University of Virginia Library

XIII
Liberating Mediterranean Shores

Long before Pearl Harbor some Americans were involved in the
fighting. Besides those who joined the armed services of the Allied
nations, there were American merchant seamen who carried war supplies
to England and her allies. Larry D. Holland of Charlottesville
was a member of the crew of the Charles Pratt. When the neutrality
law forbade United States ships to carry war supplies, this Americanowned
tanker, flying the Panamanian flag, cruised in submarine infested
waters. On the afternoon of December 21, 1940, off the
coast of West Africa, it was struck by two torpedoes and went down
in flames. Four members of the crew were lost, but Holland and
thirty-seven others escaped in lifeboats. For six days before arriving
at Freetown, South Africa, they were without food and water.[1]

On March 20, 1941, the Egyptian steamer Zamzam left New
York bound for Alexandria. Among her passengers was Thomas
Olney Greenough of Proffit, one of a group of twenty-four ambulance
drivers recruited by the British-American Ambulance Corps
and bound for service with the “Free French” in North Africa. On
April 9 the vessel left Recife, Brazil, expecting to call at Capetown,
Union of South Africa, two weeks later. About 6:00 A. M. on
April 17 the German raider Tamesis overtook the Zamzam and
shelled her for about ten minutes, though the defenseless victim had
raised the signal of surrender. The members of the ambulance corps
with self-sacrificing devotion cared for the wounded while the ship,
which had been hit eight or nine times, was in imminent danger of
sinking. At first taken aboard the raider, the survivors were later
transferred to a freighter, the Dresden. While aboard ship the prisoners
were, to use a German term, treated “correctly” but without
humanity. After a long zigzag voyage through the British blockade
the Dresden on May 20 discharged Greenough and the other prisoners
at St. Jean-de-Luz on the German-occupied west coast of France.
Two days before, the Alexandria Navigation Company had reported
the long overdue Zamzam as sunk.

Greenough, with the other Americans, was confined by the Germans
at the Hotel Beau Sejour at Biarritz. On May 31 all Americans

except twenty-one ambulance drivers were released, but the
Germans seemed unable to make up their minds as to whether
Greenough and the other drivers were military personnel or not.

Put aboard a prison train bound for an undisclosed destination
on June 28 and warned that the guards had orders to shoot to kill
if any attempted to escape, the ambulance drivers suspected they were
headed for a German concentration camp. In a conversation with
the guards Greenough learned that the group was on its way to Mulhouse
and then on to the Black Forest. Piqued when the German
guards ridiculed the possibility of escape, and wanting another opportunity
for active service, Greenough and his friend James Stewart
leaped through the window at about one-thirty in the morning while
the train was stopped at Poitiers. After a chase they eluded their
guards.

“They almost caught us in the railroad yards when I caught my
foot in a switch,” Greenough said, “but we managed to jerk it free
before the guards could reach us.”

For three and a half days they hid during the day and traveled
at night. Their supplies included three loaves of German sour bread,
two cans of sardines, a can of bully beef, and water, but lack of a
can opener forced them to subsist on bread. On the fourth day,
worn out by their trek which had taken them about forty miles
southeast as the crow flies, but much farther than that when detours
were included, they concluded they had reached unoccupied France.

“The first person we met was an old peasant woman,” Greenough
recalled, “and when we asked if we were in Free France, she replied
sadly, 'None of France is free.' ”

In unoccupied France the police gave them passage to Marseille.
There the American consul arranged for them to travel across Spain
to Portugal, where passage home was secured. Meanwhile, the Germans
had announced the release of the remaining American ambulance
drivers. When he arrived in New York on July 28, Greenough
at once volunteered for a new ambulance unit which was forming.
So well did he serve as a member of the American Field Service that
he was twice awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French Government.[2]

After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941,
the United States was officially in the shooting war. American ships
put out to sea and ran the gauntlet of enemy submarines. Gordon
Witt Black of Crozet was a member of the forward damage control
party of the USS Laramie, which was torpedoed off the coast of
Newfoundland by the Germans on August 28, 1942. A torpedo
cut a hole in one of the big oil tanks of the Laramie, which caused
the ship to list, but within nine minutes Black had the pumps going
and the ship soon righted itself.[3]

In November, 1942, an American army landed in North Africa
and began the march which was to end in the heart of Germany.
Rugged Major General Lucian King Truscott, Jr., who had adopted
Charlottesville—the girlhood home of his wife—as his residence,
commanded a special task force of the 9th Division which had the
difficult mission of capturing Port Lyautey in French Morocco.[4]

With Truscott as commanding officer of the air section of the task
force was Colonel Demas Thurlow Craw, a native of Traverse City,
Michigan, who had made Charlottesville his home. One of the very
young enlisted men who volunteered during the First World War, he
later attended West Point and was commissioned in 1924. Four
years later he transferred from the Infantry to the Air Corps. During
the early days of the war in Europe he was an Army air observer
with the British Middle East Command and served as military attaché
first in Athens and then in Ankara. Lieutenant General Delos Emmons
called him “our most valuable foreign observer.”

