Dear Readers,
Congratulations to Umberto “Bert” Benedetti, our longtime subscriber in Montana, who was honored by having a building at the Fort Missoula Historical Museum dedicated to him that henceforth will be known as the Umberto Benedetti Italian Internee Research Library. At the dedication ceremony last month (Oct. 13, 2008) that honored Bert Benedetti, many prominent Montanans made sure to get a word in. Letters were read from U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, and from Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
Missoula’s Mayor John Engen officially declared October 13 “Umberto Bert Benedetti Day.” University of Montana President George Dennison paid his respects to Benedetti for all his years of teaching, mentoring and donating to UM Benedetti graduated from UM at the age of 68 with a degree in education. Umberto “Bert” Benedetti arrived in Missoula by rail in 1941.
He was to become one of 1,200 Italians interned at Fort Missoula during World War II. Now, sixty-five years after he was released from internment in 1943, Benedetti was honored by the Missoula, Montana community for his contribution to the city over the past six decades and the Internee Research Library was dedicated to him. The new library is housed in the old Department of Justice Post Headquarters at the fort.
It was from this building that the detention center was run. Upstairs was a courtroom where detainees were interrogated and a panel decided their fate. The panel included Mike Mansfield, who went on to become a U.S. senator and ambassador to Japan. The building was purchased from the U.S. Forest Service by the museum and will be restored to what it looked like during the early 1940s. In the time since Benedetti secured his release, he has become a well known figure in the community.
He has supported the University of Montana and the Historical Museum by donating all of his art, pictures and memorabilia to them. Benedetti was not a P.O.W. when he was detained and eventually brought to Fort Missoula. He was on a cruise ship in the panama Canal aboard a veritable gilded floating palace, the Conte Biancamano, an Italian Luxury Liner based in Genoa. Unfortunately the year was 1941 and in Europe war clouds had been gathering.
In April president Roosevelt ordered U.S. forces deployed to Greenland and Iceland to protect the arms supply sent from America to Britain. In June, Italy declared war on Britain and France. On December 7, 1941 Japanese war planes bombed Pearl Harbor, our major Pacific base in Honolulu and destroyed five U.S. battleships, 200 aircrafts and killed over 2,000 people, many of them civilians. The next day, in an emergency session of Congress, the U.S. declared war against Italy and Germany.
The Conte Biancamano was seized on March 30, 1941, during a layover in the Panama Canal zone and taken over buy U.S. Naval personnel aboard the U.S.S. Mallard from which the American boarding party went on the liner. The Conte Biancamano was one of twenty-eight Italian ships seized by U.S. Forces in territorial waters. The 500 crew members, Umberto Benedetti among them, were transferred to New York and later to Missoula, Montana, where through the years he has become a beloved figure on the University of Montana campus and has won the “Man of the Year” University of Montana Alumnus Award.
Umberto Benedetti was born on November 22, 1911 in Vasto (Abruzzo), Italy but moved to Genoa to live with an uncle who worked for the Lloyd Triestino Company. Because his nephew wanted to see the world, was a skilled cabinet maker and had studied art, language and theater, his uncle was able to get him a job aboard the elegant passenger ship “Il Conte Biancamano.”
The ship was going mostly on the oriental route Genoa, Gibraltar, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila and back to Genoa, a 45 day trip. It was when the ship was routed to Central America and stopped at the Panama Canal zone, where the United Fruit Company had their stocks, that the ship was seized and the crew and passengers were brought first to Ellis Island, New York and then to Fort Missoula.
In all 993 Italians were detained. He remembers the train ride through Chicago, the bars on the windows and how FBI agents stood guard over the peaceful Italians. It is cold in winter, but when the first group of men arrived in May 1941, both civilians and sailors were impressed with the beauty of the site and called it “Bella Vista.” With a number of other internees, Benedetti helped build a theater and since the Conte Biancamano used to carry a band of musicians and a string quartet, there was no shortage of music.
The men formed soccer games within the fences of Fort Missoula’s camp making the best of their stay and enjoying what would become Bert’s permanent homeland, America. Benedetti came to love the state and country so much, that he attained U.S. citizenship in 1948 and fought for it in the Korean War. In Korea, Benedetti told his Army buddies: “I am going back to Montana. I am going to marry a cowboy girl.” Benedetti did return. Many other Italian detainees left when given the chance, but Benedetti said Missoula reminded him of home in Italy.
Benedetti has spent the rest of his life educating himself. He used the GI Bill to pay for college at the University of Seattle, Washington and later a master’s degree in Spanish Literature from San Francisco State College. Mr. Benedetti also attended the University of California at Berkeley. He worked with the Medicare program in cooperation with the Social Security Office, served as a social worker and taught foreign languages to Peace Corps volunteers while he was with the E.O.C. He returned to Montana to teach school in Miles City.
There Mr. Benedetti taught Spanish, French and Art at Sacred Heart High School. He also published books of poetry and a book The Lifestyle of Italian Internees at Fort Missoula 1941-1943 (Bella Vista), in 1986. In 1966, he moved to Missoula and enrolled in UM’s graduate school, meanwhile beginning a long career at the campus print shop. Mr. Benedetti graduated with an Ed.M., the six-year Master’s program in Education from the University of Montana.
In 2007, Mr. Benedetti was presented with the Man of the Year University of Montana’s Alumnus Award, by University President George Denison. In 2008 the Umberto “Bert” Benedetti Italian Research Library was dedicated in his honor and on November 22, 2008 Mr. Benedetti will be celebrating “Buon Compleanno numero 97.” All of us at L’Italo-Americano newspaper applaud Mr. Benedetti’s accomplishments and wish him “Buona Salute e Cent’anni.”
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