Prelude

… Ah, we had about a metre of snow overnight.

But we moved through a couple of little villages — there was nothing left. Not a single thing. And there were craters where the bombs… every three feet, every metre. There was nothing left in some of those little villages — Russi, Lugo.

We were anxious and keen to get the war over and done. We’d had a long haul in Egypt and Syria.

We were… mostly all the fellows were keen to get cracking. As far as I can remember we wanted the war to be over by Christmas ’43, but there was no chance of that because we got into action fairly quickly up the coast.

Sora Valley

The guns went down at a place called Sora. Sora is in a valley, with hills on both sides. The guns came down, we just put the guns down and as soon as the quads and that — the trucks that pulled the guns — as soon as they left, the Germans opened up from one of the hills, on the side of the hill. You could actually see them, they opened up on the guns with mortars and killed three soldiers and wounded about four I think. You could actually see them and see the smoke from the mortars.

And I saw this plane…

The Canadian Club

We got to Bari late in the afternoon and they were taking the trucks off by putting them on a net. So you drove onto the net and then they lifted them with the crane, they lifted the thing out of the hold and lowered it down onto the wharf, then you drove off. Well, unbeknownst to me, the Sergeant Major — the truck that I was driving belonged to the Sergeant Major — he said to me “Now when you get down, don’t move out of the net until I tell you.” He said “When you get down just sit there, start the engine up and when I say go, you go, and move for about 100 yards and then stop.” So I said, “OK.”

I got down all right and I heard them putting something on the back of the truck, someone loading stuff on the back of the truck, and I didn’t take much notice of it, so I just took off and went 100 yards. Next thing Dave, the Sergeant Major, came running up, flat to the boards, and jumped in. “Right,” he said, “off we go.” So we spent the night in the stadium — there’s a big stadium in Bari — and that’s where we slept the night. The next morning — well, shortly after we arrived at the stadium — I found out what Dave had loaded in the back was four cases, that’s 48 bottles, of Canadian whisky. Canadian Club whisky it was called.

But, anyway, that night when we arrived there we got stuck into this Canadian Club in the back of a three ton truck. There must have been about eight or nine of us, and then it started to rain. We’d pitched a little bivvy tent, but it started to rain and it was absolutely teeming. But we all got a bit shickered, as you like to call it, drunk, whatever. I had a terrible job to find my bivvy because it was raining and I didn’t know what I was doing. But in the morning I woke up and Dave, the Sergeant Major, called me and said “Right, you’re on fatigues this morning in the cook house,” and I said “Oh Dave I’m… ”… “Yeah, yeah, get down, you’ve got to get down there.” So, of course, he had arranged that and down there was three or four bottles of Canadian Club — so I had a bit of the hair of the dog that bit me, along with all the others that had been there that night. We were all on fatigues.

We were all bit excited about being in Italy because it was something different.

First Civilians

The first time we saw the civilians was on the south side of the Sangro River. But a lot of them had got out of the way, but the most we saw and spoke to and the most that we got contact with was where our gun position before Orsogna was called Sant’Eusanio, just a little village. We had our guns down off the road, most of the whole troop — it was B Troop.

This house, it was divided in three compartments and there were two brothers and a sister living there. The sister was the eldest and she had her mother in the far end and then down below that was like a barn, an open sort of barn that they have in Italy, and we slept there the first week we were there until we started getting shelled in the middle of the night.

What actually happened there; the Germans had painted the side of the house black and we wondered why on earth? They told us the Germans had done it — they painted that black. We wondered why on earth they’d done that. We soon found out when it snowed that it was a good… they could target the black against the white snow. Wasn’t too bad we didn’t get shelled that badly, but they fired a lot of air bursts with shrapnel.

Faenza

When we went into Faenza, I had a different Sergeant Major then — old Fred Leith. We got in just on the little outskirts. It’s quite different the town now because all of the outskirts of Faenza as you go in were shelled and bombed to glory. So that’s all been rebuilt. But we went just sort of round the corner in this little place and it was just a little picket fence and a house and the man came running out and saying “I liberati, i liberati.”

We went in and he and his wife, they were very pleased that one of us was an officer — you know, a Sergeant Major — and they gave us a bed and we slept in this bed, and it was a nice little house. They had a kitchen, but all they had to cook on was an open fire and they had a metal cover that they used to put over the top of the embers and then they used to put the pot in there and cover it over so that they cooked. And we used to give her all our rations, especially at lunch time. We used to have breakfast there with them.

