682-2 16 Early Days Italy

Chapter 16

Early Days In Italy

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Chapter 16 First days in Italy Curtis, our C.O., tried to keep me at the Battery but because of our good radio it didn’t work long. About the third or fourth day on the beach he had to go up with the Infantry. They were dug in and holding on the side of a very steep and rugged hill, actually a small mountain. We went up in a jeep as far as we could and climbed on foot the rest. There was a tough old colonel commanding and he had fallen and injured his legs real bad. He refused to leave his men. While we were there, orders come up from the rear that he had to come down. They couldn’t get an ambulance even as far as we took the jeep, so we were elected to bring him down. He was a big man and we had to slide and carry him. We got him in the front with our driver and Curtis and I got in the back. With a radio already in the back, there wasn’t much room, so I had to sit on the Colonel’s equipment, which included his gas mask. This wasn’t amusing, but what happened after we got down was. We rolled over gullies, rocks, and stumps, etc. It was a rough ride but we made it. We got the colonel out and I unloaded his equipment. He told me to wait. He dug in his gas mask cover and pulled out three hand grenades, handed them to me, and said he wouldn’t need them. The Infantry carried stuff like that any way they could. As long as the pins stayed in, or course they were safe. But on that rough ride down, if a pin had come out it would probably have given me a bad case of haemorrhoids. Curtis’s comment was that the old goat could have ruined our jeep!

Altavilla Later they moved us right up with the Infantry. They were about to get overrun and we were to be where we could fire direct into a counter attack. There was a town, Altavilla, on a hilltop that was very strategic to both sides. Our boys could take it, but the Germans would counterattack and take it back. From where our gun muzzles were sticking through a fencerow, we watched it change hands nine times that day. Our orders were not to fire unless they overran the Infantry right in front of us. We were so close that we could have been firing into our own troops. Instead of coming straight down the hill, however, they pulled a flanking movement and were about to cut us off. We got orders to get out the best way we could. We had one road left that wasn’t cut off and we made it. We did have to leave nearly all the ammo for the 105th. They captured the area we left and they told us later that they used it with guns they had captured to fire it at us. This I never questioned because a day or two later we got Artillery fire on us that first we thought was from our own Artillery. We first thought that some of our bunch had just got mixed up on our location and thought they were firing into enemy territory.

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Chapter 16 I don’t remember if I had told you this? By then we had been issued a 30-caliber carbine. It was much easier to carry. It was light and short and held seventeen shells. Also it was semiautomatic. In all the time in combat, I never fired it except at snipers, but it was reassuring to have it. Too, we kept hand grenades and one of the officers usually left a pistol or two with me for safekeeping. Naples After some nine days they had enough troops on shore to take the pressure off us. We were pulled out for a rest, regrouping, and to draw replacements. Other troops broke out of the beachhead and went on to take Naples, which was the largest and best harbor on that side. However, we had bombed it constantly and after the Allies took it, the Germans bombed it daily. Too, they sunk a bunch of ships in the harbor to keep them from being captured. Also they tried to clog up the harbor so the Allies couldn’t use it. When we got there a few days later the whole town and harbor were one helluva mess. It took a lot of time and work to make it useable. We went on through Naples and camped in an apple orchard for a short time. We did have fresh apples to eat. The farmer that owned the orchard had two of the biggest oxen I ever saw. They were solid white and stood as high as my head. There is a picture floating around somewhere of me standing by one. If I find it I will sent it to you. I saw him pull up some stumps with them that a good-sized tractor couldn’t have moved.

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Chapter 16 I told you in a previous letter what a mess Naples and Naples Harbor were in. While we had a short rest to draw replacements we were in an apple orchard in the edge of Naples. As I remember, the Germans bombed it every day or night. Their pattern brought them out over us after they made their bomb run. We never got a bomb close to us but the whole area was ringed with AA guns. During a raid, they all fired so the air was saturated with exploding shells. We had to hunt cover because of falling fragments. An incident I remember was one night Stack and Tuten and myself were in a hole the Germans had dug. Fragments were falling like hail. We had drawn some replacements that day and one come running up to us and said, “I’m scared.” Stack told him we were too. Why did he think we were cowering in this hole and to get his rear in with us. He made a good man later and dependable.

