MY JOB was to see that the food was cooked and that the men got it.
The ‘kitchen’ was moved on a big truck, the driver stayed with the kitchen.
When we ‘dug in’ for a couple of days or more, we set the kitchen off the truck. We set it up when we had time or room. It was hard to cook on the truck. A water truck went along with the kitchen. The men ate from their mess kits and we had a place where they could go by and wash them.
We mixed powdered milk with water in big containers, the night before. We poured it in their canteen cups for breakfast. It tasted pretty good. We never got fresh milk or eggs in Italy.
We did get powdered eggs. When we mixed them with water the night before, they made pretty good scrambled eggs. Along at the last, we got
instant potatoes. We got gallon and sometimes quart cans of vegetables. It was hard to get a meal together, there was many things that we didn’t have.
My ‘tank company’ had about 100 men and they supported five tanks and a ‘retriever’. It was used as a tank, but it was big enough to drag one of the other tanks ‘home’, if they needed it. I do not recall one of our tanks getting stuck in the mud. We had Sherman tanks and then some Ford tanks. The tanks were the front line. They were in front of the infantry, our men, who were right behind. They would ‘dig in’, maybe just for the night.
Corporal Lyle was my Jeep driver, I used the Jeep like it was mine personally. We would bring food up to the ‘battle front,’ just at dark, at night without any lights, or radio. We had five or six tanks, and five from the other close tank company, that was next to us. One battle we lost 6 out of the 11, there were five men in each tank. We brought them food in a big round, kind of a thermos container, that kept the food hot for hours. Three or four round flat bowls that held nearly a quart of food, were stacked in it. It was all they would get until the next night.
Sometimes the men in the tank were afraid to open the tank hatches to take the food from us. We would set it down and quickly go on to the next tank. (The next trip, they would set the empty container out and we would pick it up.) If there was a battle and it was ‘to hot’ for us to get to them, they ate K or C rations that they carried with them.
Lots of times we didn’t have anything but C rations. That was a can of beans with wieners, or a can of spaghetti, ham or beef and potatoes, or some kind of chicken, for each person. There was a can that we called ‘hard tack’ that went along with it. It had a bread substitute that was dry and hard, a stick of gum, two or three cigarettes and a packet of coffee. It was the ‘sorriest’ coffee that I ever tried to drink. If we could get hot water, it made about enough to make a canteen cup full of weak coffee. It sure got old, when you had to eat ‘dry rations’ for 4 or 5 days in a row.
K rations were only for an emergency. It was a chocolate bar that was full of vitamins and calories. It was about three inches long and an inch square. You ate it slow, it filled you up. It was not like a regular candy bar.
You better know how to read a road map. I studied the maps and tried to figure where each tank was located. A few times we would hunt and miss them. This one place, there was a creek, no roads, just a back trail, so a Jeep could get through. We accidentally got on the wrong side of the creek and couldn’t find the tanks. We went to far and got out in front, ‘of the front’. We drove into an area where the enemy had even set up “pup tents’.
They were as startled as we were. They didn’t have their rifles handy.
My driver Lyle, asked, “What’ll we do?”
“Shoot the gas to it. We will get out or die”. He circled and tried to rock the Jeep right and left, 25 or 30 tracer bullets were fired at us. They went slower than a regular bullet and made a hissing sound. A tracer makes a streak of fire, the streaks criss-crossed. They got so close, that we could feel their heat and they blinded us. We got to the creek and the bullets went over our heads.
I had lots of close calls.
Between meals, when I had free time, I visited other military kitchens. One of the British cooks mentioned that they had been carrying around a pound of yeast and they didn’t have a bit of use for it. We got worlds of orange marmalade, I liked it, but our troops wouldn’t eat it---if they were starving. The British would go wild over it. I traded them a gallon of orange marmalade for the yeast. I got a lot of good things for that marmalade. We had a hard time getting sugar in Italy. We had some cinnamon and plenty of flour. I traded for some powdered sugar.
One warm day I mixed some cinnamon rolls. I laid them on some clean mattress covers and let them rise. I rolled them out. I was glad to get a chance to cook them. I never found any more yeast in Italy.