We used to get dry rations for lunch time which often would be a couple of tins of sardines, a bit of bread. We had a New Zealand bakery all the way through Italy and the bread was really… oh people loved it and wanted it because white, made from Canadian flour it was really… The Italian bread that they were using then in those days was hard and coarse. The women used to hold it in their hand like that, with a knife and carve it, it was that dry and hard. But anyway, we used to give her the lunch ration because at dinner time we used to go down to the cook house and have our dinner there. But lunch time you’d get maybe a tin of M&V (meat and vegetable) which wasn’t very good, but she used to doctor it up with a bit garlic and a drop of tomato paste and we used to share it with them and, oh, it was very good. And baked beans; she used to do the same with the baked beans — just put a bit of garlic in it. Just made all the difference in the world to the tins of beans we used to get.

Flashback: El Alamein memory

He was the guy in the desert in El Alamein at the Southern sector. We were getting bombed, I must admit, we were getting bombed and I think it got a bit beyond him. He ate a bit of cordite to make his heart beat — it was stupid — and he was sent out.

Villanova

We were at Villanova for round about a month, round about that, and then we moved up to Faenza. Then we moved a wee bit further forward too because the infantry had cleared Faenza and the Germans had fallen back onto the Senio River, so it was a dead, well, you’d call it a stalemate. So from there we moved back for a rest, no, we had Christmas dinner there…

The truck

In the evening we moved back to our original position and as we were coming in, in a big three-ton truck, there was another truck that had never moved, it must have been a… it wasn’t an ammunition truck… I don’t know what it was… and there were a couple of fellows there talking to one another and as we came in we just stopped beside them. Our driver was saying something to them when they yelled “Get the hell out of here, get out of here there’s a plane coming in!” You could hear it. And we just quickly drove away and swung away to the left and we all jumped out of the truck and flattened because we could hear the bomb coming down. And it hit the tail, they had the tail thing out and these two fellows were underneath — killed outright. Not a mark on him but the concussion got him. So I took over his truck — Y3. I drove it all the way right up to Tunisia and back. It was just a little Dodge and it had a front wheel drive. You could put it into front wheel drive as well. It had rear drive but you could make it into a four wheel drive which was very good in the sand.

When we got to Italy I drove that all the way… oh God, it was absolutely ruined. It had that many holes in it with shrapnel — it was just absolutely nothing on it. And where were we? Oh yes, Matelica, and the door of the thing flew open and it caught on tree. It was a very narrow road into this place and it caught on a tree and it virtually ripped the door off.

The shrapnel

Dave and I were just coming out of this house, just at the door, when all of a sudden… there was a well in front, right in the sort of little courtyard — a brick well. All of a sudden we just saw it, we heard the shell come in and Dave and I both went down behind the door and when we got to the truck, both windows in the truck, a bit of shrapnel had gone through – yeah — another minute, another few seconds, we’d have been out there!

Balsorano

They called on a few of the artillery bods, and I was one of them because I was a driver, to go up and we went up to the… they were a bit afraid that the Germans might counter-attack down the road from a place called Balsorano. I think there were about 10 or 12 of us, of drivers, and we were all issued with Bren guns and plenty of ammunition and we went up to this house, we only were there one night, and we were supposed to guard the road — it was this house where you could see up the road for about two miles. A long stretch of road and if we saw the Germans coming down we were supposed to open up and try and… God knows what would have happened if they did come, but anyway we spent the night up there, maybe two nights, I can’t remember.

What was his name, now?

Ah… what was his name now Jeff, Fred… .

The brickworks

The brickworks was just south of a town called Castel Frentano. The brickworks: there was about a mile stretch, they called it the ‘mad mile’, but it was the only part of the road that the Germans could see from Orsogna, or from their positions in Orsogna. So if you went up that way to go to the brickworks you had to dodge this ‘mad mile’, because they’d open up and you’d have to go like hell to get through.

But we got a lot of bricks there because it rained after the snow, and even before the snow, it rained a lot and our guns were sinking into the mud. So someone suggested that we go and get a lot of bricks, truck-loads of bricks from the brickworks, and put them in the gun pits, which we did, but we never ever got the opportunity to put them in the gun pits because we had word to move and we moved over to Cassino.

So we left the bricks in the trucks at the top of the hill. There was a road down to the houses where we were and where our guns were. We left them there and told the Italians if they wanted them, because their houses were just lined with mud, just clay-lined, and they jumped at the chance.

Dov’è la Nuova Zelanda?

A lot of the people in the country, especially country people, they’d say, “Dov’è Nuova Zelanda?” You’d say “Vicino Australia”… “Ah! Sì, sì.”

And they didn’t have much in the way of food, they had pasta that’s about all — tagliatelle that they used to make themselves and that was just done in olive oil and a bit of garlic. No meat. And they shared everything with us we wanted. They gave us wine. They had wine which was very brown in colour. It was very dark brown. It was all right — but we drank it!

What the heck was his name, now?

What the heck was his name now? Dave, Ralph, Jeff, Eddie, Fred… Les!

