The weapons were kept under surveillance around the clock in two shifts, from 8.30 am to 8.30 pm and 8.30 pm to 8.30 am. The Germans had occupied Castel Sant'Elmo since September 9, and had seized the armaments, with particular interest in the special ones. The castle itself was a primary target for the Allies in those days precisely because of these unconventional weapons, and for some time their own secret services had been interested in it.
Vittorio D'Aiazzo was about to tell his subordinate to ignore his previous order and to go and get some rest, when there were gunshots from Via Medina, first from rifles and a light machine gun, then, in rapid succession, an assault rifle and a machine gun.
Deputy Commissioner and assistant had instinctively ducked then, with their legs bent, had moved to the window and peeked out to look below, showing themselves as little as possible.
At the same time, several other policemen had looked down from their respective offices, both the staff coming off duty and those coming on, as it was chngeover time, 8.00 am on the dot. Having just arrived, the deputy Head of Police Remigio Bollati had also glanced surreptitiously out his window; his office opened off the same corridor as Vittorio's and the two rooms were next to each other.
Depending on the position of his window and as he looked down, he had seen or glimpsed the German platoon standing still in the middle of the road about fifty yards past the front door and the neighboring driveway. From the shelter of their vehicles, lined up transversely, they were engaged in a gun battle with people who had to be further down the street that couldn’t be seen from the Police Headquarters building, but the gunshots coule be heard very clearly. It could be assumed that they were taking cover behind the walls in ruin and the piles of rubble of two nearby buildings facing each other, bombed a few days before September 8 by American fast-response fortifications.
To better understand, let's go back a little:
With the Neapolitan Revolutionary Single Front having been formed, and given the reluctance of the Prefect Soprano to take charge of it, the seventy-year-old laborer Antonio Taraia had been elected to head it. On September 24, considering the situation now ripe for the insurgence, he had called a meeting for the following morning in the Sannazaro high school, so as to put the decision about it to the vote. He had arrived at the conviction that it was now time to act, not only because of the news that the Anglo-Americans were now almost at the gates of Naples which he had received in advance from the philosopher Benedetto Croce who had heard it confidentially from Dr. Soprano, but also because, following coded agreements made by radio with the Americans, weapons and two-way radios of the US Army intended for the partisans had just been parachuted in at night, near Naples.
They had been hidden immediately afterwards in seven cellars in as many different areas of the city; the operation had taken place with the essential contribution of a group of bribed camorristi, ready to run serious risks in view of the very high earnings promised to them by the Americans. We should not be surprised by this alliance, the United States had already availed themelves of, and continued to use the mafia’s help in occupied Sicily where, among other things, numerous new notoriously mafia mayors had been installed by the conquerors. The camorra, as well as the Mafia, was organized in an almost military fashion and, in particular, had many large trucks available in Naples.
The arms operation had been meticulously organized by the Americans; among other things, instruction leaflets on the use of the parachuted weapons, written in correct Italian, had been taken to the Sannazaro high school by some American agents who had crossed the lines at night. In this way the Neapolitan patriots could be theoretically instructed on their operation by the agents themselves, which would make the practical instruction faster and easier. For logistical reasons, this would take place just a little before the uprising, at the moment the weapons were recovered from the seven storage places.
At the meeting of September 25, the decision to rebel was unanimous. Around noon, messengers had been sent to tell the custodians of the American war material.
The following day, Sunday, seven leaders of patriot groups who had already assisted at the storage of the weapons in the secret places, had presented themselves not long before curfew time, one at each storage room, to prepare the weapons to be collected the same night by their men, who would arrive at the hiding places around 5.00 am on Monday, September 27.
So, after 6 am on that same day of September 27, having collected their weapons, the groups of freedom fighters had headed to their targets. While the platoons trained in the Sannazaro High School by the American agents were carrying U.S. weapons, namely M1 Garand semi-automatic rifles and BAR M1918 Browning machine guns that used the same 7.62 caliber projectiles, Mk2 pineapple hand grenades and M1 bazooka portable anti-tank rocket launchers, the other groups of insurgents had weapons captured from the Germans in the clashes during the early days, namely Mauser Kar 98k rifles, MP80 assault rifles, 24 hand grenades and Panzerwurfmine grenades with their Panzerfaust anti-tank bomb launchers; there were also personal knives or taken from domestic kitchens and some double-barrelled shotguns previously secreted in cellars or attics by their fond hunter owners after the German occupation,.
That morning, however, the first gunshot had not been preordained. On the contrary it had ignited spontaneously at the Vomero by relatives of people that had been rounded up. They had stopped an off-road Kübelwagen Typ 82 of the Wehrmacht, killing the marshal who was driving it and putting the other soldiers to flight; other non-organized actions had taken place around Naples soon after and, here and there, carabinieri on patrol and officers of Public Security and the Guardia di Finanza had spontaneously joined the rebel groups.
Shortly before the start of school lessons, ten unarmed high school students had thrown themselves, on the spur of the moment, at three Germans who were on patrol in their Kübelwagen, proceding at walking pace. They had forced them to get out, disarmed them and set fire to their off-road vehicle, while the Alemannic threesome had fled. Those Germans, however, had raised the alarm with their department, and two German platoons had arrived with the support of a powerful sdKfz 231 Schwere Panzerspähwagaen 6 rad armoured car. The ten young people had taken refuge and barricaded themselves in the nearby San Martino Museum and the armored vehicle had begun to strafe the windows, as news of the students’ action and the danger they were in was spreading through Naples, echo after echo.
Among the actions which, instead, the Resistance had prepared, were first of all the well-known attack on the column of German grenadiers in Via Medina and the action of a platoon of carabinieri who, with their colonel commander’s approval had headed to the San Martino Museum aboard a Lancia CM truck23 to fight the Germans were besieging the rebellious students with their short 91muskets and SRCM 3524 hand grenades. Some civilians in the area had spontaneously placed themselves at the side of the Benemerita military.
That same morning, still in response to the democratic leaders’ previous order, one hundred freedom fighters had attacked Castel Sant'Elmo. Inside, among the Germans barricaded there, was the tired platoon of grenadiers who had remained on guard at the armory the whole night, without being relieved because, as we know, the fresh platoon coming on duty had been engaged in combat in Via Medina.
As the pressure of events increased, the post commander, Colonel Scholl, had moved his powerful Tiger- and Panther-class panzers, but a number of them had been blocked and set on fire by rioters, thanks to a few panzerfaust25 stolen from the enemy, American bazookas and Molotov cocktails.
As the gun fight in Via Medina continued, the head of Police Headquarters, Dr. Carmelo Pelluso, having moved away from the window of his office on the first floor, from which he had cautiously watched the German platoon engaged in combat, was about to call his Deputy Commissioners by intercom to give orders regarding it, when the phone on his desk had started ringing.
At the other end of the line was his