one year, 312th drs, 41st adg, 15th af - part 03 italy

8/14/2019 One Year, 312th DRS, 41st ADG, 15th AF - Part 03 Italy

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PA R -T ] - H R E E::

TtahlIt wasrumored that we were going to move, but of course, he " moving "rumor is standard in our repertoire.This " rumor " insisted hat were moving;to ltaly, and sure enough. the morning of December 9, it was confirmed.We were scheduled o leave El Aouina at 8: 00 a. m. so with the usuallyorderly 3l2th manner we got startedabout l0:00 a. m., surpris ingly fastmoving, considering past performances.On truck convoy, wo passed hrough

Tunis and Mateur and by mid - afternoon after much tiresome re - routingand detouring reached Bizefie, our former port of entry and now our portof embarkation. Ships were not ready for us, so we were taken outside Bizerteto a newly d,rg turnip field and told to bivouac for the night, Tents werehastily erected; the necessary eighteen inch by ten feet excavations andking size fox holes were dug. It is well it was not necessary to use thesefox holes for during the night some were nristaken or the afore mentioned18 inch by 10 footers. After noon C raticlns on December t0 we receivedorders to break camp and tnove to the docks. As usual it began to rain assoon as our tents were packed and all of our equipment was lying exposedto the elements.We arrived at the docks, late afternoon, boarded Britishmanned LST's and American LCI 's. The boats stayed at dock tlrat night,but about mid-morning of the lt th, hoisted anchor and joined a convoyi n t h e l r a r b o r a t t d s a i 1 e d o u t i n t l r e M e d i t e r r a n a n t o w a r c 1 S i c i | y .

Inasmuch as the ouffit had broken up into small groups and assignedto various boats the boys enjoyecl varied experiencesduring the crossing.

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-The vay-ageb;e-gan n the,-morning."of,D*eqqsbei11 _andunder an ovelc-qqJrkt, we staried,otT=into he.Mediterraneai. The trip was made without in-cident, but there are little things about it we will all remember. The gangthat rode the LCI' s can tell you it was quite an experience. Sitting one out "in the cold darkness while the spray splashedplayfully about their ankles.Trying to keep a messkit steady on a dancing deck was quite a trick, too,especially f one wasn't inclined to be a goorl sailor. The first d^y out wasquite choppy as we ploughed across he open sea, but we were off the coastof Sicily the next d^y and the going from therein wasn't too bad.

We caught sight of the Volcano, Stromboli that night, it 's red glowstanding out in bold relief against the dark background of terra firnra. TheIsle of Capri greeted us the next morning. That much storied isle was adisappointment o a lot of us. Perhaps t was just the wrong tirne of yearfoi it to be appreciated,or its barrenness id little to spur our imaginations.We passecl htbugh th'b straits between the isle and the rnainland ind no\Mhad a better view of Naples, nestled at the base ,of VbsuVius,'one of thew o r l d , s o l d e s t . a n d ' . m o s t t a l k e d o f v o I c | . o , . . ] : .:

. ' . . . . - - . IIt looked peagefulenough then, r,vith a lvipp of srnoke curling ,laiilyupward frop its crest. Little: did we think that just a short time l"ier r th;giant would spout for{h again. Naples harbor had certainl;r gone to :war.Sunken ships, bombed out do,ck installation and 'water , ront buildingscaught our ,eya,as,,,our onvqy slowly picked its way toward the lanJing.It was a mid - afternoon,December13, when we finally ,sei,,oot an lancl.As wq were assembling ours-elves nd qur equipment a couple of familiarfac,espregegted thenrsg.lo.g.Kloeckler, Amodeo, Collins and Broughton, fourof out boys who had left up for DS in North Africa,,rrl/erehe lirst to makeus.feel a bit mor.q: t,home in our new.temporaly station. After a few min-utes of h,andshakingan{, getting th'-eowdown from them, we were bunclled'into *truCtt'again "oA off Io ooi n"w tgmpora,ryabode.No one'knew. whatto expectand'when,it on",point enrouie,we stoppecl, ur heartssank.'A1ongthe side of the road was a staging are^. It was flat, wet and muddy, andfor the moment r,vehad visions of two man tents slowly being suckedunderthat muddy goo, but that was not to':'be,',theiase,,We.continued on to Ba-gnoli,'where we were quartered, or a little ,over.a week a,t ,Costenzo:'Ciano

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College. The college boasteda very moCern series of buildings, but in therpresentcondition were quite airy. Most of us were reminded of the songr,, I dream' t I dwelled in rnarble halls " after the first night there. We cer-tainly did - literally, and marble is certainly not the ideal bed. Our diet forthe inost of that week was C rations, urost of the time cold. After a fewclaysour cooks rigged up fires outside and heated them for us hot orcold the;r were still C rations and many a meal of Spaghettiand beef wasdowned outside of camp in Bagnoli.We weren't in camp long before wewere given a " fatherly talk " from Lt. Swedberg.He had been. on DS inItaly for soffre ime before us and consequentlyhad learned he ropes.Vino,senoritas,and correct bargaining for store items were the leading topics fordiscussion. onreof us took his advice.

