After serving four years at Eurocorps, Lieutenant Colonel Federico PIROLA will now go back to Italy to occupy a new position. During the last four years, Federico was the Italian Representative and participated in countless meetings and exercises in the Headquarters, contributing his knowledge and experience to further improve planning. While posted at Eurocorps, he was still able to find time to investigate and write an excellent book with real-life stories of Italian army sappers during WWII. This interview is a way of recognizing Federico’s work at Eurocorps, hear about his own military experience and fully understand his book Varco!
My name is Federico PIROLA. I am 42 years old and I am from Piemonte, in North-Western Italy.
I started my Military career at the age of 16, at the Italian Navy Military College “F. Morosini” in Venezia, after which I went to the Italian Army Military Academy where I was commissioned as Engineer Officer in 2005.
I have served for 15 years in the 32nd Mountain Combat Engineer Regiment, mostly as Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer in Explosive Remnants of War removal operations in homeland, as well as during several deployments abroad. In 2013, following a combat action in Afghanistan, I was awarded the Italian Army Silver Cross, the United States Bronze Star and the US Army Combat Action Badge.
In 2020, I was assigned to Eurocorps, where I now serve as Engineer Operations Chief, EOD officer and Italian Representative.
In June 2022, the editor “Edizioni del Capricorno” published my book “Varco! Genieri all’assalto” (Italian for: Breach! Engineers to the assault), a solid research work of 400 pages analyzing the creation of Italian Army Sappers in 1940 and their deployment during WW2 through official military documents, letters and diaries of the protagonists.
I am currently a Staff Officer Plans in GENG (Engineering) branch, responsible for the preparation of all documents related to MILENG (Military Engineering) support for both operations and exercises. For EURETEX 24, I was mainly responsible for developing training objectives and the LIVEX concept, drafting operational orders for the LIVEX portion of the exercise and drawing up the Distinguished Visitors Day (DVD) concept. During the exercise, I coordinated all training activities and managed daily orders to keep the exercise running smoothly. In Drawsko Pomorskie, I played two roles: MELMIL Officer and part of the Situation Center, controlling Red force activities. Additionally, during the DVD, I was Officer in Charge of the dynamic exercise, showcasing the main capabilities of engineering and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear) forces in support of the infantry element. I am also a happy husband and father.
What motivated you to become a writer?
I have always been a passionate reader and a history buff. My beloved grandfather Michele used to tell me stories about his time serving as a sailor during WW2. In these stories, one event in particular has remained engraved in my mind: the human torpedo attack perpetrated by Italian Navy Commando “Decima Mas” to penetrate the British Harbor of Alexandria in Egypt in December 1942. I quickly realized that the only way to save events and their protagonists from oblivion was to tell their stories.
I am convinced that studying and understanding the past is crucial if we want to develop a better present.
What was the inspiration behind writing this book?
Traditions, for military units, are the basis of “esprit de corps”. I am also a musician and, to quote Gustav Mahler, “tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire”
When I joined my Regiment back in 2005, I was slightly disappointed to discover that we did not really have an official history of the Unit, despite its important heritage. Only later did I realize that the lack of information was due to the fact that most of the protagonists had fallen in battle.
This prompted me to dig deeper, looking for living veterans or their family members, to try and put some pieces of the puzzle together.
During a deployment in north-west Afghanistan in 2010, I lost five men from my Sapper Company in combat, in two different actions, while they were carrying out Route Clearance and IED neutralizing tasks. Two of them were posthumously awarded the highest military distinction: the Gold Medal for Military Valor. Their story and the ones of those who preceded us were to be collected in a book celebrating the Regiment.
How was your writing process?
It all started out of curiosity. Some veterans or families did not want to remember those sad days of war, others on the contrary were keen to provide me with personal diaries, the letters they constantly wrote to their families, but also memorabilia such as uniforms, medals, certificates and souvenirs.
