Escape (10 page)

Right from the start the war went badly for Italy. Italian colonies, established in Africa before the war, were quickly lost. Italian troops, sent to help the Germans in their disastrous invasion of Russia, suffered terribly. Then, in the summer of 1943, British, American and other allied troops invaded the south of Italy and were now slowly working their way up to Rome.

On July 25th, 1943, Mussolini was summoned to see the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel III. The king told him the war seemed lost and that he, Mussolini, was now “the most hated man in Italy”. Marshall Pietro Badoglio had been made head of state in his place. Mussolini was then arrested, bundled into an ambulance, and driven off to a secret location.

Hitler was not just worried about his friend. He was deeply concerned that with Mussolini no longer leading the country, Italy might make peace with Germany's enemies, or even worse, change sides. There were hundreds of thousands of German troops in the country, and they would have to occupy Italy as a hostile force, rather than be there as allies, and this would not help the Germans at all.

The Nazi leader quickly realized that the way to solve the problem was to find Mussolini and help him escape. Once he was free, the Germans could use their soldiers to reinstate him as Italy's leader. But the Italians would know what the Germans would be thinking, and they would be hiding Mussolini very carefully. What Hitler needed was a daring rescue mission. He summoned a military aide and shared his thoughts. Who would they get to carry out such a daring rescue?

“Mein Führer,” snapped the aide, “I have just the man for the job.”

So it was that on the morning of July 26th, SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny stood nervously in an outer office of the “Wolf's Lair”. Skorzeny had seen the German leader before, but only as a distant, revered figure at huge military parades. Now he was going to meet him face to face.

The first thing anyone noticed about Skorzeny was his huge size. Tall, and built like an ox, he was an intimidating, imposing figure. The second thing they noticed was the scar on his left cheek. This he had picked up as a student in Vienna. In the 1920s duelling was popular among University students, and Skorzeny had taken part in 15 duels with rivals. He had embraced Hitler's evil Nazi philosophy in the 1920s too, even though the Nazis wanted to ban duelling when they came to power.

Skorzeny came from a long line of military men, and was a natural daredevil and leader. He seemed to be addicted to danger. When the Nazis did come to power and banned duelling, he took up motor racing instead. When the Second World War began Skorzeny joined the SS – a branch of the German military made up of elite Nazi troops. He fought bravely with the infamous Totenkopf (Death's Head) division in Yugoslavia and Russia. But ill health dogged him and he was forced to return to Germany, where he was given the job of setting up a unit of SS commando troops – special units that would carry out unusual, daring and very risky missions. Skorzeny had established his own commando training school, and now he was about to be given the opportunity to show what his men could do.

Hitler greeted Skorzeny with great formality, and told him the startling news of Mussolini's capture and disappearance. The Nazi leader outlined his fear that Italy might surrender. He told Skorzeny that he was to fly to Italy at once and rescue his friend. The plan was to be given the code name
Operation Eiche
(Operation Oak). No risk was too great, for as soon as Mussolini was free, Italy and Germany could continue to fight the war together.

The meeting was over. Skorzeny bowed respectfully, gave a Nazi salute, and was ushered away. He had assured Hitler he would free Mussolini or die in the attempt, and as he walked away he was aware of the fact that he would be taking part in a mission that could change the fate of nations. His mind was already racing, wondering how he could carry out this seemingly impossible task. If he knew where Mussolini was he could plan the escape. But for now, he would have to bide his time, until news of the whereabouts of the deposed Italian leader reached him.

So the waiting began. German spies snooped where they could, and German radio technicians secretly monitored all Italian military radio communications, hoping to pick up clues. The situation was very delicate. To many of the Italian people, especially those who had lost fathers and sons in the war, Mussolini well may have been the “most hated man in Italy”, but there were still many Italians, especially in the armed forces, who supported him.

The trail grew hot and cold. At first, Mussolini was taken to the island of Ponza, near to Rome. Then he was transferred to an Italian naval base at La Maddalena, an island off Sardinia. Here Skorzeny planned a daring rescue using high-speed boats, but before he could carry it out Mussolini was moved again, and it was several weeks before another clue gave away his location.

Meanwhile, events in Italy had moved on. On September 8th, 1943, Badoglio's government ordered its troops to stop fighting against the British and Americans, and Italy was no longer at war. German troops in Italy immediately occupied key military bases, disarmed Italian troops where they could, and seized Rome. But there was still a grave danger that Italy would turn against its former allies.

With all this going on around him, Skorzeny had a change of luck. He had found out that Mussolini was being held by an Italian General named Gueli. When a coded message from Gueli was intercepted, giving away his hiding place, Skorzeny sprang into action.

Mussolini had been flown to a winter ski resort – the Albertgo-Rifugio hotel near Gran Sasso, which was the highest peak in the Apennine mountains. Here, 130km (80 miles) northeast of Rome, he was being held by 250 Italian troops. It was a well chosen spot: remote, and accessible to the outside word only by cable car.

Skorzeny considered his options. It was impossible to attack from below, but too dangerous to send in parachute troops, who would be scattered by high winds and dashed to pieces on the mountainside. The only option left was gliders. Gliders were very dangerous too. They were flimsy, clumsy things, but they made no noise. The more he thought about it, the better an idea it seemed. In fact, gliders would be perfect. They would land silently next to the hotel, and his men could rush out and seize Mussolini before the Italian soldiers knew what was happening. At least that was what he hoped.

