Camillo Part 1
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How old were you when the Second World War begun?
I had gone to elementary school here
Then I went to Rome, because here... after elementary, there weren't more schools
So my father, said, Camillo, I'm Camillo, should continue his studies
My dad was a businessman so I wanted to become one too. But he said no no
So I studied engineering
So I did 5 years of engineering in Rome
He wanted me to go forward with my studies
But I felt bad leaving my father here alone
But for high school I decided on the institute ....... you could still go there today.
But they want to know... how old you were when the war started?
I was 19
As I said, I was busy with studies and projects
The police came with my draft card.... "August 13th 1940 I needed to go to the taglieto (?) airport in Milan
So you had to serve?
Forgive me for saying so much, because I enjoy speaking
I was selected to be a Marconista (radio operator)
Because, nowadays there is all this modern technology
But in this period, there weren't all these electronic inventions of today
I had to participate in the war for the continuation of all flights
I flew all the time during the war
Being a radio operator...
Do you know what a Marconist is? Do you know Marconi?
The Italian who invented the radio
I had an American key
On board we had the headphones to receive
And we had the key to transmit
The key from the keyboard of a computer
Because we were the S-79
I had a little space behind the pilot
There was a little radio-electrographic table with radio cards
Marconista meant radio operator and meteorologist. So I studied weather as well
So you had to calculate the weather for the pilots?
He had to send the weather reports
There was a radiophone and we spoke in flight
But if the airplane was further than (100 meters) ?we couldn't understand anything
We used morse code
Do you know morse code? Oh yes
We were also in contact with Russia with morse code