CHAPTER 12: ITALY
We embarked at Tripoli. It was an easy drive along the coast road from Homs to a site near the harbour where we pitched overnight camp. Next morning we drove down to the harbour and into the bowels of an LST (Landing Ship Tank). As I came up for air to the deck I was approached by a naval officer who said “Do you mind holding this piece of string?” I found myself, while he was attending to more urgent duties, holding one end of a long cable with a barrage balloon floating cheerfully at the other. Soon he relieved me and attached the balloon firmly to the front of the ship where it remained during our two day crossing of the Mediterranean as a discouragement to enemy dive-bombers. Throughout our voyage the sea was calm and flat as a sheet of glass. We were untroubled by German ships or aircraft.
As we approached the shore of Salerno Bay we were ordered below decks to stand by our vehicles. We were strictly forbidden to smoke: a naked light might cause a catastrophic explosion when the vehicles started up in the confined space. Tensely we waited in complete darkness. One of my men tried to light a cigarette. I ordered him to put it out, and when he failed to respond I threatened to shoot him. This was rather intemperate — I suppose I was a bit on edge. Fortunately the threat had the desired effect.
At dawn the LST lowered her ramp and we drove off on to dry land. Spitfires and the double-fuselaged Lightnings reassuringly swept the skies above. A few sporadic shells landed not far away, but by this time the Germans had begun to withdraw from the surrounding hills. They were being forced back by the gallantry of our infantry, by the Allied mastery of the air, and by the threat of the Eighth Army advancing rapidly from the south towards their left flank.
After leaving behind the battlefield debris on the beaches, we leaguered in a field of tomatoes — plum-shaped tomatoes growing in long rows. We could not get over the greenness that surrounded us. The growing crops and the nearby hills looked unbelievably fresh and green to eyes accustomed for eighteen months or more to the desert landscape. Of course we were on truck messing, and my truck crew served up platefuls of fried tomatoes to garnish the deplorable tinned bacon.
We passed through the infantry lines, driving along minor roads, with no worse opposition than desultory shelling. Nothing landed near, but I could see that some of our troops felt distinctly uneasy. Gunners do not like being shelled. We spent the night in a field under our one- or two-man ‘bivouac tents’, with netted entrance to prevent the entry of mosquitoes. In the night there was a violent thunderstorm, turning the field to a sea of mud. Before we could drive off at dawn, I got my troop to dismantle a large haystack and put down a path of straw to provide a grip for our wheels. It would have been very visible from the air, but we were moving on anyway. It did the trick — none of the vehicles got stuck.
THE PURSUIT
We soon had news that the Division's Rifle Brigade had engaged the enemy. We gave them artillery support by hustling our guns into action in fields near the new town of Pompeii. This is some distance from the great excavations in ancient Pompeii which we 5 had no time to explore either then or later. Nuova Pompei is undistinguished. I recall little of it except for an ornate modem cathedral. Divisional headquarters was set up in the square in front of the cathedral.
At Pompeii and in every other town and village on our route we were astonished by the rapturous reception given to us by the Italians. After all, they had been fighting us until a few days before. Now cheering crowds lined the streets. As we advanced into the countryside, the women and girls threw newly gathered grapes into our vehicles. These were the delicious strawberry-flavoured ‘uva fragola’. They offered us glasses of red wine just made from newly trodden grapes. The wine could be described as robust and it turned our teeth black.
The warmth of our reception is accurately recorded in the official Short History of the Division:
“The whole background of this part of our history must indeed remain a vivid and colourful memory to all who took part. Accustomed to sullen Arabs who cared less than nothing for the armies of either side except when they had ‘chai' to exchange for ‘eggis’, the smiles and waving, the cheers and kisses, warmed our hearts. General Erskine when travelling with his Tactical Headquarters bore with great fortitude the numerous well-meant bunches of grapes that sailed past his head or squashed themselves on his greatcoat, but was reported to have reached for his Tommy gun when one over-
enthusiastic ‘vecchia mamma' scored a direct hit on his nose with a walnut.”
Later in the war we were to liberate many other countries of Europe. At none were we received with such uninhibited enthusiasm as in Italy. Either the Italians were remarkably volatile, or they had never had their hearts in the war against the Allies — probably both. Hatred of the Germans also played a part, fanned by their brutal behaviour after Italy's surrender. We were soon to witness horrifying evidence of this.