On September 10th Skorzeny took a flight over the hotel to photograph likely landing spots, and the planning began in earnest. September 12th was chosen as the day of the attack, and an Italian general named Soleti agreed to come along on the mission. He was a supporter of Mussolini and Skorzeny intended him to call out to the Italian troops and order them not to fire.

So, on the morning of the attack, Skorzeny's SS commandos, and a detachment of Luftwaffe (airforce) parachutists gathered on the runway of the Practica di Mare airbase in Rome. As they stood waiting for their gliders to be readied many ate an early lunch, wondering, no doubt, if this would be the last meal they would ever eat.

But before they could board the gliders, American planes swooped over the airfield, dropping bombs on the runway. The troops scattered, and although no one was hurt, the runway now had several large bomb craters in it.

After a brief inspection of the runway Skorzeny decided his planes could still take off, and the attack proceeded as planned. There were twelve gliders and they were soon packed with Skorzeny's men and their equipment, ready to be towed into the air by powerful German bombers. But at 12:30pm, as soon as they began to take off, things started to go wrong. Two of the gliders hit the new craters and crashed during take-off, including the one Skorzeny had ordered to lead the attack. Now he himself would have to lead the way. Inside his cramped glider, he was wedged into his seat by the equipment he was carrying and could not move to see where they were going. So, he hacked a hole with a bayonet in the flimsy canvas at the side of the glider, to improve his view.

On the journey, another two gliders became seperated from the others in dense cloud and lost their way. Now there were only eight of them left. But after an hour the glider fleet was near to its target. The tow ropes that held the gliders to the bombers were released, and the bombers quickly veered away so the thunderous sound of their engines would not alert the Italian troops below. The gliders swooped silently down to the hotel like strange sinister birds, but as they got closer to the landing site Skorzeny had chosen, he realized it was much smaller and more dangerous than he had thought. It was covered with boulders and sloped steeply down to a deep ravine.

It was too late to go back now, and Skorzeny had promised Hitler he would rescue Mussolini at any cost. He brusquely ordered his pilot to land, and his glider hit the ground and cleaved its way through a rock-strewn meadow. But luck was with him. After a very bumpy landing, his glider came to a halt a mere 18m (60ft) away from the hotel.

Expecting to be cut down at any second by a hail of machine gun fire, Skorzeny and his men quickly poured out of the glider and stormed into the hotel entrance. Amazingly, no shots were fired. Maybe the Italians had been caught completely by surprise? Or maybe General Soleti, who was right behind Skorzeny shouting out that the Italian troops should not shoot, had indeed persuaded them not to defend the hotel.

Inside the hotel, Skorzeny immediately noticed two Italian officers operating a radio set. He kicked it over, smashing it to pieces, and then sprinted up the main hotel staircase. On the first floor, by a stroke of luck, Mussolini was in the first room he entered. Two stunned Italian officers guarding him were quickly overpowered. Now that he had the Italian leader with him, Skorzeny called upon the Italian troops to surrender.

There was a short pause, and then the Italian commanding officer accepted defeat. A white sheet was hung from a hotel window, and an Italian colonel presented Skorzeny with a goblet of red wine. Amazingly, not a shot had been fired in the attack, which had lasted a mere four minutes. In fact, as the Italians surrendered, the last of the gliders were landing outside the hotel. The only dead and injured in this extraordinary mission were the German troops in crashed gliders.

So far so good. Mussolini was now in German hands, but Skorzeny still had to get him away before the alarm was raised and more Italian troops arrived to stop them. This could prove to be just as dangerous as the initial assault. He had originally intended to take the Italian leader off the mountain by the cable car next to the hotel, but now he realized the best way out was to fly. Overhead circled a small Storch reconnaissance plane, which had been sent to overlook the mission from the air. This spindly two-seater plane could land and take-off in a tiny space. If anything was going to get Mussolini off the mountain it was this.

Skorzeny radioed orders for the pilot to come down, and his soldiers frantically cleared away boulders, stones and parts of broken glider from the meadow, to make the landing spot safer. The Storch approached, and landed in front of them. Mussolini squeezed in next to the pilot, and then Skorzeny eased himself in behind him. The pilot strongly protested that the plane was not meant for three people, but Skorzeny felt personally responsible for Mussolini's safety, and was not going to let him out of his sight until both of them had returned to Germany.

The Storch was perilously overloaded. The pilot revved the engine to maximum power, with his brakes on, and Skorzeny's soldiers holding on to the plane to keep it steady. Then the brakes came off, the soldiers let go, and the Storch bumped across the meadow trying to build up speed. Before it was properly airborne, it lurched over the edge of the mountainside and plummeted to the valley below. The ground loomed alarmingly but, fortunately for all of them, the pilot was highly experienced. As the plane picked up speed, he eased it out of its near-fatal dive, and climbed above the mountains, heading for Rome.

Crammed into the small cockpit, Skorzeny spent an uncomfortable flight straining to hear the Italian dictator over the noise of the aircraft engine, as he raged against his former captors. Only when the Storch's wheels hit the runway of the German airforce base in Rome did Skorzeny finally relax. He had promised Hitler he would rescue his friend. Now here he was, sitting next to the Italian dictator, safe in German hands, and both of them were alive to tell the tale.