Lotvonen wrote:"Who was the writer of the Iltalehti article and was there mentioned the identity of the "eyewitness"?"
Iltalehti 5.3.2010 p.25, "Talvisodan salainen agentti"
Writer: Paolo Torretta
Witness mentioned: "Matti Laitinen"
Thanks,
A couple of years ago a group of people contacted me and asked info about the fate of D. Manzocchi, Torretta being one of the group.
At that moment (2007 IIRC) Torretta had "cooked up" a story where Manzocchi had died or injured at a car accident at Helsinki Jan-40, being a some sort of a spy etc.
I tried to explain him how the things in real life had gone, but seems that in vain.
Also I remember that his finnish language skills were just a bit over zero.
jagala wrote:The small discrepancies of the date (Jan 13th vs. Jan 11th) and place (Valkeala vs. Iitti) aside
Not small - Torretta claims Manzocchi had been killed 13th Jan-40 compared to the official 11th March-40.
Also I do believe that IF Matti Laitinen was an eyewitness, he sure would have known where he was at that moment.
jagala wrote: we could perhaps choose to trust the alleged eyewitness
Actually I haven't seen by so far any proofs that Matti Laitinen was an eyewitness.
Nor that Toretta had interviewed him or never even met him.
jagala wrote: The "official" story that Manzocchi was wounded, made an unsuccesful forced landing on the slushy ice of Ikolanjärvi, was unconscious (or unable to release himself) and drowned or otherwise perished in the cockpit of the upturned aircraft.
Didn't drown or wasn't unconscious (at least all the time).
jagala wrote:In the "new" version of the story, the trigger-happy Civil Guard members do not discover that the airplane is Finnish until after shooting the unfortunate pilot. (Well, maybe they expected an enemy aircraft, proceeded to shoot the pilot, discovered their mistake, concocted up a story and dragged the body back to the wreck - and it is not until 70 years later that the poor boy who was told to lie by the grownups dares to tell the true story...)
Nice story, but let's concetrate to the facts in the future.
Regards, Juha