The wrong way

We went from there, we stayed there for quite a while, I think, and we had leave in Rome — just one day, then we came back and we went… Oh, we still had a few more barrages up that way. We went right through Tuscany. I think the first big town we came to was Arezzo, but we had a bit of a battle at a place called San Casciano. There were quite a few Cascianos around, but this was up near Arezzo. Les Rehm left from Arezzo to go home on furlough.

There were only two of them from our troop and they were supposed to go over to headquarters to get the truck to take them back, you see, to go to Bari. Of course we farewelled them a bit with a few drinks, and the pair of them took off and they went the wrong way and they got heading very near where the German infantry were, and they very smartly had to turn round and come back — and we said ‘where the hell have you been’?

Do you remember in Faenza?

I don’t remember this but Dave Jones told me when we went to Egypt he said “Do you remember when we were up in Faenza and we were getting shelled, when it was all over you said to Ralph Walters ‘were you scared Ralph?’” And Ralph said “No, no I wasn’t scared at all. Were you?” And I said “Scared? I was scared shitless.” I was. And old Eddie Ferris, oh God, he used to really panic. I remember he almost threw me down on the floor he got so excited, some other time, I can’t remember, and he put his arms around and almost knocked me over!

And I saw this plane…

Friendly fire

There was quite an incident at the gun position we were in before a place called San Michele. It’s near Florence. Our troop got shelled by British guns. They now call it ‘friendly fire’ but the shells all landed behind the guns and I think killed three blokes. There was a bit of a stink about it but finally the order came through that we were to shut up about it, or keep quiet about, it and that it was definitely enemy fire, they said. But we knew full well it wasn’t, with the shells landing behind you. When a shell lands most of the shell as it explodes goes forward, towards the front from where it comes, because it’s flying through the air at a pace. This was all behind and it landed — fellows were killed with shrapnel in their back, in the backs of their heads — two or three of them.

Senio River — nothing left

The very last battle, which was over the Senio River, that was really the last battle although there was another one… they brought in 500 bombers and they just carpet bombed the whole of that area. And I remember when we moved, we fired a 600 round barrage there as well. They also brought up, because the Germans had dug into the banks of the river, they brought up these flame throwers and they were firing these flame throwers at them. But we moved through a couple of little villages. There was nothing left. Not a single thing.

And I saw this plane… And I just saw the bomb coming out…

An open door

Then there was a house in front of it. They were pretty shrewd those people, I don’t know what had happened — I really think it was true though. They had a sign up ‘typhus’ and I remember seeing the door open one day and there was a big pile of dirt. Whoever had died, they’d buried in the house. Of course, all the houses were just of earth floor.

After Cassino

I think it was after Cassino that the division sort of felt that we’d had enough. We got there late January and we were there, or maybe early February, and we came away from there about the end of March, maybe. Yes — we shifted round. We still were in the vicinity and we supported the Poles when they took over from us so we were there probably two to three months.

One of the things about Cassino, the story of Monte Cassino — the Monastery — was that there were no Germans in there. They shifted the cook house back from the guns, we were in behind a hill called Mount Trocchio, and they shifted the cook house and they shifted all the vehicles back. Every morning it was my job to take breakfast up to the guns and every time I went up there the Germans would shell. They’d follow you, or when there were quite a lot of trucks on the road going there, and the only place you could see that particular part of the road was from the Monastery.

Found in Chicago

Must have been the end of January, that’s when we had the snow in Forlì. And I then was told to take a prisoner and Major Vivian back to Bari — he was getting married and the prisoner had to serve his sentence. He’d gone AWOL and he got down to… there was an American air base down in Foggia and he got on an American plane and went to America and they caught him in Chicago, all in his uniform — ‘lemon squeezer’ cap and everything — yeah and ‘New Zealand’ on it. And of course they wondered what the hell he was doing there. And he had to come back, all the way back to the regiment, and he got 30 days field punishment and I had to take him down with one of our gunners as his guard, and he was in the back of the truck and Vivian in the front.

After Cassino… snow overnight… Cassino… the snow in Forlì… Cassino…

The Princess

Well there were two farm houses. B Troop went to this one and then there was one further over.

Can’t remember… there were two girls in there, in that one — there was Imelde, Tarcisia, Anna Strocchi, Lina Strocchi. Lina Strocchi was a bit older. Anyway, all the boys called Tarcisia ‘The Princess’ because she was so beautiful, you know. Imelde was good looking too but Tarcisia just had that sort of air about her. Well, even when we were there in the farm house, we used to go down into the big kitchen at night and there was one of our blokes had a fisarmonica, they call them fisarmoniche. We used to dance and ‘go on’.