Craw, who was one of the first Americans to take a definite stand
as an enemy of Nazi Germany, did not wait for Pearl Harbor to get
into the fight. With the British he took part in twenty-one bombing
raids over Axis-held territory and was under fire a total of 136 times.
All this before the United States declared war!

In many ways Craw fought a personal war with the Axis. While
he was in Greece before the United States entered the war, his car
accidently sideswiped an Italian major's car. During the ensuing
altercation, the Itailan ordered the two armed privates accompanying
him to hold Craw, who was in civilian clothes, and then slapped his
face. Breaking away, Craw knocked the major down, while the
Greek crowd cheered. A German colonel pushed through the crowd,
intervened in the unequal battle, and inquired what the trouble was.
Craw told him and added that he would be happy to give the Italian
satisfaction at any time, any place: but the major had had enough.
Then Craw asked the German colonel to say for him. “I consider
you, major, an insult to the profession of an officer, an insult to the
soldiery as a whole and even an insult to the Italian Army, which I
believe to be the worst on earth.” The Italian winced. The next
day the Italian major, wearing a black eye, made a formal diplomatic
apology. After that Craw was the toast of the Greeks during the
rest of his stay in Athens.[5]

“Nick,” as Craw was known to his friends, was a favorite with
the English soldiers, and it befell his lot to interpret them to the
people of the United States. Because he lived with the British in
the field, he could deny with authority the Axis-inspired reports
that American-made tanks and other material were being abused or
wasted by the English. He saw the excellent care which was actually
taken of weapons and raised his voice to combat Axis propaganda.

After the United States entered the war he was able to say of English
cooperation with the Americans:

“I once had part of the responsibility for setting up an airdrome
near Cairo for one of the first contingents of American planes to get
into action in the Middle East. The British had picked what they
considered a choice spot and had turned it into a surprisingly competent
airport. Concrete aprons had been laid out where the planes
could warm up without drawing sand into their innards, and sandbag
protection for planes had been provided at dispersal points around
the field. Comfortable quarters were erected for the men. Efforts
were made to permit both officers and men to join the common English
social activities, and perhaps most important of all, American
officers were given honest access to all background information the
British possessed.

“Then, for strategic reasons, I had to reject the airdrome. I
picked another site, and hundreds of workmen were turned loose to
make it as good a field as the first. Then I discovered I could move
into still a third location I had thought was closed to me, so I
shifted again and once more the British pitched in with every facility
they could muster to make it a workable base. During three switches,
I did not get one complaint from the British; only cooperation which
could scarcely have been more complete.”[6]

In 1942 Craw returned to the United States, where he shared his
first-hand knowledge of modern warfare with troops in training and
with the officers who were planning the invasion of North Africa.
Twice for a few golden days he was at home with his wife and
young son, Nicholas, at “Dunlora” on the outskirts of Charlottesville.
Some hours were spent in the Colonnade Club at the University
sitting for his portrait, which was painted by F. Graham
Cootes. Then in October he said his final goodbye and sailed from
Norfolk for North Africa. Craw's part in the invasion is best told in
the words of Major General Truscott.

“I had known Nick for years. In fact, I had something to do
with his courtship. I was delighted when he was placed in command
of the air section of our task force. All the way over the
ocean, while I worked on a plan for the delivery of a letter to the
French commandant here, outlining in President Roosevelt's words
our reasons for landing and hoping to avoid bloodshed, Nick begged
to be allowed to deliver the letter.

“I refused. I told him it was a highly risky proposition and he
was too valuable a man to take a chance with, as he was in charge
of all my air support. But he pleaded so hard, I finally relented.
I had already decided to send Major (now Colonel) Pierpont Morgan
Hamilton, who knew the French people and language well. But

I figured Craw was such a knowledgable and likable fellow that together
they would make a perfect team. Craw told his two subordinates
the order to succeeding in command should he not come back.

“At dawn of November 8 they embarked on a landing craft bearing
a jeep. Guns were already flashing from ship and shore. The
last time I heard Nick was over the radio, swearing: 'Damn it, we're
being shelled by both you fellows and the French.' Then they
started up the beach.

“Despite all the shells, they made their way as far as a French
outpost in a jeep bearing both French and American flags. They
asked a French N. C. O. for an escort to deliver the letter. The
N. C. O. said he had no man to spare, so they started up the road
again. Just at the edge of Port Lyautey there was a burst of machinegun
fire. Craw slumped, dead. Hamilton, who was sitting right
behind him, ordered the driver to halt and they were surrounded by
French soldiers and officers.

“Well, that's about all. Hamilton was taken to headquarters and
allowed to deliver the message. There was no reply. I refused to
negotiate surrender terms at the end of a three-day battle until I had
heard from Hamilton by radio. Things came through fairly well,
although the French had strong forces. Craw's fighters did the job
beautifully along the plans he had conceived and under the command
he had arranged.

