Fortunato Picchi

Fortunato Picchi was an Italian civilian and an avowed anti-fascist. Although little is known of his early life in Italy, he subsequently emigrated to Britain in the late 1920s, and later worked as head waiter at the Savoy Hotel London.

By 1941, he had achieved British citizenship. He gave up his job and volunteered for duty with the armed forces, subsequently serving with early paratroopers under the alias, Pierre Dupont in 1941.

During the planning stage for Operation Colossus (the raid on the Tragino Aqueduct) in Italy, it was decided that the raiding party should include some Italian speakers to assist during the 60-mile journey planned for the extraction by submarine. Eventually, three Italian speakers were taken amongst the 36 men selected to go on the raid. Two were servicemen, one was already a member of the 11th SAS Battalion, Private Nicol Nastri who travelled under the pseudonym Private John Tristan. The other was Flight Lieutenant R Lucky, an RAF intelligence officer. The third was the civilian, Fortunato Picchi. Flt Lt Lucky and Picchi were involved as interpreters and added to the raiding party almost at the last minute. Accounts suggest some officers on the raid thought the operation might just be a front to get a secret agent from the Special Operations Executive (SOE) into Italy.

In the early 1990s, during research for an article for After the Battle magazine Karel Margry asked the SOE Adviser at the Foreign Office to confirm or deny Flight Lieutenant Lucky’s involvement with SOE. It was confirmed that Flt Lt Lucky had no SOE connection. However, the adviser described Picchi as 'an ’SOE’ man'. Records indicated he was recruited at the end of 1940, and subsequently became the first Italian to volunteer to return to his homeland as an SOE agent. His SOE report stated:

’non-politically minded, but anti-fascist. An idealist, an excellent worker and organiser who cannot allow failure. Wants above all things for everyone to be treated fairly. Is prepared to shine in all England’s trials and has no desire to be treated in any way differently from an English soldier.’

Little else appears to be known about any potential role envisaged for Picchi after the success or failure of the paratroop raid however.

In preparation for his involvement in the Tragino Raid, Picchi underwent a crash course in parachuting at RAF Ringway. In order to protect his identity, he was given the alias of a Free Frenchman as 'Private Pierre Dupont'.

Picchi landed safely along with the other paratroopers in the Tragino valley on the night of 10 February 1941. After the aqueduct had been blown up, the raiding party split up into smaller groups to march to the submarine pick-up point. Picchi was in the party led by the raid commander Major Pritchard. This group was captured in the afternoon of 12 February  and eventually arrived at Naples prison, where the Italians initially concentrated all the captured paratroopers. Everyone was interrogated, although for reasons that are not clear, suspicions were soon aroused about Pte Pierre Dupont (Picchi’s) real identity.

His captors soon found out that he had been born in Italy and even found in their files a photo of him from before his emigration to England in 1929. This photo, which survived the war and later ended up in the SOE files, is stamped on the back "17th February 1941" - presumably the date when his real identity was established. He was taken away from the other POWs from the Raid shortly afterwards, and was later tried by the Italians for treason and found guilty. He was executed on 6th April 1941.

Fortunato Picchi died on 6 April 1941, aged 42 years old. He has no known resting place or official memorial.

Profile photo kindly supplied by Niall Cherry, from original courtesy of Silvio Tasseli