The sperm whale that ran aground on the beach in April 1943
As with every fact that remains in the city's memory, over time it colors and deforms. This is what happens with the "Barafonda whale", a sperm whale that ran aground on 4 April 1943 on the beach of San Giuliano Mare. Some confuse the whale with another stranding, which occurred previously and also in Barafonda, of a huge sunfish. Others say that the sperm whale was killed by the military because it was mistaken for an enemy submarine.
But what really happened?
Before dawn that day, the fisherman Pino Bignardi went to retrieve his nets and found a dark mass that snorted like a "locomotive under pressure". It was a huge marine animal! He therefore called his father and, immediately afterwards, the two, armed with ropes, tied the animal and secured it to a pole on the beach.
The news immediately spread throughout the Barafonda and curious people arrived, but also journalists, civil and military authorities. It was decided to drag the cetacean to shore, but the operation was particularly difficult given that the animal, 12 meters long, 2.70 meters high, with a circumference of 6.30 metres, weighed 63 quintals.
As soon as the animal felt itself being pulled, it gave a tug causing everyone to fall to the ground, and even the help of some oxen failed as the poor beasts were also knocked down.
In the stories of the people of Rimini it is underlined how the locals were very ready to speculate on the event by improvising bicycle depots, taking the curious to see the whale with the batana or the clam, obviously all for a fee, while there was no shortage of street vendors of all kinds, only Bignardi, who had physically discovered the whale, gained nothing from it.
The story then becomes bloody: the large sea creature could perhaps have been saved by taking it back to the open sea, but instead it was decided to kill it.
So much blood gushed from the wounds of the machine gun fire that it turned a long stretch of sea red. Among its last gasps the animal reared its large tail, then it was the end.
The carcass immediately went to putrefaction; it was sold to a certain Malatesta to make soap, but during the quartering many women managed to grab something for their laundry.