A monument dedicated to Guglielmo Marconi in 1973 was moved from the former site of the U.S. Army Communication Site Coltano to the 509th Network Enterprise Center (NEC)–Livorno site on the Leghorn Army Depot in March 2012.

The Coltano communication site was closed in May 2008 and turned over to the Italian Government a year later in 2009.

When 2nd Signal Brigade Commander, Col. Mitchell Kilgo visited to Coltano site earlier this year, it was decided that there was an important need to preserving the focus and vision of Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi was an Italian inventor who was known as the “Father of long distance radio transmission”. With the coordination of Col. Raffaele Iubini, Italian Base Commander thru the Italian Ministry of Defense, the process to relocate the monument began.

The logical place to relocate the statue was at the 509th NEC-Livorno area because the unit providing current state of the art communications made possible by Marconi’s genius and inventing skills.

Pisa is the birthplace of wireless communication and NEC-Livorno provides Signal Services to Camp Darby and the Leghorn Deport; the US Air Forces, USAG Livorno and numerous DoD and Federal Italian Tenants.

With the hard work and coordination of the 509th staff Piero Pellegrini, Mario Poropat, Daniele Crews and Marzio Marzi, the Carrara Marble monument weighing eight metric tons and standing for approximately twelve feet high was transported via truck to its new home.

“The monument is immense and really heavy, and very dirty once we free it from the weeds,” said Pellegrini, who was also responsible for cleaning the monument.

“I steam cleaned it with just water so not to ruin the marble or the engraving on it,” Pellegrini said. “I probably could have done a better job by sanding it, but the risk of ruining the monument was too high.”

The Marconi monument wasn’t the only memory that was brought back from Coltano site.

“When we were there we noticed a map of Italy that was painted on the plasterboard wall, so we carefully removed it and it is now hanging on the NEC-Livorno, 509th Signal Bn wall,” added Pellegrini. “I remember two young soldiers and an Italian worker painting that map,” said Charles Simpson, former 1st Sergeant at the 509th Signal Company. “They were Sgt. Dominiqueangelo D’Angella and Sgt. Benigno De Los Santos, the Italian worker was Tarquini, he was an artist.”

The inscription on the monument reads: GUGLIELMO MARCONI, who near this site on 21 November 1911 linked to continents of Europe, North America and Africa by means of wireless communications thus establishing Coltano as a focal point in the development of worldwide communications.