a forward-observation officer at the crest of the ridge, the gunners would have been able to fire before the plane was visible to them, something that would have been necessary given the length of time - 20-30 seconds - it took for the shell to reach where they predicted the plane would be. Even at the speeds planes travelled at this time, AA gunners often only had a matter of seconds to fire their shells before the plane went out of range so they needed every advantage they could find.

I'll be very interested to hear what you find on the upper, levelled area when you have the opportunity to do a full survey. If it is the AA position, which I think it almost certainly is, I think the fixings for the gun mountings may still be in place.

Grazie mille,

Keith