Percy Smith's War Diary - Part 12

There was a time when we had advanced quite a long way north in Italy, but a party of us were required to return to the Naples area for spares or new vehicles. While on this duty there was an unexpected experience in that the volcano Vesuvius decided to erupt more violently than it had done for years. We were actually about 5 miles or so away at its worst, but everything and everyone for miles around was covered in ash and dust, it was about 4 or 5 feet deep in the streets and countryside. As far as the people were concerned they just seemed to sweep it out of their way and get on with work as we would if it were snow.

Rome had now been captured, or rather bypassed, as there was no fighting in it. It was noticeable that in Italy both the Germans and the Allies, generally speaking, seemed to wish to preserve the art and treasures of Italy as far as buildings and fixtures were concerned. No doubt paintings and moveables found their way to Germany until recovered, but the cities of Florence and Rome did not seem to have much real damage. Factories and industry were a different matter however and we never saw a railway train running all the while we were in Italy. The Germans fought stubbornly most of the way up through Italy, when however, they had been safely cleared from Rome, a weeks leave was organised there, for which we drew lots, two at a time. This was marvellous as we stayed at a large leisure or sports centre, which we understood Mussolini had built for the Olympic Games. At that time I don’t think anything like it had been seen in Britain. You could even record a message home on a small gramophone record. There were all sorts of sports under one roof. Then of course there was transport into Rome to spend most of the day. One day was spent at the Vatican where we attended an audience with the Pope. ( I think it was Pope Pius II ) . You could touch his hand but not shake it. He gave us his blessing and wished us a safe return. I think we were wicked enough to wonder if he had done the same with the Germans a few weeks before, but I suppose it would be all part of his job. However, soon back to camp and reality.

We were still getting trouble with malaria in Italy and it was round about this time that my friend, Leslie Smith, now a Staff Sgt., got a serious attack of malaria. He was so ill that he was taken off to Military Hospital and was away for about two weeks. It took him quite a while to recover. We had both been sleeping in one of the store wagons with mosquito nets, but once again I got away with it.

There was one time when we had moved into a location about 150 miles north of Rome, not far from Assisi ( famous for St. Francis) and just south of a large town called Perugia, which was high up on a hill. The Germans were on the north side of the hill and now and again their Mobile Artillery would come up and fire one or two shells into the town and then quickly drive away, which we could hear quite plainly. While this was going on one of our NCO’s came round with tickets — “Anyone like a ticket for the cinema in Perugia tonight?” He was promptly told what to do with them. The Germans did not stay there very long however and neither did we as we were soon on our way north again to Florence.

One of our memorable locations was just across the River Arno within walking distance from Florence, almost a village called Bardia a Ripoli but we called it just Bardia (not to be confused with the one in North Africa). The workshops and cookhouse were set up in the village square and we all had civilian billets which was something of a luxury, even though that meant that every single thing was removed from the room before we arrived. There were three others and myself in a front room and an elderly couple and their family still lived in the rest of the house. They kept chickens and rabbits, all of which were brought into the kitchen at night so that they would not be stolen. There was a time when I had a terrible cold and was in bed for a couple of days, the old lady was quite concerned giving me medicine and generally taking care, which was a little difficult as neither of us spoke each other’s language.

There was one time when, with a party, I had to make another journey south to the Naples area. We came back via Cassino, which I think was one of the most smashed up places I ever saw. It was just one pile of rubble with a road clearance through the middle. We stopped here in a bit of a clearing to have some of our rations, while doing so one of our company vehicles was coming from the other direction. They immediately pulled up, came running across the road and said, “Heh, you lot, the second front has started”. We had waited so long for this that it had become a bit of a joke, so we said, “Now pull the other one”. However after so many years it really seemed that things were happening at last.

As far as we were concerned in the Italian Campaign we had ‘got away with it pretty well’. Sadly, two of our chaps had been killed by mines and there had been hospital cases through accidents. I do not know of any others. We did have an occasion when 12 volunteers were asked for to manage mules up in the mountains taking supplies to partisan groups for which one of the lads was awarded the Military Medal and which raised a bit of a frown on the
O. C’s face as he was a chap who was always in and out of trouble.

Christmas 1944 was spent in Florence in the usual way, parcels from home, letters from home with the latest news, the Christmas dinner was pretty good and of course there was the NAFFI beer and Italian wine if you had any money. There had always been a joke saying — ‘It’ll be over by Christmas’, we wondered if we would be right next time.

I think it was in our next location (of which I have forgotten the name), but this time our workshop was in a farmyard and it was right in the middle of the wet season. The more the lads moved the vehicles about, the more it churned up the mud, until it was about a foot deep.
My office and store lorries were next to a hay stack and the time eventually came when the Germans had been driven a long and safe distance away that once again we had to move. It was while we were preparing this that the farmer and his family came across to the haystack and took it all down, made another stack and revealed heavy boards over a pit which was filled with beautiful furniture and valuable household goods. All this had been buried out of the way of the Germans. At least they seemed to trust us, their former enemies, rather more than their former allies.

With the firm establishment of the ‘Second Front’ through Normandy and into France, some of our troops and equipment were diverted in that direction. So of course were the media and world attention. So much so that occasionally we were called the D-Day Dodgers but I don’t think it kept us awake, and we were as keen as anyone for their success. Toward the latter stages of the war in Italy there was another trip south again for supplies. It was quite a long way and as we returned our whole army had moved forward in our absence to such an extent that we wondered if we would finish up behind the German lines. The Germans were of course in full retreat.

