Bomb site cleared 60 years later

This morning work started on clearing a house that has been sitting in ruins since 1944. The house next to the Palazzo Balduini in Piazza Garibaldi was destroyed by artillery shells on Boxing Day 1944. Accounts differ as to who was responsible for the shelling .. some maintain it was the Americans who were shelling Sommocolonia in an attempt to stop the forward edge of a blitzkreig offensive that was to throw elements of six Axis divisions at U.S. Army detachments in the Serchio Valley.... others maintain that it was the German artillery on the hills behind Barga shelling the town. Who ever was responsible, the house was completely destroyed and the families living there (and who were fortunately at the time sheltering elsewhere) never returned to their shattered house.

Alberto Tognarelli (known to all as Albertone) was a young boy at the time but remembers clearly the day the house was destroyed and also wistfully recalls that his father hid most of their possessions in one of the cantinas just before the house collapsed and covered the hiding place with tons of rubble.

That rubble has now been sitting there for 60 years. He awaits with interest to see what will finally come to light this month as the workman start to clear the ruins.

The project should be completed shortly and a new split level piazza and grassed area should be made ready to replace the bomb site.