I made over 500 cinnamon rolls. There was enough powdered sugar to make a good glaze on them. Each one of our men got all that he wanted, four or five, while they were still hot. There was no way to keep them. They took some to the company Commander. He asked when the Red Cross had come by to bring the cinnamon rolls. They pointed me out to him. He couldn’t believe they were made in our field kitchen, there was nothing like that over there. He called our Batalian Commander, and gave him cinnamon rolls. He was over four companies.
SWAPPING AND TRADING They had me explain how I did it. They asked me how much money that I was sending home. It was all but $5. They told me that I would not be allowed to send any money home. They told me that I could get all the five gallon cans of gasoline, that I needed, to swap for food for our company and divided it up with the three other companies. Swapping the gasoline wasn’t exactly legal, but I never had any problem doing it. I never heard of any one else swapping anything.
They checked me out, in a three quarter ton truck and I signed for it.
I still have the military operators permit, dated May, 19, 1945, up to a two ton truck.
I got about $20 in American money for each can of gasoline. Those two officers never forgot me. I could tell the difference in the treatment that I got. We drove all over the country, looking, and swapping for food. If you found anything that you wanted, they would swap it to you for gasoline. I usually had a translator along. Sometimes we would drive back 50 or 60 miles to pick up all the empty gas cans. We carried our own drinking water and sandwiches in the truck with us. The men in our battalion had at least one hot meal every day, after that.
I bought hot bread for our meals, most every day. Wherever we were, I made arrangements to buy bread from local Italian bakers. I told them what time I would pick the bread up—and I wanted it hot. The Italians would build a fire in their big outside clay ovens. When the ovens got hot, they would take the door off and rake the fire out and sweep the oven floor. The bakers would break off a chunk of the dough and pitch it in, on the hot floor, and it would bake, and then be raked out. It would be all different sizes. It was the best bread that you ever ate.
I went to Venice on the ferry to get lettuce and fresh eggs. All the food that I bought, was supposed to have been inspected and approved by the Allied Inspectors. Some of it was not, especially the fresh vegetables.
Leaning Tower of Pizza
Fighting and moving north through Italy, we crossed the Arno River. September 2, 1944, the 5th Army moved into the town of Pizza.
It had lots of two and three story rock buildings. We were camped on the grounds of the 'Leaning Tower of Pizza'. We were not especially fighting for it. It was just a space where we could camp. It had big green lawns around it, and the big Cathedral was real close. It was all built of white marble. We were in the blackout zone. The zone went 10 miles back from the front lines.
We had specific orders not to go around the tower, especially not to climb it. As the Germans retreated, they 'booby trapped' nearly everything. Sometimes the whole building would explode, sometimes just the one person, who touched the wire or string leading to the bomb. We knew there were snipers around, they were well hidden and waiting for a good shot.
I climbed the Leaning Tower of Pizza
I watched that no one was around, I didn't think anyone noticed me.
Cautiously I watched for cords and wires that could lead to boobie traps.
I climbed to the first floor, then stopped to look out. It looked safe to me.
I climbed on up the 294 steps on the spiral staircase, to the top of the tower.
I stood on the leaning side, away from the big Cathedral, that was built next to the big tower. I thought that I had a better chance of not being seen---
I had a good view when I got to the top, seven floors up.
I didn't look very long.
A sniper had seen me and took a shot at me. The first bullet hit so close---that I felt the marble fragments fly back and hit me. I thought I was shot. I stayed behind the banister and managed to get down and not get caught. Everyone heard the sniper shot and they started looking for him.
A sniper was usually 'holed up' and he stays hidden.
He would keep 'picking people off', until he was found and shot.
My cousin Evin was in the army in Italy, we never met over there.
Evin, he climbed the tower later, after it was declared safe.
We both remember how the marble steps were worn down, from the years of people climbing the tower. A bluegrass friend of mine, saw the tower in 1991. They wouldn't let anyone climb the tower then.
Once our position “on the front line’ was a low area, that was good because we were away from enemy fire, a little more. But we sloshed around in water half-knee deep. It was cold winter time, we all had colds. They issued us, four man tents there and we slept on folding canvas cots, to be up out of the water. We could draw our feet up on our cot to dry them.We could not move until we fought forward, we were pinned down a couple of weeks. We set the kitchen on the highest place, there was no tent or protection for it.
We were near Genoa, on a forward push, moving fast. We come upon a place where the Germans had set tables and had hot food on the table.
Our officers told us not to eat it, and then they helped us eat it too. We set down and ate the food, the Germans were fixing to eat. It was good hot food.