As it turned out we were to spend only three months in Italy before being sent back to England to prepare for the Normandy landings in June 1944. Our time in Italy fell into three stages. First there was the breakout from the Salerno bridgehead and the pursuit of the enemy through difficult country: this was hard fighting against skilfully mounted rearguard actions. Second there were the pitched battles for the Voltumo crossings and the commanding heights of Mount Massico to the north of the river: in this stage we suffered severe casualties. Third, there was the clearing up of the area up to the River Garigliano where the line stabilised for the winter, followed by our handover to a Canadian Armoured Division and a rest period in the Sorrento peninsula
Moving on from Pompeii we approached our first objective - the small town of Scafati where the road forked left to Naples. right to circumvent Vesuvius to the east. The Division now had the 23rd Armoured Brigade under command. Their tanks advanced along the coast road to Naples. which the’ entered against little opposition on 1st October. The rest of us — our own 22nd Armoured Brigade. and 131 Infantry Brigade — worked our way through narrow roads to the east and west of Mount Vesuvius.
To quote the official history again:
“This type of fighting, though less noisy, was infinitely more exhausting than African warfare. The vineyards were not the comparatively open hillsides with prim rows of vines, of not more than shoulder height, associated with the advertisements of wine merchants, but on the contrary tall and luxuriant growths reaching to twenty feet above the ground, festooned between the poplar trees which supported them. In between the rows were innumerable market garden crops, many of which seemed to require tall stakes, or else fields of maize which now reached above a man’s head. In this country an anti-tank gun could knock out the leading tank of a column at a range of under a hundred yards without the following tanks being able to detect its lair. Much during this period depended on the Royal Horse Artillery, who were continually called upon for rapid fire support on suspected targets and never failed to achieve the desired results..”
Bill Tacey in an OP in a bell tower
As we pursued the retreating Germans we were almost continually in action, sometimes in support of the infantry, sometimes in support of the tanks. Our troop commanders, the taciturn Bill Tacey and the cheerful Dennis Wells, were forward with the leading units, establishing their OF s (observation posts) in church towers or farmhouses from which they could bring down fire from the battery on observed targets. My role was, together with Paddy Victory, to survey the guns in, so that all eight guns of the battery were parallel and could be brought to bear on an enemy targets on orders from the OP. At some stage in the pursuit, after Digger Fielding (a fellow officer of Australian origin) was wounded, I took over as GPO (gun position officer) of Don Troop of K Battery and assumed direct command of a troop of our guns.
My appointment as GPO enabled me to repeat my Cairo feat of laying the guns on a distant object for night firing. At that time — indeed for several centuries before the eruption of 1944 which closed the crater — Vesuvius was in a state of continuous activity, indicated by a red glow at night, and the curling plume of smoke by day as depicted in familiar paintings of the Bay of Naples. Having deployed my guns in a field under the looming shape of the great volcano I called out:
“Aiming point, Vesuvius!”
My gun commanders had no difficulty in identifying the aiming point and the guns were soon in action. I am probably the only Artillery Officer who — in different continents — has used a planet and an active volcano as night aiming points.
Vesuvius remained a familiar landmark for several days as we fought our way across the fertile plains below its double cone through vineyards and vegetable fields enriched by age-long deposits of volcanic ash. We drove through Somma Vesuviana, the nearest village to the summit, already laid waste by bombs and shellfire. The village was to be completely abandoned the following year when the lava flow from the great eruption engulfed the patched up ruins. Since then, for the remainder of the century, Vesuvius remained dormant, offering no night aiming point for visiting gunners.
We had little respite from continuous action, but on one rare afternoon of relative quiet we found ourselves camped by a stream. I joined my troop in stripping off and enjoying a decent wash from head to toe. We must have presented a delightful sight to any passers-by, our white bottoms twinkling in the autumn sunshine, contrasting tastefully with our desert-bronzed backs and legs. As I was leaning over the stream I felt a strange tickling sensation between my legs. Turning round sharply I caught sight of little Gunner Moffat with a leafy branch in his hand, retreating rapidly. I was embarrassed, but not half as embarrassed as he was. “Oh Gawd” he gasped, “ Dodger Green told me it was Duncan”. Recovering his usual equanimity, he added apologetically “You know, Sir, you do look like Duncan from the back”.
I wondered whether to put Moffat on a charge. However apart from the unusual circumstance of both of us being in the nude, I couldn't think of any specific offence under the Army Act that dealt with tickling an officer's private parts. Of course there was always the catch-all of ‘conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline’, which Moffat's conduct undoubtedly was. However, as the rest of the troop — apart from Dodger Green who had mysteriously disappeared — were now settling down to enjoy the scene, I simply told Moffat that he shouldn’t believe everything that the Dodger told him and I went on with my ablutions. I cast a surreptitious glance at the muscular rear of driver Duncan, and decided that any resemblance was, on the whole, flattering.
