On 10 September 1943 , eighty years ago, in Tossilo , in the Castigadu area, the Nazi-fascists killed lieutenant colonel Giovanni Alberto Bechi Luserna, gold medal for military valour, who was trying to bring back to duty a unit of Italian soldiers who they had joined the retreating Germans.
To commemorate this figure who gave his name to an important street in Macomer, as well as the barracks that now house the Fifth Genio Gustatori of the Sassari Brigade, the AnpdI's Center for Studies on the History of Italian Military Parachuting together with the Bolotana section, under the patronage of the The Ministry of Defence, the Region and the Municipalities of Macomer, Bolotana and Bortigali are organizing two days of cultural and commemorative initiatives for the coming weekend, "Remembering Bechi Luserna", on the eightieth anniversary of his death.
The celebrations begin at 9 on Saturday 9 September , at 11.30, in the barracks named after Bechi Luserna, where honors will be rendered in front of the bust of the gold medal and a wreath will be placed.
In the afternoon, in the former Mura barracks, at 16.30 there will be a conference to remember the senior officer: speakers and historians will take turns to tell and analyze what Bechi Luserna did. The general of Brigadier Enrico Pollini, the general of Brigadier Cristiano Maria De Chigi, former head of the historical office of the Army General Staff, Federico Ciavattone, director of the study center of history of military parachuting will intervene. The conference will end with the intervention of the lawyer Giovanni Izzo.
Sunday 10 September the celebrations will begin at 9.15 in Tossilo-Castigadu, in the place where Bechi Luserna was killed, where a wreath will be placed. At 11, the commemorations will continue in Bolotana, in the monumental area "Italia", where a Mass will be celebrated and a memorial stone dedicated to the memory of Bechi Luserna will be unveiled.
The figure of Giovanni Alberto Bechi Luserna is remembered in a writing by Luisella Caria, historian, sister of the sergeant major Giannino Caria, decorated with the gold medal for civil value, a young member of the "Folgore" Parachute Brigade, who died heroically on November 18 of 1971 in the waters of Meloria, while trying to recover the bodies of his colleagues, who died in the tragedy of the Hercules C-130, which fell on November 9 of the same year.