On most summer Sunday afternoons, Michele Facchini would be nowhere near the sweltering hot, low, flat fields northwest of Ravenna, Italy, with a metal detector.

However, it was here he made an unexpected connection to Cape Breton's Hector McDonald, a soldier who died in action in 1944.

The 49-year-old Facchini, a Second World War researcher and educator, usually spends summer weekends at home, reading diaries of Canadian soldiers and tracing battle maps.

On July 6, he took advantage of some cool weather, heading to the outskirts of the town of Russi, near the Lamone River.

There, in December 1944, nearly 10,000 Canadian troops advanced to push Nazi forces out of northern Italy. His research suggested a platoon had fought in the field, dodging bullets and bombs, side-stepping landmines

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