Camillo Part 1

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