Three WWI Soldiers Located in Glacier

[MJC]

Compliments of the AP.

PEIO, Italy (AP) - An amateur Italian historian has found the preserved bodies of three Austro-Hungarian soldiers in an Alpine glacier, 86 years after they were killed in World War One.
Maurizio Vincenzi, president of a local war museum and an amateur historian, said Monday that the three were shot dead in a battle to retake the peak of San Matteo on Sept. 3, 1918, when Austro-Hungarian troops were repelled by Italian fire as they left their mountaintop trenches.

War relics are frequently found in the area, but no bodies had been discovered since 1927, Vincenzi said. On Friday, he came across the corpses protruding from a glacier near Peio, 15 miles from the Swiss border.

"To find them in that state was almost impossible," he said. "The hands and faces were well defined, the fingernails, teeth, and skin on the face were all still there."

The bodies have not been identified, Vincenzi said, adding they would be buried along with other war victims near the village. A funeral was planned for Tuesday.

[BadBob]

Thanks!. I find stories like this + + interesting.

[Marc Garlasco]

In related news, three medal bars will be for sale. One expert said, "They look so fresh it is as if they have been frozen in time..."

[Jack T]

More details:



ROME (Reuters) - The bodies of three Austrian soldiers killed in World War One have been found frozen and almost perfectly preserved in an Italian Alpine glacier.

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Mountain rescue worker Maurizio Vicenzi discovered the mummified bodies on Friday, encased upside down in ice at 11,940 feet altitude on San Matteo mountain near the Swiss and Austrian borders.



"Using binoculars, I saw what looked like a stain on the Forni glacier and went to look," Vicenzi, 46, from the northern Italian town of Peio told Reuters on Monday.



"When I got close I discovered they were the bodies of soldiers frozen in the glacier. Nothing like this has ever happened in my lifetime. Bodies haven't been found in the ice around here for decades," he said.



Vicenzi's fellow rescue workers helped him remove the bodies on Sunday and transfer them to the Peio morgue by helicopter.



The soldiers' uniforms were mostly intact including leather belts, a gas mask and a cap with a star on it.



Historians are already studying Vicenzi's find and believe the men died during a battle on Sept. 3, 1918, probably killed by a grenade. Italian and Austrian troops clashed in the mountains on that date in what has been called "the great battle." The Austrians won but 11 soldiers were killed.



Among the relics left in Italy by World War One Austrian troops was a series of tunnels buried deep within the Marmolada glacier known as the "City of Ice" that largely disappeared during a heatwave last year.



"This is an important discovery from a historical point of view, and exciting for the communities on both sides of the border," said Vicenzi, who is also an amateur historian.

A funeral will be held on Tuesday afternoon and the soldiers will be laid to rest in the local military cemetery 86 years after they died.

[Chet Sowersby]

It was called "the great battle" and only had 11 KIA? Thoes guys really knew how to keep their losses down. Very un-typical of WWl battles. (great or otherwise)

Chet