We were soon on the move again, driving along the roads and country lanes of the plain of Naples, with frequent and sudden interruptions when the guns were called into action to deal with a German rearguard. Then we drove off the road, seeking some cover from woods if there were any. We were firing our 25-pounders within minutes of the order to deploy. At night we slept by the guns if we were not firing, or by the roadside when we were not in action. If there was time we put up our small bivouac tents as protection against rain and mosquitoes. We needed always to check if the road verges had been mined by the retreating enemy. The local villagers usually advised on the location of mines. They also warned us if there were any enemy soldiers lurking around.
Communication with the locals was not difficult. They were always anxious to help. I had acquired a smattering of Italian from Teach Yourself books which I had studied in Cairo in anticipation of the next campaign. But every village had its proud interpreter:
“We have man speak very good Inglese.”
“Good. Bring him along.”
A willing Italian would then appear, addressing us with a broad Chicago accent. In pre war days many Italian men from the depressed south would seek their fortune in America. Chicago was a favourite destination. Men would live and work there for perhaps fifteen or twenty years, sending money back to their families, and would then return to their villages.
At one small village the local interpreter invited me into his home so that I would not have to spend a very wet night by the roadside. The invitation extended only to the ‘Tenente’. I felt bad about leaving my troops in the rain, but equally did not want to cause offence by refusing the offer of hospitality. Perhaps it was the unusual chance to spend a night under a roof that was the deciding factor. Anyway I enjoyed a generously heaped plate of pasta and a glass or two of the local wine before settling down for the night. I found I was sharing the room with a lot of chickens.
The villages and small towns had beautiful names, more euphonious than the harsh names of the desert settlements like Zt Msus. Cava dei Tirrem, Afragola, Cardito, Aversa. At Cardito we brought down a swift barrage in support of the Rifle Brigade who fought a fierce battle to dislodge some determined Germans who were holding out in a wood. Aversa was an important road junction. We approached the town by night through a bewildering tangle of country lanes. We had been in action continuously for a long time and I was desperately tired. I managed to keep awake by rubbing orange peel in my eyes to make them smart and keep them open. I have since learned from an 1887 Baedeker that Aversa was then a town of 21,000 inhabitants, built on the site of the ancient Atella, origin of early Roman comedy. The light and rather acid wine of Aversa, in 1887, was frequently drunk in Naples. It had the unfortunate name of Asprino. It was also in Aversa that King Andreas of Hungary had been assassinated in 1345.
We spent a night — under cover - and half a day in the centre of Aversa among a delightful jumble of old houses. We slept in buildings around a courtyard. In the morning tuneful arias arose around us in all directions, whether to greet the morning or to welcome the liberators we could not tell. There was no doubt that Aversa could have provided a complete opera cast. Beds with sheets, and perhaps other amenities, were provided for the better-looking officers. The debonair Captain Denis Benke took full advantage of the offers. He used to wear silk pyjamas to which he had sown his desert rat badge in the hope of lending military glamour to his bedroom conquests. He complained later that he had been bitten by Aversa fleas.
San Giuliano might have been a pleasant village in peace-time but now harboured a sinister secret. We had pulled to a halt along a wooded road when a distraught Italian directed us to the church. Within the small and ornate church lay the mutilated bodies of twenty to thirty civilians, mostly women and children, massacred by the retreating Germans in revenge for some act of defiance: we heard that a German sentry had been shot. We had attached to us a colonel from the Free Czech Army, Colonel Lukas. He insisted that every soldier should witness the macabre tragedy inside the church so that we could see for ourselves what sort of enemy we were fighting.
On a more cheerful note, crowds of children would come up to our convoy whenever we stopped in a village, demanding “Cioccolati! Biscotti!”. The Army biscuits may not have been what the children expected, but they were hungry and didn’t complain. Eventually the queues of children became rather a nuisance, and a danger to themselves if we were attracting artillery fire. To discourage them, I chalked on the tailboard of my truck the warning “Pericoloso! Maladie infettioso!” In the back of my truck sat Signaller Macfarlane to add conviction to the message: he had a sallow complexion and a mournful expression accentuated by a drooping moustache and looked permanently as if he was in terminal decline.
Next: Chapter 13: The Volturno And After The Crossing Of The Volturno