from Journal of Folklore Research Volume 40, Number 2

Excerpt from

Pippo: An Italian Folklore Mystery
of World War II

Alan R. Perry

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In 1990, the Italian national television station RAI Tre hosted a program entitled La mia guerra [My war]. Its primary focus was to give thousands of ordinary citizens an opportunity to voice their recollections of World War II. Several months before the program began to air, RAI ran television commercials that invited the masses to send their letters. More than 10,000 responses arrived.1 The shows were an impressive success: hosts read excerpts of letters and interviewed people who had submitted their memories. Later, the letters were archived at the Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Bergamo [Resistance Historical Institute of Bergamo].

Among these stories, woven with the pains of hunger, sheer terror of bombings, stories of love, and fear of Germans, partisans and Fascists, one widely shared memory particularly stands out as complex, mysterious, and elusive: that concerning the airplane widely known as "Pippo." In popular lore, even today it continues to haunt the collective imagination and conjure lively debate. Rarely has it found voice in official histories,2 and yet among all the experiences of the war, Pippo looms, in the words of historian Giovanni De Luna, as "la voce più inquietante prodotta dall'Italia in guerra" [the most unsettling aspect of Italy at war] (De Luna 1993:123). Flavia Tosi, who resided in Novara during the war, describes it:

Il "Pippo" era un aereo che ogni tanto te lo trovavi lì. E questo aereo era chiamato "Pippo." Nessuno ha mai capito se era un aereo nemico o un aereo che andava in ricognizione, se era un aereo tedesco o americano o italiano. Era "Pippo." Non lo si vedeva perché era di notte, ma lo si sentiva. Però, non ha mai fatto disastri "Pippo," mai bombardato o mitragliato. Il "Pippo" passava, viaggiava. E si sentiva sovente. Magari uno dormiva e l'altro non dormiva e allora diceva "Senti il 'Pippo.'" Allora ti svegliavi e lo sentivi. Però questo "Pippo" non si è mai saputo chi fosse. (Bermani 1996:161)

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