We had little to do around the college.A little guard duty, or perhapsa d^y of sorne detail, so we had quite a bit of time of visit Naples andPompeii. In Naples,we found that Italy was the sarne as Africa with ro-quests or ,' Chung gunr ", cigarettesancl candy. The only dillerence wasthat candy was called " carameli or " chocolat" instead of o'Bon Bon. ",.Mangiare" lfood; ancl 'oSenoritas were more frequently suggested tseemed.Ljke typical American tourists,most of wanclered about Naples insearchof souvenirs o senclhome. Pretty soon the topic of conversation nthe evenings was the swell deals sonreof the fellows had made with thelocal merchants (most of our clealsweren' t any bargains we later found) .Many trinkets, such as necklaces. anreos, inss and other noveities weredisplayed.Naples is ^ f.airly arge city and has quite ? I'ew very modernbuiidings.We were lucky to h.avea good sized Red Cross in one of themand it supplied us rvith a touch of horne lry clisplayng a huge Xmas tree inits main halt. Some of the fellows went to the San Carlo Opera House foran afternoon of music The trip from Naples to Bagnoli was made on whatwe fondly terrned the Bagnoli Express The excitement that is found ontlrese *Eyetye" trains is terrific and we always hacl a lot of laughsaddingto the general din and confusion.

Pompei i promiseclo be an interestingplace o some of us and so wemade a point of visiting it. We weren' t disappointedat all, either. With aguidc we toured the ruins of Ancient Pompeii and found them to be in a

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remarkablestate of preservation n the City of Pompeii ust outside the siteof the 1uins, there is a Roman Catholic Church that we are glad we clidn'tmiss seeing.The interior of it is done for the most part in nrarble.Columnsof matched marble line the hallways, the blending of the grain a picture,of perfection. Over the altar there is a painting of the Ave Maria withactual cliamonds set into the halo and necklace. A gold organ graced abalcony toward the rear of the hall and the inside of the dome wascovered r,vith an angelic nrural that must have taken months to do. This'was one sight in our travels that will rernain in our memories for a longtime. It is needless o say that true to the spirit of the 312 h, skulls "found"in the ruins at Pompeii began to adorn some of the boudoirs back at thecollege.

We left Naples on f)ecember22nd. True to fclrm it was raining and tomake things worse sorneof the trucks were without cover. Seven o'clockthat morning our rugged trip began. tt was miserable,but clespite ur greatcliscornfort,we Were rewarded by the sight of some gorgeous scenery.The winding mountain roads took us through hamJets, erched precariouslyon the edges of sheer clitTs,and from our high vantage points we couldsee the country - side for miles around, rich in vineyards and orchards of-olive trees. When we stopped or chow that evening. fires were started assoon as we could get ofT he trucks. We were a cold bunch of Gl' s. Someof the fellows who were lucky enough to be in the covered rucks, changedinto dty clothing. All of us on the open ones found ourbarracks bagssoaked,so could only t y to dty ourselveswithout toasting near the fires.The rain stoppedand our cooks were real ly on the bearn,so it wi tsn't toolong before we had a good hot meal stowed awa)r. We felt a little rnoretike living then Shr:rtly afterward we startedofTagarnanclcontinued steadilyuntil about four thirty the next morning. We had arrivecl at our new afibase in Gioja del Colle. '[he whole outfit slept as best it could on thetrucks ti l l sun- up, when we had breakfastand prepared to set up camp.It was rough erecting six man tents (which temporafi ly housed twelve tofifteen of us) in the mud, but it was finally accornplished. he next doy westarted o work with a vengeancehauling rocks to build pathways in themud. By Christnras Fve the atea was tairly liveable. 'l'he first boost ourmorale was given, haprpenedhat night when a weaponscarrier was backedup to the mess ent loaded with Xmas packages.l-his was followed by a

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swell turkey dinner ancl a flock of letters,

Now we hacl a job tlo, and for' the time being it tracln't much to dowith aircrafr. Living conditions had to be inrproved ancl roadways wereneeded in the hangar area. It wasn't too long before hand rnatJe stoveswere provided for us, and followed shortly by local frames. 'l he areabegan to shape up nicely. Next came the days on the rock pile, or pickand shovel work at the hangars. We began to think we werea " RepairDepot Outfit " but along came another break which easedour griping. Wewon the toss this time ancl moved into 4 school in town. Our comfortabledty' rooms, a place to hang our clothes mess hall in the same building,plunrbing in the latrines it was heaven to us our first buildingafter months pup tents, shacks and improvisations. With the arrival of theB-24's, shovelswere discardedand tool kits opened, Skilled men worked attheir own jobs the 3l2th was putting ships in the air again.

This isn' t the end of the story for the 312 h. There are pages yet tobe written. We'll be in there plugging with the hope that our next an-niversary will find us back in the " old country'" our good ole USA.

R"agmonclrWlanning- ' - . . . * . * . . F - - , * r'Swry,l

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one year, 312th drs, 41st adg, 15th af - part 03 italy

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