Tarcisia and her family and all of them were in the house on the top floor, the end facing the enemy, and they had a whole big pile of wheat in there. They were all in there in that room and they kept the door well shut. And old Ike Gilman, for some reason or other, he got in the know there, you see, and he was going in there in the evening and talking with them all and he reckoned he was doing a line with Tarcisia, you see. So he was the senior gun sergeant, he was made a temporary Sergeant Major.

And one particular night we were all given a ration of beer, a small bottle each, but all the sergeants and above got a bottle of either whisky or gin. But in Ike Gilman’s case it was gin. He had this bottle of gin under his pillow and he was lying right next to me, and a fellow called Ray Rossiter, who was one of our cooks, he was sleeping in the same room. Ray would be about… we sort of thought he was an old man, he would have been about 35, I suppose. I was only about 23, 24 you see. He came in and brought his bottle of beer in. We had a beer each, you see, and we were just talking away and he said “I wish we had a bit more to drink.” “Oh,” I said “what’s his name, Ike Gilman’s got some gin here, we’ll have a crack at that.” We just decided we’d have a little sip, you see, out of it but as it finished, we got more and more and more and finally finished the whole bottle, and he said “We’ll fill it up with water and put the top on, put it back under his bed.” Anyway, that was all right.

We all went downstairs where they were and of course Tarcisia came down with Imelde, and her mother and them were looking after the two kids. I was dancing with Tarcisia. Anyway, Ike Gilman comes down and he’s livid, absolutely livid. He’d taken a swig of this and it was just water, and he came up he and stopped me while we were dancing and he said “You’ve drunk my bloody gin.” And I said “No, not me!”… Well it wasn’t me completely! And he said “Yes it was, it was you and bloody Rossiter.” So I said “Oh, yeah OK, and I’ve pinched your bloody girl as well.”

April 1945

April 1945. Nothing had happened on that part of the front at Faenza from about Christmas time right through to about April, nothing had happened. And we were told “Right we’re moving but you’ve got to take all your New Zealand tags off.” We had to paint over anything that showed ‘New Zealand Division’.

The next morning which was Easter morning, Sunday, I just jumped in the truck and took off down to Forlì. And when I got there Maria said “Oh no, they’ve gone down to church — Tarcisia and Carla.” When she came out of the church she just walked up to me and I thought she’d be very surprised. And she said “Oh I knew you’d come,” she said, “because I knew the division went through last night, though the city.” I said “Who told you that?” “Oh”, she said, “everybody knew.” I said “That’s supposed to be a secret thing”, but she said “No, no, no everybody knew because everyone was saying ‘oh, the New Zealanders have come through so there’ll be a big battle started very soon.’” That was virtually the last battle, although we put our guns down again at the Sillaro River and fired a big barrage there. A whole German division just disappeared there. They were just gone.

Trieste

And from there we got to Trieste — it was a bit of a confrontation there between the New Zealand Division and the Yugoslavs. And wherever the Yugoslavs had set up a command post, we set up a command post with a great big Sherman tank and a couple of machine guns. We were up in the hills, the whole New Zealand artillery were up in the hills, we had our guns pointing to the city as well. So, eventually, they just gave up and took off. So Trieste was our town then. Freyburg took over the Duke of Aosta’s castle. Near where Freyburg was, was a big house and they had a lot of servants and we used to often go down there as a group and have dinner and, you know, be waited upon and all the rest of it. It was quite good there.

Of course the war finished while we were there in May. Then we left there about the end of June. We were called up, the 6th and 7th reinforcements, to come back.

Stretto

And, I remember… the only bridge that they didn’t blow was the Ponte Vecchio… it took about 14 days I think from… and that’s when we had the snow in Forlì… we had about a metre of snow overnight… were you a bloody officer?… I said “who the hell’s that joker?”… I can remember at Cassino… . the counter-attack… Foggia… banging on the door… . to hospital… to dodge the… mad mile…

Returning

To civilian life? Awful, awful… I was like the lot of them, absolutely lost. We had been in the army that long and I think we were probably more unique than any other army during the war, in this respect: that we were a division, but on the other hand we were an expeditionary force. We had a base in Egypt, a base in Italy, we had our own shower unit, we had our own bakery, they called it. You see we even had our own convalescent camp in Palestine at Kfar Vitkin. And we had our own hospital — the New Zealand hospital. So we were more like a family. Everywhere in Italy where we went we had our own forces club. I had a week’s leave in Florence at the New Zealand Club. I think it was the Quirinale hotel. One in Venice; Freyburg sent a troop in to secure the Daniele and then, as I say, we had this hotel near the Duke of Aosta’s in Monfalcone just out of Trieste.

So when we came home we just used to meet, until I started work again, we used to meet up at the pub in North Dunedin. We got quite maudlin at times and saying, “Oh God, we wish we were back in the army,” and it took quite a bit of settling down. I was drinking far too much, getting pissed… and, oh, you know… and when Tarcisia came I sort of settled down.