Salvatore Castagna

Salvatore Castagna (Caltagirone, 14 January 1897 – Rome, 3 February 1977) was an officer in the Royal Italian Army during World War II, most notable for his leadership during the siege of Giarabub. After the war he became a general in the postwar Italian Army.

Biography Salvatore Castagna was born in Caltagirone, in the province of Catania, on 14 January 1897. At the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted as a volunteer in the Royal Italian Army, with the rank of second lieutenant. In November 1915 he received his baptism of fire on Mount Civaron (Valsugana), being promoted to lieutenant for the courage shown in action, and in 1917 he was awarded the Silver Medal of Military Valor for an action on the Karst Plateau. A few days before the end of the war, on 26 October 1918, he was wounded in the head while fighting on Monte Grappa.

After the First World War, Castagna remained in the Army, taking part in the pacification of Tripolitania in the 1920s in the ranks of the Cacciatori d'Africa. In 1937, with the rank of major, he returned there as commander of the garrison of Yefren, then of Bardia and finally of Giarabub (Jaghbub), an oasis in the Western Desert surrounded by dunes, 50 kilometers from the Egyptian border and 300 from the sea, where he still was at the start of the Second World War.

He continued his career in the Army, being promoted to brigadier general and appointed military commander of the Catania area, then settled permanently in Rome and retired with the rank of major general. He died at age eighty at the Celio military hospital on 3 February 1978.