Overnight on 11 / 12 September 1943 Duccio Galimberti, and ten other friends made their way up into the mountains of the Valle Gesso, directly to the south of Cuneo."" They made their initial base at the chapel of the Madonna del Colletto, perched between the Valle Gesso and the Val della Stura. Here they formed their first partisan band, giving it the name "Italia Libera" ("Free Italy"). At the same time another little partisan band, also bearing the name "Italia Libera" was being established at Frise in the Valle Grana, over the mountains to the north. This second "Italia Libera" band included Giorgio Bocca, and various other members of Galimberti's circle of friends. These partisan bands turned out to be the nucleus around which, a couple of months later, would be constructed. Almost immediately news came through of the "Gran Sasso raid" by German paratroopers and "Waffen-SS" commandos, whereby Mussolini was extracted from his Gran Sasso d'Italia mountain-top hotel-prison and flown to Germany where he enjoyed the increasingly rare privilege of a meeting with Adolf Hitler. A week later the recently dismissed was installed as the leader of the Italian Social Republic German puppet state in northern Italy, the territorial extent of which was progressively reduced, from the south. Piedmont, which included the Cuneo region in which the operated, was therefore part of the fought over puppet state.