Salvo D'Acquisto

After the 9–11 September fighting in Rome, elements of the German 2nd Parachute Division were detached to coastal defense duties, and a small unit was camped near an old military installation previously used by the Guardia di Finanza, in the vicinity of Palidoro, frazione of Fiumicino, which was in the territorial jurisdiction of the station of Torre in Pietra, another frazione of the same municipality. Here, on 22 September, German soldiers were inspecting boxes of abandoned munitions when there was an explosion. Two died and two others were wounded.

The figure of the soldier was however remembered by Pope John Paul II, who in a speech to the Carabinieri on 26 February 2001 said:

In 1996, the same congregation was given a supplement of inquiry wanted by the new postulator. The initial postulator, however, had begun the cause of beatification to obtain the recognition of the "heroic virtues" while the subsequent postulator requested the recognition of the "heroic witness of charity," a definition applicable to martyr. In 2007 however a majority vote expressed in a conference of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints led to a suspension of the recognition as a martyr.

On 15 October 1987, Gaudenzio Dell'Aja was appointed by Cardinal Corrado Ursi, Archbishop of Naples archbishop delegate of the ecclesiastical tribunal for the canonical recognition of the mortal remains of D'Acquisto, which was carried out on 18 October 1987, at the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples, in the first chapel on the left, near the entrance.

In 1983, Archbishop Gaetano Bonicelli announced the opening of a cause for beatification and canonization in the Military Ordinariate of Italy, Pope John Paul II declared D'Acquisto a Servant of God. The process of beatification of D'Acquisto took place on 4 November 1983 and ended on 25 November 1991 with the consequent transmission of the documents to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

An Italian postage stamp was issued in 1975 to commemorate him. The portrait was painted by the Italian artist Silvano Campeggi.

A film, Salvo D'Acquisto (1974), was made about his sacrifice, directed by Romula Guerrieri and starring Massimo Ranieri. A 2003 TV mini-series was directed by Alberto Sironi and starred Beppe Fiorello.

After Italy switched sides in September 1943, joining the Allies, the Germans occupied the northern part of the country. On 22 September two German soldiers were killed and two others wounded when some boxes of abandoned munitions they were inspecting exploded. The Germans insisted it was sabotage, and the next day they rounded up 22 civilians to try to get them to name the saboteurs. The soldiers made the prisoners dig their own graves when they continued to assert their innocence. D'Acquisto, in charge of the local Carabinieri post, was taken to the prisoners. When it became clear that the Germans intended to kill them, D'Acquisto "confessed" to being solely responsible. He was executed by firing squad, but the civilians were released unharmed.

On 25 July 1943, Benito Mussolini was overthrown, and the new Italian government negotiated secretly with the Allies to switch sides. An armistice was officially announced on 8 September.

He volunteered to join the Carabinieri in 1939 and left for Libya the next year, a few months before the start of the Second World War. After being wounded in the leg, he remained with his division until he contracted malaria. He returned to Italy in 1942 to attend officer school. He graduated as a vice-sergeant and was assigned to an outpost in Torre in Pietra, a little rural center on the Via Aurelia not far from Rome.

Salvo D'Acquisto (15 October 1920 in Naples – 23 September 1943 in Fiumicino) was a member of the Italian Carabinieri during the Second World War.