“Nick knew he was taking a big chance, but he wanted to. He
liked sticking out his neck. I guess he figured he was pretty nearly
indestructible. I rather think we all who knew him thought so.
The French were very apologetic. They said he was a gallant gentleman.”[7]

On March 19, 1943, in his study at the White House President
Roosevelt presented the Medal of Honor posthumously awarded Colonel
Craw to his widow, Mrs. Mary Wesson Craw, while his son
Nicholas watched. The citation signed by the President read:

The great air base at Port Lyautey was fittingly named Craw Field
in his honor, and not far away, near twin poles bearing French and
American flags, he rests in the military cemetery. Atop his grave the
numeral “1” reminds all who pass by that he was the first American
to fall in the liberation of North Africa. To Craw and those who
followed him the local inhabitants paid tribute with a wreath bearing
the simple words, “A nos camarades, les Americans.”[8]

While General Truscott was pushing his army ashore, another
task force was taking Casablanca and nearby Fedhala, fifty miles to
the southwest of Port Lyautey. Shipfitter First Class Brown Lewis
Craig of Charlottesville, a veteran of four years in the Navy and
four years in the Merchant Marine, was in the Fedhala Roads aboard
the USS Edward Rutledge, a transport which had formerly been the
liner Exeter. On Thursday, November 12, 1942, the German submarine
U-130 slipped into Fedhala Roads and at six o'clock in the
evening made a highly successful torpedo attack. The transports,
USS Edward Rutledge, USS Tasker H. Bliss, and USS Hugh L.
Scott, each struck twice, burst into flames. Among the transports
anchored nearby the USS Thomas Jefferson, the former President
Garfield, was not attacked. The U-boat escaped to the north.

The Edward Rutledge, which had already discharged its troops,
had aboard, beside the crew, thirty-one sick patients and some survivors
from the USS Joseph Hewes, which had been torpedoed the
night before. The Rutledge was abandoned in perfect order and only
fifteen men were lost. However, some of the crew had to swim,
among them Craig, who was counted among the missing until the
next morning. Because the sea was calm, he was able to cover the
three and a half miles to the beach in about three hours. For two
days and nights he lived in a Catholic church where survivors were
cared for by the French people.

“The following Saturday, we were moved by French railroad in
the old 40-and-8 box cars to the town of Casablanca,” Craig recalled.
“Since our clothes were all on board ship and we'd stripped
in the water, we were forced to wear blankets for two weeks.”

His dress resembled that of the Arabs, many of whom were operating
as enemy snipers in the early days, Craig said. “But you don't
blame them—they don't really know who they're fighting for,” he
added. “You give them a pack of cigarettes, and they kill for you.
Your enemy gives them a pack, they kill for him. Why, I even had
one Arab who dug a fox hole for me on the beach, and when enemy

planes flew over, he'd shove me down in the fox hole and stand up
and watch the planes fly over himself!”[9]

The 8th Evacuation Hospital arrived at Casablanca on November
19, 1942, aboard the former Grace liner Santa Paula in the first support
convoy. “We sighted land this morning about 8:30,” wrote
an officer, “but it wasn't until about 10:30 that we were really sure
it was land. It has been an essentially uneventful trip, no real
trouble. Byrd [Stuart Leavell] slept in his clothes all the way over
and we felt that as long as he did that, our luck would hold, and so
it has. As we came in toward shore the destroyers, subchasers and
planes herded us along. It reminded me of a bunch of collies driving
sheep through a gate.”

“I never realized before how thoroughly the Germans had looted
Africa,” an officer wrote a few days later. “No gasoline is available
for civilians and all the cars have been fixed to burn charcoal. There
is no butter, no coffee, no cream, no potatoes, no real bread (all of
it is made from soya beans), no sugar, nothing to eat except eggs,
eggs and eggs. The Boche have taken everything that the natives
raise, either for use in France or Germany, probably the latter. Already
more food is becoming available to the natives since the German
robbery has stopped. The natives claim that in two or three months
things really would have been bad, but I don't see how they could
have become much worse than at present. With all the money in
the world you can't get a real meal in the best local restaurant. I got
a piece of 'beefsteak' yesterday that was so tough I couldn't make
any headway with it whatever. I don't think it belonged to the cow
family. I am sticking to my 'C' and 'K' field rations for the time
being.”[10]

Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Lincoln F. Putnam
the hospital was set up in the Italian Consulate and School on the
rue Mangin and rue Jacques Bainville in Casablanca. It was the
first American hospital to function in French Morocco, and from
November 26, 1942, to March 10, 1943, operated as a Provisional
General Hospital. During this period 4,192 patients were received;
however, only sixty-one of these were battle casualties.[11]

The fifty-three nurses assigned to the unit had been left at Camp
Kilmer, New Jersey, and later sent to Halloran General Hospital in
New York. Enlisted men were substituted for them. The Army
was unwilling to risk women in the landing and refused to consider
the earnest pleading of the nurses to be allowed to accompany the
men. As soon as the 8th Evacuation Hospital was ashore a request
to have the nurses join the group was sent through channels, but it
took considerable work on the part of Lieutenant Ruth Beery, the
chief nurse, to get the necessary orders issued. Not until March did
the nurses reach Casablanca. Although the men had done a fine job,

everyone was delighted when the nurses arrived and began to render
those services which only a trained nurse knows how to give. The
feminine touch was responsible for many improvements.

