The sky was clear , the morning of 5 September 1944. The sergeant major Maximilian Volke , 29, as he had always obeyed orders . "Nine bombers B - 25 Americans are flying over the Po valley to go to destroy the bridge over the Po at Polegate . Bring them down . " Maximilian Volke , in the base of Ghedi , started the engine of his Messerschmitt BF 109G6/U4 and in a few minutes he was on ' objective. Maybe it was not even excited. At nearly 30 years was a veteran : the Luftwaffe was considered a " Red Baron " , because he had shot down 37 Allied planes : many hunting and even some bomber . On the sky of Mirandola, along with another 3 Messerschmitt , he saw the planes 321esimo group of U.S. bombers .
He shot with the 30 mm cannon , as he bursts from the two 13 mm machine guns . One of the B -25 defenses. He was 11 machine guns with 7 gunners . A gust struck the hunting of Maximilian Volke .
A fall of three thousand feet , the crash between the rows of vines ripe . His was the ' last German fighter shot down in the Italian sky . His flock - Jagdgeschwader / 77 - was recalled to Germany a few days later , on September 15 . How crest had an Ace of hearts. The child Gianfranco Comini, in the morning of September 5, 1944 , he was playing in the courtyard of the elementary school in the center of Mirandola was the ' hour of recreation. Everyone stopped to play with the ball, when they heard the explosions in the sky of a battle. "I saw a great American plane , had around three or four smaller planes . You could hear the machine guns . Then , one of the smaller planes began to fall .
I still remember coming down strong and had the engine at full throttle . " The outbreak among the rows , the smoke and the flames . " We ran all of them away from school , see. We children were kept away . Soon after came the Germans who sent them all away . " After 63 years, the tomb of Maximilian Volke , born in Monaco May 23, 1915 , was found and the German driver will have his funeral. Volke are preparing for the funeral. We'll do it in September, Mirandola , hoping to be able to contact some family members . " The " Red Baron " of Monaco has been found in a July afternoon , after a long process of research of documents and testimonies. "From the German cards - says Michele Becchi, researcher and collaborator of the RAF ' historical institute of Resistance of Reggio Emilia - we knew that what fell to a mile and a half from the center of Mirandola could be your hunt for Volke . But rest assured we 've only had it when we found his plate . "
The German pilots , towards the end of '44 , they knew that most likely would have found the victory instead of death. 'C ' is a detail that struck us and moved. The Allied pilots , like all soldiers , carried the dog tag around his neck. Those Germans held her in his pants pocket , inside a leather bag . They had seen colleagues die , they knew that in the ' impact with the ground that it was armored bulkhead behind the pilot would have crashed into the engine , destroying the upper part of the body of the pilot. Volke also had the plate in his pocket. He wanted to be identified , in the case of killing.
Perhaps also asked that funeral we can do just now. " A Mirandola Ugo Tassinari , municipal employee , he sought the testimony of those who saw then , and has passed all ' Association Raf. " Cavicchioli Attilio , who was also a child, was among those who ran away in here after the fall of the Imperial hunting. She was able to indicate the precise point of the ' impact' . The old also recall other stories. "At the end of '46 , or '47 , an elderly gentleman came in Mirandola . He was looking for his son fell right here .
Also paid some laborers , because dug between the rows of vines . A year later he also introduced a young German who said he was the brother of the pilot. But with spades and shovels laborers made a hole two or three feet and found nothing . " They were 40 feet deep, the remnants of the Luftwaffe pilot ." Fortunately, there 's still some who remember. " In San Bernardino Lugo - was March 22, 1944 , is the testimony of Dina Bagnara - while we were behind the house to clean the grain, there was a battle in the air because there ' was the Germans who fought with the British. We looked : all those planes seemed swallows up there , they were so high. Then a German plane crashed in front of our house ' . "
The Germans took skilled workers for the drilling of wells to recover the remains of Allied planes , especially to study the weapons and techniques of construction. The craters caused by their aircraft were instead covered with earth. Maximilian Volke for more than sixty years' was only a memory, to the children playing in the schoolyard . After the funeral in September, will be buried in the German cemetery at the Futa Pass . On the marble, next to the name , an Ace of hearts. http://en.wikipedia.org
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