777 Years

Late in World War II, while Allied armies crunched slowly up the peninsula, Italian partisans fought Germans in the north. As they usually do in desperate straits, the Communists made common cause with nonCommunists. Later--as they usually do when victory seems near--they turned on their erstwhile friends and tried to liquidate them.

In the northwest, Red machinations of this sort apparently brought about the death of Major William Holohan, American OSS officer (TIME, Aug. 27). In the northeast, around Udine in the province of Friuli, the Communist Garibaldi brigade and the non-Communist Osoppo brigade had been fighting as one division. The Osoppos were commanded by a tough regular army officer named Francesco de Gregori, whose nom de guerre was Bolla ("Bubble"). In the autumn of 1944 Bolla discovered that the Garibaldis were playing footie with Yugoslav Communists, and were more interested in grabbing chunks of Italian territory for Tito than fighting the common enemy. When Bella's division commander, a Communist, ordered the division across the border for incorporation into the Yugoslav army, Bolla refused to move his brigade.

One February morning in 1945 a posse of 150 Garibaldis set out before dawn, slogged through snowy upland pastures toward Bella's headquarters. As they approached, they hid their weapons under their overcoats, and told the sleepy guards that they were partisans looking for shelter. Once inside, they shot and killed Bolla and three others. They looted the Osoppo supplies' and later rounded up and killed 16 more Osoppo men.

After the war, high-placed friends of the Communist assassins tried to quash the matter. But 52 suspects were brought to the bar, charged with treason and murder. One trial misfired in Brescia and another got under way in Lucca. For 193 days, 300 persons (accused and witnesses) testified. An imposing battery of defense lawyers--provided by the Communist Central Committee--did not deny the killings, but argued that the Osoppos were Fascists interfering with the liberation.

Last week 41 of the accused, including the ringleaders, were found guilty (of murder, not treason) and sentenced to a total of 777 years. One Communist ringleader, who calls himself Franco, thrust his arm through the bars of his cage and shouted: "We are stronger than you! Long live the Italian resistance!"

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