Uncle Joe in Italy World War II

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

My cousin Stan Wawro loaned me photos his father took in Italy during World War II which I scanned a few at a time. Might have to go back and do them separately. Also put some from Africa with the ones from Italy.

Included are some postcards of French manufacture that he sent to my Aunt Carrie.

I have a few of my father, Mario in the Philippines, and many of my adoptive father, Nick Basile, who labeled them well from France to Germany to the Philippines and Japan. Stan found my father Mario's diary in the attic.

This one shows Uncle Joe leaning on a German self-propelled gun; he was in an ordnance transport company. I like the little girl bringing him a cup of coffee or something.

He has this labeled Cestrina, but he might mean Cisterna. Many towns were destroyed like this.

liviomoreno

Nice pictures!
An oddity: The picture of Piazza Venezia is printed in the wrong way. The palace must be on the right, not on the left!

Edited to show how the picture should look like...

nuccia

Livio is right. Those are some great pictures!

Thank you for posting them, Dave. kiss

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

Hmmm, Livio, I guess my uncle or the lab flipped the negative. I'll have to make a note on the back that it is reversed. Lucky me to have someone who knows the area. And now can label it as the Piazza Venezia with the Palace on the right.

Seems that I forgot one scan of photos. Having some trouble loading with ImageShack on Firefox, which has been great otherwise, Nuccia.

OK, here are more:

The gendarme and the photo of my uncle and another soldier holding up the lady are from North Africa. Formia certainly is wrecked. The one of Gaeta with the civilians bothered me. Always worried about them, especially the children.

One of the books I've been reading covers their plight. When we were kids, we used to lay on the floor on Sunday to watch war footage and my dad and uncles would say that war is terrible, but we didn't understand. It was mostly making model airplanes and ships, playing war outside. We know better now (some of us).

The book describes how more Allied soldiers and civilians than Germans were killed during air raids and shelling. Then what has made me most angry, conduct by some soldiers towards women. The French executed some Goumiers after the fighting, but in one story, an American soldier attached to the French asked an American lieutenant about helping the women and he was told "We are under their command, we must wait for their orders." Which I thought was ridiculous; I don't care if it was a general, you stop them.

Seems things have not changed.

Dave

Poipu04

Dave, those are great. Thanks for sharing them. It is really touching to see Anzio, were so many perished.

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

The devastation is horrible! I cannot image how the people felt living through that and seeing their villages destroyed. The fear must have been overwhelming! I cannot even imagine how horrible this war was. It's something so terrible you cannot grasp it unless you have lived through it.

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

Went to Seymour library today and looked for military histories of the Italian campaign, as I wanted to know more about what happened around the families' towns in Siculiana (didn't have the U.S. Army book), Sant'Elia a Pianisi and Civitella del Tronto (in the British Eighth Army zone) so had to settle for the Time-Life book.

The photos in this are heartbreaking, in particular the ones in the middle about the civilians, some by Robert Capa. Troops sharing rations with grandmas and kids or candy for flowers; one soldier giving an old woman who hurt her feet walking barefoot over the mountains his new socks sent from home. I wish they said which towns they were in.

This site has more of unit history than Capa, but a lot of information about all services, including Scottish and Canadian:

Robert Cap Picture File & War Chronicles

I searched for Sicilians WWII under images (dogpile) and got one of the photos that I wanted called SS-Troina-06.jpg found on yahoo search but couldn't go to it. This is the one of barefoot children and mother in doorway looking at wounded soldier. What faces.

I mentioned to littleapple that her father, having been in the Italian Army during WWII fought against us, but an armistice was signed after the fall of Sicily and Italy then was on our side with many Italians fighting alongside our troops. Will sent an apology to her.

Uncle Joe had about 20 postcards of Pisa, Florence etc that I will try to scan. At least the towns are intact. Some are those small stapled together things. Did you like the French postcards? For some reason addressed my Aunt Carrie as Carol or Carole on the backs. They named their daughter Carol, so...

Dave

Biff83 · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 1263 Location: Florida

Dave,

The Army official histories or "Green Books" on the Sicily and Italy campaigns contain a wealth of information. If they're not available at your local library, you should be able to borrow copies via interlibrary loan.
www.history.army.mil/c...4.html#6-2

The following will take you to a link to the Center for Military History's campaign brochures, summaries of the larger works. Of particular interest are the suggested further readings for each of the brochures.

CMH WWII Campaign Brochures

Biff

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

Biff,

Thanks for the links...I'll check them out.

My Uncle Sam Bissi had one for his outfit, the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment (101 Airborne) but can't find it; it's has to be in the house somewhere.

I saw my Uncle Tony's book and have to borrow it someday. Uncle Armand was with Patton's Third Army and Uncle Al was a ball turret gunner on a B-25; ended up in Alaska.

Uncle Frank was in the National Guard but worked at Auburn Button Shop where he said they made parts for the Norton Bombsight. Uncle Jim was too young and got in just as the war ended.

Uncle Mike was in London putting out Luftwaffe fires.

My father Mario was in the Philippines; his diary tells about my mother sending him this page from the Button Shop newsletter (where she worked too) The Plastic Clarion. My Aunt Zeffa gave me a copy.

Someone took the faces, pasted them on uniforms and then made a new photo that hangs at Uncle Mike's (Granpa and Granma's)

Whenever there is footage on or a new book to look through, I scan to see if my fathers or uncles are in them. It would be great to see Mario in motion. He did say in the diary that an Army paper came to interview some of the men but I could not make out the name; Armorbus or something. Would like to get a copy of that.

Thanks again,

Dave