Col. James Zacchino Jr., Fort Drum garrison commander, lays a wreath at the grave of the lone Italian soldier buried at the POW (Prisoner of War) Cemetery on Route 26. Zacchino joined members of the Fort Drum Cultural Resources staff and other community members for the annual wreath-laying ceremony Nov. 4, which coincides with Italy’s National Unity Day and Armed Forces Day. (Photo by Mike Strasser, Fort Drum Garrison Public Affairs)
Officials at Fort Drum observe Italy's National Unity Day
with wreath-laying ceremony
Mike Strasser
Fort Drum Garrison Public Affairs
FORT DRUM, N.Y. (Nov. 4, 2021) – Col. James Zacchino Jr., Fort Drum garrison commander, placed a wreath at the grave of the lone Italian soldier buried at the POW (Prisoner of War) Cemetery on Route 26. Zacchino joined members of the Fort Drum Cultural Resources staff and other community members for the annual wreath-laying ceremony Nov. 4, which coincides with Italy’s National Unity Day and Armed Forces Day.
During the ceremony, Spc. Steven Vought, a bugler with the 10th Mountain Division Band, performed “Il Silenzio,” the Italian armed forces version of “Taps.”
Pvt. Rino Carlutti served in the Italian army during World War II and was captured in Tunisia. Hundreds of Italian and German prisoners of war (POWs) were transported to Pine Camp (now Fort Drum) between 1943 and 1944. Carlutti died at the age of 22 from injuries sustained from an automobile accident and was buried at the POW Cemetery.
Adjacent to Sheepfold Cemetery, the POW Cemetery is also the burial site for six German POWs. It is believed that the German and Italian graves were separated by some distance as the Germans refused to be buried alongside the Italian soldiers. At the time, Italy had already surrendered and the Germans had occupied Italy.
A second Italian POW, Renato Faccini, was disinterred from the cemetery and transported to Italy in August 1957, at his family’s expense.
In 1974, the Italian ambassador unsuccessfully attempted to locate Carlutti’s relatives in response to a request by Henry V. Cumoletti, who worked as an assistant clerk and stenographer at Pine Camp and was an interpreter for the Italian POWs. After the war, Cumoletti served on a court reporter team at the first Nuremberg trials and later worked as a court reporter in the Watertown City Court. In his honor, Fort Drum officials rededicated the post’s courtroom in his name in 2016.
Fort Drum officials have conducted the annual wreath-laying ceremony at the cemetery for nearly a decade.