There are places that guard history more jealously than others, where the echo of past events is barely whispered, as if they feared that the memory, as soon as it was uttered, would be blown away by the wind. Aspromonte, like many other places in our Apennines, is an ancient mountain and a strict guardianso much so that from afar it almost seems as if history has never passed through there.
Instead, it certainly passed through the Calabrian mountains and, in some cases, even left its mark in popular memory: this is what happened to that remote place in the territory of Africo, which for decades, among the local shepherds, it took the name of the Black Sea“the poor Englishman”. A name that preserves a sad story, which dates back to when the Second World War touched the slopes of Aspromonte.
It was rebuilt by Alfonso Picone Chiodo, owner of the page The Other Aspromontewhich has been working for years to collect stories, documents and testimonies from an unjustly neglected territory, which reserves many fascinating stories and aspects, often yet to be discovered. That of Maru’s sadin particular, comes from the voice of the ninety-year-old pastor Francesco Stilo, the only witness to the story.
It was September 4, 1943 and the day before, while the Cassibile armistice was being signed in secret, the Allies had started Operation Baytown, landing in Calabria. The Strait of Messina had become an active front, crossed by fighter-bombers, ships and artillery. The next day, the air battle moved to the Aspromonte countryside.
The Macchi and Reggiane of the Regia Aeronautica in fact, returning after an attack on the landing ships, they crossed paths with Royal Air Force Spitfires britannica. “Between machine guns and dives – says L’Altro Aspromonte – the clash moved from the coastal area towards the interior, over mountains accustomed to completely different noises: thunder, bleating”.
From this point on, the story went unnoticed: the one who told it, eighty years later, was the shepherd who witnessed it with his own eyes. At the foot of that fiery hell, in fact, was the young Francesco Stilo, then seventeen years oldin the company of an elderly colleague. Hearing the thunder of machine guns, the two men sought refuge in a rock cavity. In a panic, the old man repeated to himself: “Ohji ‘ndi mmazzanu Cicciu… ohji ‘ndi mmazzanu” (They are killing us today, Francesco). Then – says the ninety-year-old Francesco – suddenly there was silence.
In the following days, a rumor began to circulate among those mountains: a plane had crashed into the rocks in the Lefràcia area. Rushing to the scene, the Africans found the remains of a young Anglo-Saxon boy inside. Feeling sorry for his fate, they buried him in the town cemetery; not only that, since that day the accident site took a new name: the Black Sea, “the poor Englishman”.
“Eighty years later, on May 31, 2023, I organized a small expedition to reach the site of the impact”, says Alfonso Picone Chiodo The Other Aspromonte. “Among stony rocks, cliffs and lush vegetation tiny fragments of the plane were found: aluminium, plastic, seals burnt by time. Light traces, but enough to confirm the story. Many pieces, already in the years immediately following the war, had been reused by shepherds: the metal became a resource, like everything, in a land where nothing is wasted. Even the war, which fell from the sky, had been absorbed into the daily life of Aspromonte”.
It was he who discovered the true identity of that “poor Englishman”. Francesco Stilo – not the shepherd who witnessed it then, but his grandson – who today is a researcher and bears the same name as his grandfather. In the photo from L’Altro Aspromonte, you can see the two Francesco Stilos: the young researcher and the pastor grandfather.
Well, during his research at the National Archives of Australia, Stilo’s nephew made several discoveries: first of all, that the young man who fell from the sky was not English but Australian. The aircraft shot down was a Spitfire Mk. Vc of the 111th Squadron Raf. The pilot’s name was George Vallance McMurray, sergeant of the Royal Australian Air Force.
George was born in 1921, in the suburbs of Melbourneand – according to the report – during combat on 4 September 1943 his Spitfire was seen to overturn and fall vertically.
Before putting on an aviator uniform, the young Australian was the jackaroothe shepherd. Curious fate: a shepherd who died on the other side of the world and was welcomed by shepherds. “Destiny – comments Chiodo – wanted his life to end here, among harsh and silent mountains, among other shepherds, who did not know him but recognized him. Not as an enemy, but as one of their own. Thus the war, for a moment, stripped itself of its flags and left room for an ancient gesture: giving a name, a burial, a memory”.
We of The Highlands We became aware of this surprising story only thanks to the dissemination project of Alfonso Picone Chiodo, who for years has been committed to promoting the Aspromonte area through numerous editorial projects. Striving daily to restore a dimension of the deep and rooted humanity that characterizes the mountains of the peninsula, we have chosen to report it – with the author’s consent – because we sincerely believe in the universality of its messageand which may be of interest to anyone who shares our gaze on the highlands.
Photos from: The Other Aspromonte
