Paolo Caccia Dominioni
Paolo Caccia Dominioni, 14th Baron of Sillavengo (14 May 1896 – 12 August 1992) was an Italian soldier, Alpini, engineer and writer, most noted for his leadership in the North Africa Campaign in World War II.
Caccia Dominioni was born in Nerviano, Lombardy. During his engineer's career in prewar Egypt, he developed a deep friendship with the Belgian expatriate Vladimir Peniakoff, later to be known as Popski – creator and leader of a World War II Special Forces unit called Popski's Private Army ("No 1 Demolition Squadron, PPA") – with whom he explored the Egyptian desert. A few years later the two friends were facing each other in Libya as enemies when World War II broke out. Caccia Dominioni fought in the First World War, the Libyan Campaign and the War in Ethiopia. Finally, after having first been assigned to Military Intelligence (Servizio Informazioni Militare), he was in 1942 with the rank of Major given command of the XXXI Battaglione guastatori (Combat Sappers battalion) on the El Alamein front until the defeat of the Axis forces in North Africa.
He joined the resistance against Benito Mussolini in Italy, was arrested by the Italian Militia and the Gestapo, who released him as an officer decorated personally by Erwin Rommel. His book on the Italian Campaign in North Africa, Alamein 1933–1962, was translated into English and published by Allen & Unwin in 1966 as Alamein 1933–1962: An Italian Story. Caccia Dominioni devoted his postwar career to the retrieving of soldiers' corpses on the Alamein battlefield and the design and construction of a cemetery and a memorial building, located on a particular spot on the Alamein battleground named "Hill 33", where – thanks to his 20 years of efforts – thousands of Italian, German and British unknown fallen soldiers were eventually identified and received a proper burial.
He died in Rome in 1992.
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