I soon realized that I had at my disposal an enormous heritage of personal impressions of this period, and that it was worth publishing. All that was missing was the official part: this meant a trip to military and state archives to track down official documents, war diaries and the service records of the main characters.
This research took me around ten years: in the meantime, the Afghanistan campaign required massive use of Sappers and Bomb Disposal Teams, which led me to spend a total of over three years in that country.
What can you tell us about the main characters and the plot of your book?
The first chapter analyzes the birth of Combat Engineers in the Italian Army: the first actions during the “Risorgimento campaigns” for the unification of Italy 1848-1871 and WW1 and the necessity of creating Combat Engineers after the success of the German Sturmpioniere in breaching the Maginot Line in May 1940.
The Sapper School in Civitavecchia’s “Campo dell’Oro” developed a new concept of tactics based on WW1 Italian Commandos “Arditi”. The students, all volunteers, were selected after a tough session of physical testing, followed by training focused on developing strength, agility and bravery. Tactics were carried out in pairs of soldiers alternating shooting and movement, and exploiting the terrain for cover. At the same time, brand new weapons and equipment – such as explosive charges, Bangalore torpedoes, hollow charges and metal detectors – were introduced. I thought this was worth analyzing from a technical point of view: after all, Engineers are technical troops too!
Once the sappers have completed their training, the story continues, from Chapter 2 to Chapter 12, with their deployment on the North African campaign. The backbone of the narrative is now the 32nd Sapper Battalion’s war diary, interspersed daily with personal accounts drawn from the letters and journals of the unit’s officers and soldiers, enriching the story with different personal points of view. While the first chapter is strictly military and technical, the narrative that follows is so rich in personal viewpoints that I realized it was equally appreciated by a civilian audience, as if it were a novel. The sappers were part of the Special Forces and didn’t always behave: there are many hilarious episodes where the brave, disciplined soldiers turn, in their spare time, into troublemakers.
The main character of the book is 2nd Lieutenant Rolando de Angelis. He is a student of mathematics who, at the end of his conscription as Engineer Officer, volunteers for the Sapper school.
Once graduated and deployed to Libya, he quickly proved himself a true leader and brave warrior: during the first siege of Tobruk in May 1941, leading his platoon to storm bunkers through minefields and barbed wire, under machine-gun fire, he was awarded two silver medals for Military Valor just two weeks apart. Rolando wrote detailed letters to his family every week until he died on the field of honor during the first battle of El Alamein, on July 17, 1942.
The chaplain of the Sapper Battalion recovered his trunk and uniform and sent them back to his family, who gave them to me, along with the letters and all his archives. For the book presentations, I display Lieutenant de Angelis’ uniform and trunk, because I’m convinced that seeing history with one’s own eyes is a unique opportunity.
What has been the response of the readers so far?
The book has been published in 1,500 copies and more than half have been sold over the last year and a half.
Living in Strasbourg, it is not always easy to promote presentations and readings, although I have had the opportunity to present it to the French public on two different occasions, at the Institute of Italian Culture in Strasbourg and at a conference at the MM Park museum in La Wantzenau.
I am currently looking for an editor interested in translating my work into English in order to make it accessible to a wider audience.
Are you working on any other project?
“Varco!” covers a period from 1940 to 1942. In the course of my ten years of research, I have gathered the material necessary to cover the period 1943-1945. I am already working on the second chapter, which will be devoted to the Mountain Sappers and their deployment in Russia, as well as the troubled period of the civil war that followed, during which two different Sapper units fought on two opposing fronts while retaining the same spirit of fraternity and bravery.
I firmly believe in what Sappers represent in the Italian Army and I hope, through my work, to have sown a tree with strong roots, because as J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “..deep roots are not reached by the frost”.
Federico, thank you very much for this interview. It was a pleasure to learn more about your story and your book. I wish you all the best for your next assignment in Italy, and every success for your future projects.