Sometimes our tanks would set behind a hill for protection. A little airplane would fly over the lines and tell the tanks where to shoot. Then they would tell them which way to correct their shot. On the third shot, it was ‘might near always,’ right on the spot.
. 'Big Bertha' was the name given a big gun, a 300mm(about 10 inches in diameter) gun. It was a little way up from Bologna in the Appenine Mountains. It was in a cave, up on the side of a mountain. It was on a flat railroad car, where it could be pulled back inside and hid. They would open the door and pull it out to shoot it, mostly at night. It was a little further north than my outfit was. The sound of that gun was different--kind of an explosion. I quickly learned it's sound, I knew when it was Big Bertha.
It was the only gun that you could hear the muzzle blast, before the bullet
got there. I could see the muzzle blast---hear it coming and count to 3. You would be surprised how fast you can move in 3 seconds. You ducked and hit the dirt, behind a wall or into a fox hole. You don’t need training on how to dig a fox hole. You can dig one with your fingernails, if that’s all that you have. I always hoped that it would go over me.
When I lay in a foxhole, the prayers of my Mother were right in my ear.
We had our army field-kitchen set up behind a big building. That building was between us and Big Bertha. About sundown we were eating supper outside. We heard the muzzle blast and knew that a shell from Big Bertha was coming toward us. This one had a 'screamin mimi' attached to it. That was an attachment that made a shreeking, screaming noise, you knew a shell was coming. If you had any fear in you--your hair stood on end--you were scared. It landed on top of our building. The shell was a 'dud' and it slid off among us. If it had exploded, we would have all been killed. We looked at the little round ‘screamin mimi’ that was attached to it. It was an accident when a big building got a direct hit, the big guns were pretty accurate at a
mile, but we were nearly 10 miles away.
We moved on north and were in battle again. Later we were pulled back from the front for rest and baths. It was our first night, back in the same town. We were in a wealthy part of town, at a three story residence. It had an eight foot rock wall behind it. We set up our kitchen on the first floor, on the far side from Big Bertha. Shelling started, along about dark, guns were booming, it was loud. Shelling at night, was an effort to stop the troops from moving around.
I was Mess Sergeant and usually slept with the kitchen. That night I was kinda uneasy and moved my cot and slept in the basement. The cooks decided to sleep there too. Big Bertha arched and lobbed a shell--a direct hit. At first we thought one of our own guns had hit our building. Then we thought it had hit the building next to us. It exploded just above the first floor of the building that I was in. The three floors fell down, we were covered up in that basement. Smoke from the exploded shell and the dust was bad. The basement entrance was covered with rock, down from the upper floors. The basement windows were narrow slits, we could not get out through them. We expected it to catch fire, and kept hoping we would be rescued.
I wondered if I would live.
Our command post had been set up in the big building next door.
Before long, help came and started digging us out. It took them about two hours. We were glad to get out of that dark choking basement.
We didn't know how many soldiers, about 8, and Italian girls were
killed. They were upstairs together. They were not supposed to be there.
They picked them up in pieces. It was amazing how quick that prostitutes would come---right up to the front lines. "See what 'woman chasers' have done--it cost us eight men."
Shelling continued, the shells just kept coming. I crawled back into that basement, in my same bed. I thought it was the safest place. The next morning, I dug out my mail that had come the night before. Louise had mailed me a can of ham. They raised the hog, cured the ham and sealed it in a can. It had a piece of shrapnel go through. It could have been me.
Me and another Sergeant ate the good part of the ham.
Soon an American dive bomber caught Big Bertha outside. It couldn't get back in the mountain and hide in time. That same day, a German troop train was bombed. Our line moved forward that day too. Some soldiers went up to see Big Bertha and the train, I didn't.
We were moving forward, near the end of the war, going into another town. I was driving the three-quarter ton truck that I had been issued. My driver, Cpl Lyle, our translator and a 1st Lieutenant were in the truck. As we drove into that town---German guards surrounded us. We couldn’t do nothing. They kept us overnight and turned us loose the following day. They knew the war was nearly over, there was no fighting. They all surrendered the next day.
I was watching German prisoners come in. They were marching four abreast, no telling how many, you couldn’t see the head or the back of the line. They come to a line of pup tents and the officers were trying to get the Germans to line up. They wouldn’t pay any attention, they wouldn’t line up.