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Chapter 16 I had told you that Stack and Tuten were my friends as well as best operators. Both were gutsy and would be by you when the chips were down. In fact, they both saved my neck a few times.

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I told you before, Stack was about the gutsiest old boy I every knew. He was in the hospital in North Africa with a broken arm. He run off from the hospital, conned his way onto a supply ship. I was away from the Battery on the third day. I

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Chapter 16 come back and there was Stack on top of a truckload of ammo, throwing off artillery shells with one arm.

Another incident I remember was them shooting down a bomber over us. They had him in their search lights and Ack-Ack fire hit him. Five men bailed out and parachuted down. One landed by a railroad track which separated our area from another unit. Our boys got him but we let others worry about the other four.

Also, we got some day passes to visit Naples and other places in our area. Stack and I went to Naples one day and in an off limits area found a woman who would cook us some fresh eggs and potatoes. Believe me, that was a treat. Also we visited Pompeii and saw the ruins. Mt Vesuvius was erupting at the time and volcanic ash was falling everywhere. The ash was very heavy and if they didn’t keep it swept off the flat top houses it would break them in. You had to watch going down the street or somebody would sweep about a tubful off on you. It also was hard on clothes and would cut a pair of shoes all to pieces.

Oddly enough, plowed into the soil it enriched it and the farms there could grow almost anything. Close by was a town called “New Pompeii”. There was one of the best little Catholic churches. Inside it was as nice on a small scale as St.. Peters in Rome, which I saw later. As Stack was Catholic, he wanted to go in so I got the “grand tour”.

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Chapter 16 After a couple of weeks of comparative ease at Naples we moved back into combat. We stayed in 107 days, which at that time was a record. They said the sun only shone three full days out of the 107. We moved in at the first of the rainy season and fought rain and mud the whole time. We would be in rain in a valley, but a halfmile up the mountain would be a wet snow. I only had one good bath the whole time. They set up a tent with tubs and a stove to heat water. It was a wonderful feeling. The rest of the time we would heat water in our steel helmets and take sponge baths and nearly freeze.

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Chapter 16 They did get clean clothes to us once in awhile. We still hadn’t drawn good winter equipment. I filched a large piece of canvas, folded it and laced the edges with telephone wire and made a sort of sleeping bag. I was on duty 24 hours most of the time but grabbed a good night’s sleep when I could. Most of the time I dozed by the radio. It would wake me up when somebody started talking. I remember once I went eleven days without dry shoes or socks. My feet got frost bit and I had trench foot. I had a change of shoes and socks but there wasn’t any point in changing. In ten minutes your feet would be soaked again. I don’t mean the whole division stayed in combat. The Infantry had it so much worse than we did. They would be relieved for a rest and we would be attached to support some other Division. In that time we were with the 3rd, the 34th, and the 45th Divisions and were attached to the British 8th army quite awhile. We would gripe about being away from home so long but we shouldn’t have. Some of the British 8th hadn’t been home since Dunkirk some six years before. In that time we supported the Indian Girhaks and French Ghouns (spelling) the British, French, Italians, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, etc. They were all good troops but the Gerhakas and Ghoums were the roughest. The French Ghoums could infiltrate about any German position– and take it. One problem though. They wouldn’t try to hold it. They would quit and come back to the rear. The Germans were scared to death of them. They were like our American Indians in a way. They would slip in at night, feel the shape of the helmet. If it wasn’t shaped like the Allies they cut the wearer’s throat. You can see where that would shake up people. I am not exaggerating. Some of this actually did happen. The whole 107 days I didn’t have a cold. We were hardened to it. They brought us out for seven days rest (big deal). We spent it all drawing replacements, fixing equipment and doing close-order drill. As I said I made the whole time without a cold. Then they put us in tents with stoves. I took the worst cold I ever had in my life, before or since. I almost forgot that we were attached to a Polish Division for awhile too. They were “scrappers”.

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