Eighty years ago, a group of elite soldiers trained in Colorado helped win WWII. In 1945, the 10th Mountain Division stormed an Italian ridge — at night, in the winter — shocking the Germans and gaining crucial high ground that would help win the war within months. Riva Ridge was their first-ever combat mission.
The American soldiers had learned how to fight in rugged, snowy terrain in the state’s high country and have ever since been a beloved part of Colorado history.
Descendants of the 10th returned to Italy this fall to retrace the steps of their fathers and grandfathers in the countryside they fought to save. CPR’s Western Slope reporter Stina Sieg went along with them. She followed the Coloradans’ return to the tiny Tuscan towns their ancestors liberated, the harrowing hike up Riva Ridge, and their reunification with locals who have celebrated the Americans’ victory for the past 80 years.
“They crossed the ocean and they came here to save us — and this is very important — we have to continue to maintain this memory,” said Barbara Franchi, the mayor of Lizzano in Belvedere, northwest of Florence, one of several villages that welcomed the descendants of this expert fighting force.
The descendants were met with gratitude in every place they toured, from communities that were almost obliterated in the war, to historic battle sites where monuments and plaques still commemorate the 10th.
Even though World War II was generations ago, this history felt alive for the 10th Mountain descendants, many of whom sought to understand their family members more deeply by visiting the country where they’d risked their lives as young men.