In March, shortly before the arrival of the nurses, the “8th Evac”
was moved into tents on Anfa Hill outside Casablanca and became
a Convalescent Hospital. On May 2 Lieutenant Colonel Staige Davis
Blackford wrote: “I would guess that we have handled as many
patients as any similar outfit in the Army in the same time, and I
am proud to say that I think we have handled them well, although
you might get different reports from the military authorities, because
patients to us are still more important than having all the cots in a
nice little row.”[12]

In July the unit went by train to Algiers, the trip taking four
days. Six weeks were spent at Cap Matifou near Algiers, where
volleyball and swimming in the Mediterranean occupied most of the
time. Then the 8th Evac was ordered into a staging area near Oran
to await the imminent attack on Italy.[13]

Captain Robert B. Ritchie of Charlottesville landed on the Mediterranean
coast of North Africa east of Oran at Arzeu. A member
of the 32nd Field Artillery Battalion of the First Division, he went
ashore at 1:00 A. M. on November 8, 1942.

“We fought the French for three days and finally took Oran,” he
wrote. “The French put up a very good fight and the experience
we gained proved to be invaluable in the battles we later fought.”

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day he fought a battle in the vicinity
of Medjez-el-Bab, Tunisia, and then continued defensive warfare
in the area for the next seven weeks. “The Germans sent several
strong patrols into our positions which were twice driven off with
heavy losses,” he recalled. “There were a few dive-bombing attacks
by the German Stukas, but the main activity was artillery which
dominated the front.”

Later he took part in the campaign which drove the Germans from
North Africa with great losses. “On Good Friday, we were in very
heavy battle,” he remembered, “and I was slightly wounded in the
right side by a small shell fragment from a German artillery shell.
The wound, however, was slight, and I was able to continue the
battle, and it soon healed completely.”[14]

A member of the crew of a 30-ton tank, Private Raymond Lee
Davis of Charlottesville was in the thick of the fighting in North
Africa. “On the desert we would cook in the daytime and freeze
at night,” he recalled. “The Italians gave up. They didn't want to
fight. The only way the enemy could hold ground was when they
would back up onto a hill, and we were out in the open. Otherwise,
when we were both in the open, well. ...”

On April 23, 1943, a few days before German resistance in North

Africa collapsed, his tank was hit by an 88-mm. shell and set on
fire. Davis was severely burned on the hands and arms. Seven hours
later he was in a North African hospital, and on May 21 he landed
in the United States for further treatment.[15]

The bitterness felt by the men on North African battlefields
against striking coal miners back in the United States found expression
in letters written by Lieutenant Philip G. Walker of Charlottesville.
They also reflected the confident, determined spirit of
American soldiers.

“The fighting is bloody, constant, and bitter ...,” he wrote. “We
are driving them back, hill by hill, and even field by field. At every
advance we pass more German dead. Heaven help them. The fewer
prisoners we take the better I like it. I am not asking for any compromises
and the Jerrys sure won't get any. ...”[16]

On May 9, 1943, the German commanders in North Africa surrendered.

Two months later, on July 10, the invasion of Sicily began.
Lieutenant Benjamin F. D. Runk of the Coast Guard, who in civilian
life taught biology at the University of Virginia, enjoyed a ringside
seat and described the landing.

“As far as you could see there were ships—battleships and cruisers,
large transports, destroyers, freighters, tankers, patrol boats, tank
barges, troop barges, sub-chasers and submarines—all in perfect order,
formation and units. It was a sight never to be forgotten. The
greatest single fighting unit of all times. ...

“The time passed quickly and about midnight on Friday, [July 9,]
the planes were heard going overhead with paratroopers, soon to
come over again on their way back to their bases after dropping their
troops. It was then that things began to happen. Flares began
dropping to light up the land, ten miles or so off, and big flares were
back of the shore, which had been started by the paratroopers. They
lit up the sky and gave us a good silhouette of the shore. Searchlights
began to go on and off on the shore and we expected all hell
to break loose.

“I stood on the sun deck and watched it all. You could make out
in the darkness the other ships and all were heading in to their assigned
places. About 1:30 A. M. we lowered our boats for the first wave
ashore and they were off. As they got close in ... shore, batteries
began to fire, with machine guns and rifles popping. The searchlights
kept going off and on, but when one stayed on too long, one of our
destroyers or cruisers would open up, and you could watch the ball
of fire from the gun to the target. This would mean one less light
to bother us.

“It was a wonderful picture of unity and cooperation. Our troops
got off in good shape, plus their mobile equipment, and by noon I

think all those who were to go ashore from our ship had been landed.
All this time, we were also unloading ammunition, guns, trucks, food,
and everything you can think of. On the return trips to our ship
the boats would come to their assigned places to take on a jeep, truck,
or load of ammunition.

“With daylight came our fighter planes to protect us and all the
day was peaceful, considering all, except for the shooting ashore and
the constant shelling of the enemy by our battleships. They did a
marvelous job and helped no end in establishing our beachhead. They
shelled the roads and approaches and were marvelous in their accuracy.