They mocked the II Lieutenant.
That Lt grabbed a machine gun and jumped up on a table and yelled, “Get out of the way”---in English---to us American soldiers. He just mowed down that row of prisoners with his machine gun. Them that could stand up---they jumped to get in line. They took the II Lt out. I figured that he was just moved to another outfit.
We were loading prisoners at Florence Italy, on a ship, to send back to the United States. I was Mess Sgt. We cooked on two different floors, there was a conveyor that sent food up. We always fed prisoners a good meal when they first come in. We had food prepared for them. They couldn’t believe the good Christmas dinner that they got. There was chicken and dressing, dumplins’, everything. When the prisoners got in sight of the food, some of them would bust out bawling, “You got all this food?” They had been told that the Americans were starving to death. We told them, “Eat all you want, just don’t waste anything.” We fed our prisoners better than we did our own men. The cooks were all mad.
We would use loud speakers toward the enemy, ”Come on down, we have plenty of food.” The Italians would hold up a white flag, they were all
hungry and kinda wanting to quit. The Germans were mad at the Italians, and were making them fight. The German units hung on longer. Hitler wouldn’t listen to anybody, he wanted to keep on fighting.
As we got up into the Poe Valley the vegetables were the best that I ever saw. The lettuce, it was big and hard like cabbage, pull two leaves off of it and it was snow white. The only salad dressing that we had, was made by our cooks. Once I bought a garbage can nearly full of fresh green beans. The Italians used the hillsides to grow vegetables. They would have a flat place, three or four feet wide. Rocks were at the edge to keep it from washing down. And just above it, another three or four feet ledge of dirt to grow their vegetables. And another terrace above that one. That was all built and cultivated by hand. They cultivated every place that they could.
Sometimes I found ‘vino’, (wine) and coniac that had been inspected and I would buy it. I bought ice in 300lb blocks. We put 50 pound blocks in small holes that we dug in the ground to keep wine and other things cold.
THE 92ND INFANTRY DIVISION was all black, it had white officers. It was the only black infantry unit to see combat in Italy, during the war. They were known as the 'Buffalo Soldiers'. Their first fighting, they panicked, they were driven back in confusion for five miles. They were pulled back of the line for re-training.
Eleanor Roosevelt, the presidents wife, visited them, it was close to where I was. She did not visit us. About that time they brought in a film
crew and made a training film. It showed what good fighters that the Black 92nd Infantry division was, ‘in action’. I saw that film and since then, I never have believed any movie that I saw.
The next time they started in combat, they got scared and would not stand up under fire. They threw down their guns and hid in the ditches, what of them didn't run.
Later I was taking food to our tanks on the front lines, about dark one night. We had to go through part of the ‘protective line’ of the 92nd Infantry Division. The colored guard ‘got smart’ with us, remarks like, “You white people----”. He held us up, asked all sorts of questions and didn’t want to let us through. There was a Tech Sgt on the jeep with me and my driver, Cpl Lyle. After we finally got through the check point, the Sgt said, “If that same guard is there, when we come back through, I am going to shut him up.”
The same guard was there and ‘hasseled’ us again. We all three had our rifles with us. The Tech Sgt looked around and there was no one looking. He gave the black guard a 'butt stroke' with his rifle. I guess it killed him. I was driving and scared to death. I drove on---I got out of there. The colored soldiers saw their guard ‘down’ and they all run.
They soon rushed to our area and reported that they had been attacked by Germans, and that one of their soldiers had been killed. We didn’t dare tell what happened. That Division had to be ‘outfitted’ for the third time.
The Germans had been watching and picked up all their guns, again.
5TH ARMY we were all in the 5th Army under General Patton.
The 'crack' 100th Bn Japanese-American unit was in the Fifth Army under General Patton too. The Japanese had a good name---as being smart and not afraid. Patton put this unit behind the 92nd Infantry division---with orders to shoot anything that was moving any way, but forward. The Blacks were afraid to move, back or forward.
The 92nd Infantry had white officers. They believed their black soldiers were inferior fighters. The Blacks thought they were inferior, too.
I heard that there was a black tank Bn. in Europe that had a good reputation.
I saw the World Champion Boxer, Joe Louis when he come to put on a boxing exhibition for the soldiers. It was real close to the front lines, closer than I thought they would come. We all saw him.
