King Charles recalled the "heroism" of
the Italian WWII Resistance against the Nazis in his historic
speech to parliament Wednesday and cited the "courage" of
101-year-old former Partisan Paola Del Din.
Noting that on Thursday he will travel to Ravenna with President
Sergio Mattarella and mark the 80th anniversary of the
province's liberation by the Allies, Charles recalled "the
terrible suffering of the civilian population, the heroism of
the Resistance, and Partisan Paola Del Din's courage".
Charles cited Del Din, a symbol of the Liberation struggle and
the only Gold Medal of Military Valor of the Resistance still
alive, for her service as an agent of the British Special
Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War.
The Friulian partisan of the Osoppo Brigade, who at 101 years of
age is among the last witnesses of the operations behind the
lines carried out by Her Majesty's secret services, had received
the sovereign's best wishes, through the British ambassador to
Italy Edward Llewellyn, after having passed the century of life
in 2023, as well as those of the President of the Republic,
Sergio Mattarella and the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who had
mentioned her in a letter to Corriere della Sera on the occasion
of her first April 25 (Liberation Day) as Prime Minister.
Del Din was trained by the SOE and parachuted into Friuli
exactly 80 years ago: today in fact marks the anniversary of the
start of the Bigelow mission to which the patriot was assigned.
"I know that on this day we are all thinking of Paola, who is
now 101 years old, and we pay homage to her courage", declared
Charles III in his speech to the joint chambers.
Before officially joining the ranks of the SOE in the summer of
1944, Del Din had carried out another high-risk mission on
behalf of Osoppo and Major Manfred Czernin, a British liaison
officer who had parachuted into Friuli, to bring top secret
documents to the Allied command, crossing the front line in
Florence.
She also always maintained a strong bond with the United
Kingdom, going to London several times after the war, and with
some officers he met during her training as an agent.
Among other historical quotes by King Charles there was also a
reference to the great passion of the British for Garibaldi,
well represented by the English biscuits that bear his name, and
to the soldiers of the Kingdom and the Commonwealth who fought
alongside the Italians in the First World War.
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