Gold Medal: Angelo Ampezzan

Born in 1915 in Zoldo Alto (Belluno)
Corporal major, reserve
7th Alpini Regiment
336th Alpini Garrison Company

Citation for the Gold Medal of Military Valour (posthumous):

Already decorated for valour, during a bloody fight against rebel bands in treacherous terrain he led his squad by example, fighting on even after being seriously wounded in the left arm. With exemplary stoicism, using his one good arm, he first brought a machine gun back into action and fired it, then drove back the pressing enemy with hand grenades. Mortally hit by a machine-gun burst, he fell like a hero, saying to his captain: “I did my duty to the very end. May God forgive my sins.”

Berlog (Croatia), 3–4 April 1943

Biographical notes:

(other decorations: War Cross, Balkans, September 1942)

Born into a large family of craftsmen, he worked with his father running a sawmill until he was called up in April 1936. Assigned to the 12th Alpini Regiment and promoted to corporal, at the end of the year he attended the regimental ski course and qualified as a scout with the grade of “excellent”. When the 12th Alpini was disbanded he moved to the 7th Alpini Regiment in April 1937; he was promoted to corporal major and discharged the following August. Recalled in 1939 to the “Pieve di Cadore” battalion, after the declaration of war on 10 June 1940 he took part in operations on the western Alpine front with the “Val Piave” battalion. In February 1941 he was transferred to the mobilised “Val Tagliamento” battalion, then engaged on the Greek-Albanian front, where a month later he was seriously wounded. Repatriated on the hospital ship “Gradisca”, he spent time in hospital and in July of the same year, as soon as he had recovered, he returned first to the depot of the “Pieve di Cadore” battalion and was then sent to Croatia, to the 336th Alpini Garrison Company. In command of an isolated blockhouse, he distinguished himself at Sinac in September 1942, repelling an attack by rebel bands after four days of resistance.

(The citation and biographical notes are taken from the book «Le Medaglie d’Oro al valor militare», Gruppo Medaglie d’Oro al valor militare d’Italia, Rome 1965.)

 

 

Related article: The Sons of Belluno at War.