The executive and organisational centre was in Milan, and the city also served as the collecting centre and point of departure for the escapers.

The main activities of the centre were as follows:

A) CONNECTIONS WITH THE BORDER  (with border agents or directly with the guides) in order to obtain information about the weather and safety conditions, check and pay for guides, collect documentation relating to the cross border transfers that had taken place and establish agreements on the dates and methods of future movements.

These contacts were maintained by AGENTS  who continuously did the 'shuttle' between Milan and the border, sometimes following transfers of escapers and sometimes independently, so as to collect information about the routes being used, the meeting places, the passwords, the signals agreed when circumstances required it, and to choose from the possible safer or more practical alternatives should circumstances so warrant. Sometimes they would go disguised as escapers, to monitor the mountain routes as far as the border to ensure that the guides did their duty and complied with the norms received in the treatment of their men entrusted to their care. They also ascertained that in the border centres the escapers were properly housed, fed and provided for, and when necessary, that suitable equipment and safety precautions were observed.

B) Organisation of TRANSITS FROM MILAN TO THE BORDER:

 - the reception of escapers brought in from nearby areas and from other centres to Milan

- their accommodation 

- their accompaniment to the border centres

 

From an organisational point of view, particularly in the period October-December 1943, this activity represented the most difficult part of the work, as the majority of transits took place through Milan. During this period gathering the escapers together in Milan had seemed to be the best plan, since it allowed better use to be made of the assistants, who were relatively few in number, and of the available routes to the border. However, towards mid-December 1943, following the arrest in Milan of Arturo Paschi, one of the agents in charge of this task, and taking into consideration the lack of co-ordination which followed, it was decided to decentralise the transits by subdividing the territory into four zones, a certain number of border crossings and one or more coordinating agents being assigned to each. Only in emergencies was the use of crossings destined for another area to be allowed.

 

The areas were established as follows:

I. Piedmont, border crossings of the Ossola and Luino valleys.

II. Lombardy, excluding Brescia and Bergamo, border crossings in the area of Varese.

III. Emilia, crossings in the lower Lake Como area.

IV. Veneto, and the province of Brescia and Bergamo, crossings from the area of upper Lake Como and the Valtellina
Liguria continued to report directly to Milan.