“When darkness came Saturday you could watch the shells travel
right to their targets. Saturday night was quiet except for the constant
shelling, but at dawn on Sunday I was at my post when I
heard the scream of the bombs as they came down and missed us—
thank God!—by a matter of a few feet. The concussion and shock
were severe and made all quite jumpy for a spell. The work of
unloading continued as soon as the flight of planes had passed, and
soon we were back to normalcy, only to be again bombed by a flight
of 25 or 30 Focke-Wulfs in the afternoon. Their bombs came much
too close for comfort and being the biggest ship at the end of a unit,
we got more than our share.”[17]

At Point Calava on Sicily the coastal highway passes through a
great rock ridge. The Americans expected the enemy to blow up the
tunnel, sealing the entrance, but the Germans had a better idea. Just
beyond the tunnel they blew a hole 150 feet long in the road, where
it ran along a rock shelf a couple of hundred feet above the sea. The
gap had to be bridged in a hurry by the engineers, who at once set
about the difficult job. The beloved Ernie Pyle tells the dramatic
story.

“Around 10:30 [P. M.] Major General Lucian Truscott, commanding
the Third Division, came up to see how the work was
coming along. Bridging that hole was his main interest in life right
then. He couldn't help any, of course, but somehow he couldn't
bear to leave. He stood around and talked to officers, and after a
while he went off a few feet to one side and sat down on the ground
and lit a cigarette.

“A moment later, a passing soldier saw the glow and leaned over
and said, 'Hey, gimme a light, will you?' The general did and the
soldier never knew he had been ordering the general around.

“General Truscott, like many men of great action, had the ability
to refresh himself by tiny catnaps of five or ten minutes. So
instead of going back to his command post and going to bed, he
stretched out there against some rocks and dozed off. One of the
working engineers came past, dragging some air hose. It got tangled
up in the general's feet. The tired soldier was annoyed, and he said

crossly to the dark, anonymous figure on the ground, 'If you're not
working, get the hell out of the way.'

“The general got up and moved farther back without saying a
word. ...

“Around 11 A. M. jeeps had begun to line up at the far end
of the tunnel. They carried reconnaissance platoons, machine gunners
and boxes of ammunition. They'd been given No. 1 priority
to cross the bridge. Major General Truscott arrived again and sat
on a log talking with the engineering officers, waiting patiently.
Around dusk of the day before, the engineers had told me they'd
have jeeps across the crater by noon of the next day. It didn't seem
possible at the time, but they knew whereof they spoke. But even
they would have to admit it was pure coincidence that the first jeep
rolled cautiously across the bridge at high noon, to the very second.

“In that first jeep were General Truscott and his driver, facing a
200-foot tumble into the sea if the bridge gave way. The engineers
had insisted they send a test jeep across. But when he saw it was
ready, the general just got in and went. It wasn't done dramatically
but it was a dramatic thing. It showed that the Old Man had complete
faith in his engineers. I heard soldiers speak of it appreciatively
for an hour.”[18]

Sicily was taken in thirty-nine days, and the Allies pushed on into
Italy. By October 1, 1943, the islands of Sardinia and Corsica had
been occupied. Air bases were set up from which Germany was
bombed. Miss Lucy Shields, a teacher at St. Anne's School, and
her friend, Miss Marion Hamilton, were assigned to an airfield on
Sardinia as American Red Cross workers. Early in 1944 Miss
Shields wrote:

“I never knew what it was to be busy until I came to Sardinia.
Marion and I manage fairly easily to meet all the missions and to
distribute doughnuts all over the island, but it's the parties and other
things which keep us running. We are expected to and like to go to
officers' parties, and in addition try to put on one or two a week for
enlisted men. We are very lucky if we get one night off a week to
rest or just have a date. I've been having fun recently trying to furnish
the various squadron clubs. It's a terrific job to find any kind
of furniture and we come out with very odd mixtures. ...

“Recently I took the day off and went boar hunting. It was certainly
an experience I wouldn't have missed. We went way back in the
mountains and then got on horses to climb up to the lodge. It was
strictly a native affair. We had about ten dogs, about thirty beaters,
four Italian officers, five American officers, me, and all the rest local
Sardinians. The meals were only meat roasted over a fire in the middle
of the room, no knives, forks or anything. Along with the meat
they passed around a jug of wine which everyone drank out of.

Afterward we walked for about an hour and took our stands while
the dogs and beaters drove the boar in. We did kill one, at least
somebody did, and the next night had a delicious boar dinner.”[19]

As the 34th Division pushed north in Italy it suffered the usual
casualties of combat. On November 6, 1943, Private Charles T.
Norcross of Charlottesville was wounded and then taken prisoner.
The Germans gave him no medical care but shipped him off to East
Prussia, where he was confined with other Americans. During the
summer Norcross worked sixteen hours a day on a farm, driving
horses. He was paid seventy pfennigs or about eight cents a day,
but as there was no post exchange, he had little use for the money.
The daily food allowance consisted of black bread and a soup made
of one pound of horse meat per thirty-five men. It was the Red
Cross which kept the American prisoners of war alive with packages
of food, clothes, games, and musical instruments.

