Aug 22: Gabriele Carrer, Emilio Lussu & Operation Postbox

Thread as published by Gabriele Carrer on 19 August 2023

Gabriele Carrer, Emilio Lussu & Operation Postbox

Operation Postbox was Emilio Lussu’s plan to initiate an anti-fascist insurrection in Sardinia with the support of the Allied forces, which was meant to be the spark for the uprising throughout Italy. It relied on the backing of British intelligence.

Myer Grienspan arrived on the evening of January 23, 1942, from Gibraltar to Barnstaple in the county of Devon with only a light suitcase.

The customs officers had been alerted by the secret organisation Special Operations Executive, nicknamed “The Baker Street Irregulars”, so no questions were asked, and his real name was not revealed.

This is how it all began for Emilio Lussu, an intellectual and politician, founder of Justice and Freedom and the driving force behind the Sardinian Action Party, the Postbox mission.

To trigger a revolt that could turn into a full-scale revolution, Emilio Lussu needed allies. He found them, or at least believed he had found them, among the British. He had established long-standing relationships with them in Lisbon.

After the contacts in Lisbon, Lussu (whom British intelligence called Simon) was sent to Gibraltar with his wife Joyce and from there to Great Britain. They arrived two days apart and reunited at the Cumberland Hotel in London.

The contact for Myer Grienspan and his wife was Mr Montecatini, an unidentified individual from Special Operations.

In the British archives, there is a 12-page file about him. Here is what is written about Simon:

Lussu and his wife “are not actually employed by this organisation, but they are in the immediate future going to work in conjunction with us”.

“Lussu claims that he still has considerable prestige in certain parts of the central and southern Italian mainland, but not much in the north. There is no direct evidence to substantiate or refute this”.

His visit’s main goal “was to discuss the political aspect of his proposed mission. His project is aimed at preparing the ground for procuring a revolt and armed occupation in Sardinia, to be followed at the psychological moment by a spread of the revolt to Italy.

"If this succeeds, the country, politically disorganised by revolution, would be unable to resist the territorial or political claims of its neighbours, and might be reduced to a state lower than that of a Balkan country.

The success of his project would hasten Italian withdrawal from active participation in the war and this would be to our benefit. He therefore regards himself as acting in the interests of the allies as well as in what he considers the interests of his own country, and expects some form of political collaboration. 

In writing from Lisbon he stated that he expected assurances that territorially Italy would not be reduced beyond what it was at the time of the March on Rome. Actually he realises that the Dodecanese will be taken away and possibly also Cyrenaica; but it is not to help his cause if such declarations were to be publicly proclaimed in advance. 

The army has to be won over at least to the point of not firing on their own people and his vier is that this can only be achieved if the army can be convinced that the action of the people will not injure the country”.

The negotiations would be taken to the highest levels of the Special Operations Executive and then to the ministerial level, although it was not specified which cabinet members.

However, the assurances regarding respect for Italian national borders, as desired by Lussu, and unspecified political considerations slowed down the negotiations.

In June 1942, the Grienspan spouses returned to Gibraltar under Mr and Mrs Dupont. Postbox did not die, but it remained only a hypothesis. A year later, history would completely archive it with the fall of Fascism in Italy.