Forsaken Albania

By Artan Lame
Italo-Greek War, 1940. In October of 1940, Italy attacks Greece from Albanian territory, in futile combat that dragged on for eight months and which Mussolini only managed to win following German intervention. The Greeks who felt betrayed and invaded in their own Homeland, put up a powerful resistence that had not been anticipated by the Italian forces. This conflict cost the Italians dearly, 13,700 casulties, including 70 Albanian army officers, and the Greelks lost 13,400 troops. 3,000 Anglo-Canadians abd 1,300 Germans also perished in this war.
The first photograph shows the graves of English fighter pilots. The British, allies of the Greeks, undertook a series of air attacks and bombing raids against supply bases of the Italian Army in Albania, chiefly in Berat, Tepelena, Vlora and Durres. Their aim was to intercept and destroy Italian military supplies destined for the front. In this case, their aircraft must have been hit and brought down by Italian anti-air batteries. The crew members have been buried by the Italians with all military honours. Wooden croses have been erected at the head of the graves, which bear the names of the fallen and the Army Force he belonged to. The little graveyard is fenced by damaged strips of metal salvaged from the wreckage of the aircraft. For the Albanians, who don’t bother to honour their own fallen soldiers, let alone the fallen of the enemy, it is a little difficult to comprehend such a gesture, which is only normal for foreign armies. On the crosses you may read the names of at least two of the “enemy”. Lewis Bennet and R. Francis, while on the vertical post of the crosses the initials RAF (Royal Airforce) have been carved.
In the second photograph, you can see a monumental cemetry ffor the Italian servicemen who fell on the front. The graves hve been dug at the foot of a wall of a Church and also bear wooden crosses with the particulars of the fallen. At the head you can distinguish the words, “Sergent BARBIELLINI BERNARDO, 7. 11.1940; MAJOR VITO BEATO, 2.11.1940; VITO PANZA 4.11.1940, and so on. From the ranks, it appears they were high ranking officers which is quite significant, (60 years later, we liberated the whole of Kosovo without a single casualty, or am I mistaken, in the final account it was not us who liberated it?).
From the dates when they fell, it emerges that they were killed in the first days of the assult, in other words, on Greek territory, and this is why they were buried there. It is hard to belief that these poor souls rest today, with their own names above their heads. Who knows what names, like Janaqis or perhaps Harallambros, the Greeks have erected with their names engraved in the wood, at the head of the graves so that the numbers of men lost in combat tally.