When the Russians advanced into East Prussia, the Germans
marched Norcross and the other American prisoners, underfed and
poorly clothed, 450 miles in fifty-one days to Cella in the heart of
Germany. When he was at last liberated in April, 1945, he wrote
to his parents, “I feel like the happiest boy in the world.”[20]

With the 36th Division, which had landed at Salerno, was Private
First Class Robert E. Watson of Charlottesville. On December 8,
1943, his infantry company attacked the Germans east of the small
town of San Pietro on the southern slope of Mount Sammucro.
When Watson was fifty yards from the enemy position, he stepped
on a German S-mine. His right foot was blown off, his left leg
broken, and his hands burned. First aid men rushed to him, put
tourniquets on both his legs, and bandaged both his hands. They
could not evacuate him until later because of the very heavy enemy fire
falling in the area. Watson carried the company's portable radio,
which was smashed when he was wounded. Realizing that this
radio was his company commander's only means of communication,
Watson, in spite of great pain, shock, and loss of blood, endeavored
to repair it, working diligently for a long time. He was unable to
make it work, but his fortitude and devotion to duty won for him
the first Distinguished Service Cross awarded to a soldier from Charlottesville
in the Second World War.[21]

The 8th Evacuation Hospital landed at Salerno, Italy, on September
21, 1943, twelve days after D-Day. The nurses were among
the first American women to set foot on the liberated soil of Europe.
After a most unpleasant crossing in a British boat, on which practically
all were made ill by food prepared in a dirty galley, they went
ashore to live in an open field without tents.

On the morning following debarkation, news came that the Liberty
ship on which all the hospital's equipment was loaded had been

sunk just outside Salerno harbor. Then followed some anxious days
during which it was feared the unit might be broken up and its personnel
scattered, but the group was kept together and for a while
assisted other hospitals. Meanwhile a tornado swept through the
Salerno area, blowing down everyone's tent and casting all remaining
possessions into the mud.

The 8th Evacuation Hospital was completely re-equipped, and
on December 19 began to function independently at Teano on the
highway from Naples to Cassino. The work here was hard. The
mud was often ankle deep in the wards, making it difficult to stay
upright. Nevertheless there was some of the joy of living also. A
nurse, Lieutenant Mamie E. Kidd, who formerly lived in Scottsville,
wrote:

“I had the nicest Christmas I can imagine away from home. Three
of our friends came in about 4 A. M. Christmas morning. Mary
Ellen [Gibson] and I are on night duty, so we stayed up all day
to see them. They brought up a tree, oranges, apples, nuts, a trailer
of wood, five gallons of kerosene and a wooden platform for the
front of our beds (so nice not to have to put our feet down on wet
earth). We decorated the tree with strings of Life-Savers, tinfoil and
shiny red paper. We had it on a table covered with a white sheet
and red tissue paper. Our candles and packages filled it up. Our
cards we strung and hung around the sides of our tent. Quite a
Christmasy affair!

“I filled some socks for my patients. The Red Cross had gifts for
them all. You should have seen their faces. One boy of 19 years,
who looked about 15, was a joy to behold, he looked so thrilled.”[22]

New Year's Eve brought another tornado which blew down the
tents of other hospitals in the area, but much back-breaking work
by the enlisted men held the 8th Evac's tents in place throughout
the storm. Therefore, patients from other hospitals as well as fresh
battle casualties were sent to the 8th Evac for care.

Between March 23 and 27 the hospital moved a few miles to the
west and set up at Carinola. During May, while the drive on Rome
was in progress, George Tucker, a war correspondent who was recovering
from a jeep accident, wrote of the 8th Evac:

“For days I have been lying here watching the passionless routine
of a hospital getting ready for a battle—the clearing of wards, evacuation
of patients who could be transferred safely to the rear, bringing
the blood bank to a maximum, and countless other steps that
always precede an attack.

“When it came, I stood under the stars in the front ward tent and
watched the whole perimeter of the horizon leap into light as hundreds
of guns all the way from Cassino to the sea simultaneously
went into action.

“ 'We will begin to get our first casualties in a couple of hours,'
said the officers in the receiving tent. But it was almost 3 A. M.
when the first ambulance turned into the drive. ...

“I spent almost all the rest of the night in the operating room
where four surgical teams worked simultaneously, and in the shock
wards where the incoming casualties were prepared for operation.”[23]

“All through the day and night litter bearers have come in from
the environs around Santa Maria Infante which our infantry retook
yesterday after the Germans had kicked us out,” he wrote later. “The
litter bearers place the wounded on saw horses, like carpenters use,
and when every inch of space is crowded they spill over into adjoining
wards.

“When a man is hit he goes 'in shock.' His blood pressure falls
and his pulse-beat increases. Unless he can be brought out of the
shock he can't survive an operation, and that is where plasma comes
in. You walk down the lengthening rows of white faces and wonder
how they can pull through. Plasma does it. I saw a man from
Ohio take ten units of plasma and come back from the fluttery edges
of death. Color flooded back into his face and his pulse fell almost
to normal. Recovery now is almost certain.

“It is startling the way infantrymen can bear in silence almost
anything the battlefield can throw at them. It humbles you to stand
amid hundreds of men whose bodies have been shattered and not
hear one single word of complaint. They just lie there, waiting their
turn to be taken into the operating room. ...

