Sinnai today commemorated the 110th anniversary of the birth of the 151st Infantry Regiment of the Sassari Brigade, founded in 1915 on the outskirts of the town that today is home to the Sant'Isidoro neighborhood. A story 110 years ago but still full of poignant memories. From here, the soldiers left for war. Also many Sinnaesi who never returned, falling on the front as heroes. Today they are buried in the War cemeteries of the north, one, even in the Czech Republic, in Milowice together with six thousand other Sardinian, Italian, Russian, Austrian soldiers, taken prisoner and taken so far away, also finding death and burial in a cemetery cared for by "Onor Caduti". Today in Sinnai, those memories echoed during a moving ceremony in the presence of the mayor Barbara Pusceddu, citizens, school children, the “Sassari” musical band, Colonel Alessio Argese, commander of the 151st Infantry Regiment, other political and military authorities. Several relatives of the Fallen. Sinnai thus remembered its heroes and the 110th anniversary of the foundation of the 151st Regiment, born right here, in March 1915, from where, then, the unit left for war that then arrived in Naples on the steamship “America” to then reach the places of the war.
The ceremony saw the blessing and the laying of the laurel wreath, the speeches of the mayor Barbara Pusceddu who remembered the Fallen and their heroism, and of Colonel Argese. Then the names of the Fallen were chanted by the former commander of the Sassari Brigade band, Andrea Atzeni, now retired and member of the Organizing Committee. There was great emotion between the notes of the Sassari musical band and the speech of the poet from Sinnai Ignazio Cappai with a poem dedicated to the boys of those times.
Andrea Atzeni's splendid reading of a testimony by Giuseppe (Peppeddu) Aledda, then 14 years old (who died many years ago) who witnessed, in those distant days, the birth of the Infantry Regiment 151. Peppeddu Aledda, who later became a barber, shoemaker and collaborator of the company that took care of the electricity bills) also witnessed the departure of the soldiers of the newly born Regiment. He was with his father who was the sacristan and who had rung the bells at the passage of that endless line of soldiers and their families in tow. A testimony collected by local scholars of those events, which later also ended up in a book by Angelo Perra, author of several volumes on Sinnai. <At the time - this extraordinary witness had recounted several times - I was only 14 years old, but I remember well that, since January 1915, we were all accustomed to seeing a coming and going of soldiers in the town that progressively increased so much so that, little by little, the population began to become familiar with those young people, camped out in tents and shacks on the outskirts of Sinnai.
On the morning of May 12, preparations were in full swing in the camp, which suggested something big was in the air: in fact, in the evening, when the town was completely immersed in darkness (since we didn't yet have electric lighting at the time), I went to the square to wait for my father (the sacristan at the time), and then went home with him. While I was waiting, to my great surprise, I heard the bells ringing out loud, as was customary for great celebrations. A few minutes later I saw an interminable column of soldiers march by: they were walking with steps made heavy by the load of their bundled backpacks and by their fully armed formation. In the meantime, the doors of all the houses opened at their appearance, and people, with lit candles, came out into the street to applaud their passage. I saw quite a few women, young and old, with tears in their eyes. Those boys were the soldiers of the 151st who were heading for the port of Cagliari, accompanied by the population of Sinnai; I too joined that particular and moving "escort": we all followed those young people in grey-green beyond the edge of the town >.
A ship was waiting for those boys at the port of Cagliari: the steamship “America” which, the following day (May 13, 1915) ferried them to Naples. They were very young people called to serve their country; many of them for this same country would never touch their native soil again. There was great emotion among those present today at the commemoration. An extraordinary testimony collected by those who loved Sinnai and its past. That story also ended up in an exhibition in Sinnai on the Sassari Brigade. And, then, in Angelo Perra’s book kept in many families.