The Italians were running, we were pushing them. I slept wherever I could, any house that was standing, was a good place. Once it was a bad thunder storm, I put my blanket on the dry floor of a big barn or storage building. Several more soldiers come in the night, they used no light.
I talked to the one next to me. He just threw a blanket on the bare floor.
You called everybody ‘Joe,’ in case the enemy was listening. The enemy tried to kill the officers, first. Officers did not want to be saluted either.
I woke up at daylight and General Patton was sleeping there. His staffis staffH set him up a blackboard later. He had terrain maps, 30 and 40 ft long.
General Eisenhower was different, he went strictly by the rules. When he come along and saw 4 men riding on a Jeep, he made one of them get off.
If General Patton come along and there were 3 on his Jeep, he would stop and pick up another soldier. We were all willing to follow “Old Patton.”
He had a good reputation among the soldiers. (I did not vote for Eisenhower for President.)
Another Sgt was seeing an Italian girl. He asked me to come along and eat with them. We set in the living room and they poured us a glass of wine, and we talked and waited. We could smell the food cooking and it smelled so good, it nearly drove me wild. A real home-cooked meal! We got to the table and there was SNAILS on my plate. They were about the size of a big hickory nut. I wanted to get out of there, but there wasn’t any way. I kinda waited and watched the others. They had a little tool to pull them out with, I ate them, there wasn't anything else I could do---and they really did taste good. They served them with a special kind of long noodle. I haven’t had any more snails to eat.
I had to go to our water supply, it was close to the Russian camp. They were very friendly and couldn’t let you go, without having a drink. When I took a sip, of the Vodka, they filled my cup up again. I had a time getting away from there. And then I had the awfulist headache. The Captain knew how they were and he told me to go and ‘sleep it off’. I tried to stay away from their camp after that.
The Russians were not “dummies,’ them and the Germans soldiers were well mannered and likeable. The American soldiers would do anything. The hardest fight that I ever saw--- An old Italian woman had her feet wrapped in gunny sacks. She come begging for food, and an American soldier kicked her. Another American was giving him a good beating,
until he was pulled off.
The enemy was all on the run. We moved into Astia late one evening and spent the night on the ground floor of a hotel. We had orders not to go up the stairs. It had not been ‘cleared’. The next morning I started to go up on the second floor. A 625 pistol was all that I had on me.
“HALT!” in German. I couldn’t speak German. But I knew what “Halt” was. A German Officer on the stairs, wanted to talk to me. I went and got an Italian woman, to interpret. They wanted to surrender to me. I hunted around and got someone else to take them. That whole upstairs was crammed with Germans. They come down, unloaded their guns and neatly stacked them in the lobby as they went outside and lined up.
I was on the front in northern Italy. We got in about a mile of a big prison camp before the Germans turned the prisoners loose. Many had starved to death, it was unbelieveable. I saw the ones that could walk out.
You would have had to seen them, to believe that they could be alive.
You can’t forget the sight of those skeleton people. Don’t you try to tell
me how the Germans treated their prisoners. I saw it with my own eyes.
Civilians in the Apennine Mountains couldn’t get much food. In the Poe Valley it was different, plenty of vegetables. They raised rice there. They had one or two acre fields. They were level, with a dam around them. The people in southern Italy were starving. Trucks carrying food and rice, would disappear into the black market. I never saw any fruit in Italy. From the Poe valley on, there was no resistance. At the last, I saw whole German Regiments, marching as prisoners. They would have only had an American tank moving along with them.
MUSSOLINI had few friends, as the war ended. The Partisans got more powerful. He was running for his life. Mussolini was just 45 miles from a tunnel, through the Alps. He would soon be safely out of Italy. The Partisans captured him and his mistress and shot them. They displayed them--- hanging by their heels from rafters of a Milan, Italy filling station.
I went to see them, hundreds did. It was nasty and stinking. Italian men walked up and urinated on him, women cursed him. It was nasty and stinking. People hated him for what he had done to their country.
They hung there 24 hours before the Allied Military Government cut them down and buried them in a secret place. My Cousin Evin, was fighting in Italy too, he went and saw Mussolini hanging there. We did not know that the other was over there.
Hitler wouldn’t surrender or take advice from anyone. We expected to go on and be fighting in Berlin, before long.
They decided to have us wait and let the Russians go into Berlin.
I spent 13 months in Italy, I could talk their language enough to get what I wanted.