“Sometimes a heart-breaking choice must be made between a man
who has no chance and another whom surgery might save. A lieutenant
seemed perfectly calm and looked up with wide, clear eyes,
but his spinal cord had been severed and nothing human hands could
do would make him whole again. Next to him was a man who
had been hit hard through the chest. But he still had a chance, and
so they took him.”[24]

A day or two later the routine of the hospital was broken when
a rather unusual casualty was brought in. “My God, it's a girl!”,
the ward attendant cried. Indeed it was a girl, a French WAC who
had been shot as she drove into the battle zone. “I guess I got on
the wrong road,” she explained to the nurses in French.[25]

When the great drive through Rome carried the fighting rapidly to
the north, the hospital was set up for brief periods at Cellole, Le
Ferriere, and Grosseto as it followed the Army up the west coast of
Italy. During 1944 the 8th Evacuation Hospital made seven moves
aggregating 425 miles, but lost only eleven days of operation, a record
of which to be proud.[26]

From July 3 to August 29 the hospital was at Cecina, just south
of Leghorn. It then moved inland to Galluzzo, a suburb of Florence,

where it remained until October 12. Two days later it was set up
at Pietramala, 3,400 feet above sea level. During the short, cold
days the fog hung low, shutting out the sun. Rain turned the area
into one great mud hole, which swallowed 1,600 truck loads of rock
before passable roads were obtained. In December, when it was
evident that the American offensive was stalled, efforts were made
to “winterize” the hospital. Work had hardly begun when a storm
wrecked the tents. Lumber was blown about like match sticks. By
Christmas there was a foot of snow, but meanwhile the tents had
been floored and walled and some prefabricated buildings set up.
The completion of the winterizing was celebrated by a Christmas
party at which egg nog, a compound of powdered eggs and cognac,
was served. The pièce de resistance at Christmas dinner was potatoes,
real potatoes, not dehydrated potatoes. These had been peeled by
the nurses because the enlisted men were too busy completing the
construction to undertake the necessary K. P.

During the next two months the ground was covered with six to
eighteen inches of snow. The weather was clear but cold. Adequate
heating was impossible. Wood for the stoves was scarce, but even
scarcer were hatchets for splitting kindling. A nurse commented that
someone should make friends with the quartermasters and get a
hatchet.

“What's wrong with the Engineers?”, demanded Brigadier General
Frank O. Bowman of Charlottesville, who was a patient. “We
have fine hatchets.” Making good on a promise, he shortly afterward
delivered a hatchet for each nurses' tent.

With the return of spring, the Americans resumed their advance.
On April 30, 1945, the hospital began operation at Buttapietra, six
miles south of Verona. With the capitulation of the Germans a few
days later, battle casualties suddenly dropped off.

The 8th Evacuation Hospital was at Rivoltella, on the south shore
of Lake Garda, when it was officially dissolved on September 29,
1945, and most of the personnel were started back to the United
States. Lieutenant Colonel Everett Cato Drash of Charlottesville
was the last commanding officer.

Many individuals with the 8th Evac were decorated for the outstanding
services they had rendered. Recognition came to the group
as a whole with the award of the Fifth Army Plaque for meritorious
service during the month of January, 1944, and the award of
the Meritorious Service Unit Plaque on September 10, 1945.[27]

While overseas the 8th Evacuation Hospital admitted 46,585 patients,
of whom 10,419 were suffering from battle wounds. A total
of 11,398 patients were operated upon, but there were only 129
post-operative deaths. Only nine of its patients died from disease.
Beside those admitted, 24,483 persons were treated as outpatients.

Of the 650,000 battle wounded of the United States Army and Navy
from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day, 1.6 per cent were attended by the
8th Evacuation Hospital, an outstanding accomplishment.[28]

In order to disrupt communications in the German rear and perhaps
turn their flank, an American and British force was landed at
Anzio, twenty-five miles south of Rome, on January 22, 1944. The
Germans quickly met the threat and bitter fighting ensued. Among
the troops holding the beachhead were the joint American-Canadian
First Special Service Force, which had first seen service at Kiska,
Alaska. Around Cassino, Italy, where they had become known to
the Germans as the “Black Devils” because of the disguising grease
which they smeared on their faces when they went on night
patrols, they had borne the brunt of much of the fighting. Lieutenant
Graham McElhenny Heilman of Charlottesville, whom his
friends called “Gus,” led the company which on February 2 took a
pretty little Italian village near Anzio. Soon the town was known
as “Gusville” in honor of its liberator. The force fought for ninety-nine
days on the German side of the Mussolini Canal without relief.[29]

Also with the “Black Devils” at Anzio was Sergeant Nelson B.
Fox of Proffit. He kept six hens in his fox hole to provide eggs.
When enemy shelling began, the hens, like their owner would make
a dive for the protection of the fox hole.

The “Devils” specialized in sending out small groups to clean out
houses of Jerries at night. Every gun they knocked out or enemy
they killed was marked by a red arrow sticker, the force's emblem,
on which was “USA-Canada” and the colloquial German expression
“Das dicke ende kommt noch,” meaning “Your number's coming
up next.”[30]

With a 45th Division tank destroyer crew at Anzio, Private
Luther D. Bunch of Route 1, Charlottesville, was in the thick of
the fighting.

“We saw a tank column heading along a nearby ravine,” he said.
“They stopped advancing as soon as we opened fire. Then, as our
shells dropped closer, they swung around and quickly retreated. They
were scooting along pretty fast and we didn't score any direct hits
on that tank column.”

Of another occasion, however, he said, “We sighted the Tiger
tank clattering toward us during a German attack on our outpost.
We opened fire and disabled the Tiger tank with three rounds of
armor-piercing ammunition. A few minutes later we shelled German
troops and knocked out a German troop-carrying truck along
a beachhead road.”

During periods of relaxation Bunch played poker with the other
crew men inside the tank destroyer. Much time was spent keeping

it shipshape. As Bunch expressed it, “It's my home for the duration.”[31]

While the Infantry struggled to move north in Italy, the Army
Air Forces were pounding the German lines of communication. On
April 1, 1944, Second Lieutenant Richard G. Miller, Jr., of Charlottesville,
one of a flight of A-26 Invaders, destroyed a railroad
bridge near Attaliane on the Rome-Florence railroad. The pilots had
begun their dives on the bridge when an ammunition train was
observed moving onto the bridge. The locomotive and several cars
received direct bomb hits. Violent explosions followed. Coming
out of their dives the flyers had to dodge the flying debris.[32]

On August 6, 1944, while flying an escort mission for a group
of bombers bound for Budapest, Second Lieutenant Carl E. Johnson
of Charlottesville shot down a Messerschmitt 109 interceptor. Describing
the flight in a letter to his mother, Lieutenant Johnson said
he shot the enemy plane down and immediately dived at about 450
miles per hour and got back to his base before the other planes could
catch up. Subsequently he raised his record to two enemy aircraft
and one probable. Johnson, who had been the top honor man of
his cadet class, was a member of the famous 99th Fighter Group,
the first all-Negro flying unit in the Army. The group by its sterling
performance won the respect of all who flew under its protection.[33]

Describing bombing raids over Axis territory, Lieutenant Francis
Bradley Peyton, III, of Charlottesville said, “We take off on practically
a split second, after having been given minute directions as
to the route we are to take both ways, and the opposition we are
likely to encounter. An escort accompanies us on part of the mission.
On our mission we are instructed as to the proper procedure
we are to follow in getting back to our base. We are provided with
escape kits, with a map of the territory over which we go, first aid
kits, and about $40 in money. ...

“Our daylight missions are always in formation. Each of us follows
a squadron leader. If one bomber encounters trouble and drops
out, another takes his place.”

A B-24 bomber pilot, Lieutenant Peyton participated in fifty-one
missions over the Balkans, Italy, France, and Germany.[34]

When escorting heavy bombers in an assault on the oil installations
at Brux, Germany, on October 16, 1944, Second Lieutenant Royal
S. Swing of Charlottesville, a Mustang pilot with the 15th Air
Force, sighted a large group of enemy fighters.

“I saw one start after my flight leader, so I gave chase,” said Lieutenant
Swing later. “My leader turned after three other ME 109's
and the Jerry and I became separated from them. I kept on his tail
until, after a few bursts, I hit his fuselage on the right and he

rolled over and down a couple of hundred feet where he bailed out.
After that I looked for my formation but only saw ME 109's, plenty
of them all around me, so I got out of there fast!”[35]

Near Futu Pass, Italy, on September 23, 1944, a platoon of the 91st
Division was advancing through heavy fire when the platoon leader
and two non-commissioned officers were cut down, leaving the group
leaderless. Staff Sergeant Andrew J. Dawson of Schuyler, realizing
that the force was in a serious position, immediately took command.
Under intense mortar and machinegun fire he moved about, reorganizing
the platoon. He made his way to each of his squads and
gave them instructions and encouragement. To each he assigned its
proper mission and indicated a route of advance. Sergeant Dawson
then led the platoon through the enemy's fierce fire in an assault
which captured a strongly fortified hill. The Silver Star was
awarded to him.[36]

On March 14, 1945, First Lieutenant Joseph G. Pace of Charlottesville,
a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot with the 325th Fighter Group,
while escorting a group of heavy bombers attacking the Nove Zamke
railroad yards in Hungary, won his first aerial victory. On the return
trip his oxygen pressure failed, and he was forced to drop out of the
high altitude escort and come down to about 10,000 feet. Here he
ran into a group of four German Focke-Wulf 190 fighters with
five others nearby.

“As I radioed to the rest of the squadron I made a pass at the
four-plane formation,” Lieutenant Pace recounted on returning to
his base. “When my burst hit the fuselage of a FW-190 the
plane made a lazy-S dive and crashed in flames.”

The squadron found approximately thirty-four German fighters
in the area. The largest air battle of the year for the 15th Air
Force ensued, during which seventeen German planes were shot
down and the remainder driven off.[37]

On May 11, 1944, the 85th Division was making an all out
advance on Rome, and the southwestern end of the Gustav line
north of Naples had to be breached. Sergeant George William
Davis with Company G, 339th Infantry, took part in the attack on
Hill 79. He was wounded at Trimonsuoli as the drive started, but
he entered Rome with his outfit. Subsequently he was commissioned
a second lieutenant but was later killed in an automobile
accident at Pistoria, Italy. On August 9, 1944, Sergeant Davis
sent his parents a poem he had written which, like an unpolished
folk ballad, told simply the story of the battle for “Hill 79.”