To divert to a much smaller matter for a moment.
There was one rather comical thing that happened with regard to my particular department during the campaign, though first of all I should say that at the massive Ordnance Depot from where our transport supplies came from they employed dozens of the local population to sit at typewriters and though they couldn’t speak English they would copy our orders for supplies down on to four copies of an invoice before the goods were dispatched. Now in the army you would not order 1 pound of 1 inch nails, it would be Nails 1 inch pounds 1. But on this particular order the word ‘pounds’ had not been copied with the result that two hundred miles down the line a 1 inch nail had been packed in a box on its own, all wrapped up with three of the invoice copies and sent safely to our stores. The O.C. took it to his H.Q. for a joke.

Leaving Florence we were for a few weeks in Rimini on the eastern coast, it would have been about February and the sea was warm enough to go in for a swim. At this time of writing Rimini has become an important holiday attraction but at that time it was rather a boring and dreary place and I remember we were not sorry to leave. The last location on our advance north that we were in for any length of time was Bologna, and as we were set up in the town square outside the railway station there was plenty of life. The German forces were now finally being chased out of Italy and Italians were getting into a very much happier mood.

We had now been away for about 2 years and sadly some of the lads seemed to have problems with their relationships at home. It happened that very often when writing home I would find it convenient to go into my small corner of the office wagon, where it was quiet and comfortable, to write home. On more than one occasion one of the lads would come in during the evening and show me a letter he had received from home saying that his wife wanted a divorce as she had met someone else. The idea was that I could suggest any sort of letter that might help. Of course I tried to help, but I think the trouble was that at that stage the damage had been done and usually it was beyond hope. There was one lad who had been with the 8th Army through the desert and had been away four years. At about this time the War Office had made a scheme whereby anyone who had been away for that length of time would be entitled to home leave as long as he was medically clean (sexually). This lad’s problem was that he had been with a lady who was evidently not very clean and he was attending the M.O. for treatment. He had to see the M.O. once a month until he was cured. Making an excuse in his letters home the first month was easy, the second was rather more difficult, at the third attempt his wife said she would be writing to their M.P. to see why he was not getting leave. I think it was almost the ‘eleventh hour’ when he got the all clear. I doubt if he got much pleasure from his night out.

There was always talk of what we would do when we got home. One chap said he would go into a café and order sausage, egg and chips with so many chips they would fall off the plate onto the table. Perhaps this reflected the years of rationing.

During the whole of the Italian campaign I cannot say we were ever in any danger from immediate enemy action. This was probably due to overwhelming Allied military power combined with superior air power, but this could not be said until it was all over, as there was always a chance of a breakthrough, an air raid and of course always danger from mines. There was one village that we were in when some children were playing in a field and they were blown up by a mine. It was a very sad day.

It must have been early in May ’45 when we packed up again and left Bologna. The Germans were being smashed from all sides from Western Europe, the Russian front and from Northern Italy. There did not appear to be any resistance at all as we seemed to progress along the road without any difficulty as far as we liked. It must have been about 200 miles north that we came to the town of Udine where we stopped for a short time., I think to sort of ‘get our breath’, check up and so on. Here and there along the road there had been many burned out and abandoned German vehicles. As we had progressed north I think most of us must have been almost awestruck by the change in scenery as we were now in the midst of the Italian Alps with great, high, snow-covered mountains, rather pretty towns and villages. The further north we came the less ravaged it was by war. About another 50 or 60 miles along the road we touched the border of Yugoslavia. It must have been late on the 8th of May that we drove over the border into Austria so that we were in German territory before the war officially finished by about two hours. It was well known that the Germans had signed an unconditional surrender to Field Marshall Montgomery during the day on Luneburg Heath and that hostilities were officially to finish at midnight. For all practical purposes Austria was counted as German territory, the people spoke German, Hitler was Austrian, and there was what was known as a ‘Non-fraternisation’ policy which applied to all German speaking people at that time. This meant that we were not supposed to mix with or speak to them, although it was difficult not to pass the time of day. However this did not last very long and we soon found the people friendly if perhaps a little more ‘guarded’ than the Italians. One of my friends, whose wife had divorced him while we were out there, eventually married an Austrian girl and they spent the rest of their lives together there.

At the official ending of the war in Europe at midnight on the 8th of May we were actually still in convoy on the road, but in anticipation of the occasion there was a bottle of NAFFI beer for everyone (only one, which was not quite half a pint and not very strong), so while it was a great and historic moment we did not get rolling drunk. Our journey eventually brought us to a pretty little village outside the town of Klagenfurt in the Corinthian province of southern Austria. It was early summer, the countryside was getting into full bloom and as we awoke in the morning we could hear cow bells as they were being brought in to be milked. It was exactly like scenes we would see years later in the ‘Sound of Music’.

As far as my job was concerned, it still went on very much the same, as vehicles still had to be maintained, guard duties were considered necessary, and there were always the spit and polish inspections. From the radio and the rest of the media we learned about the various celebrations going on in most of the Western world, so not to be left out, the company thought it would organise its own and we had a day off duty, games and competitions were set up, they tried to make the food a bit special and generally it was a day to remember.

At that time I think most of us got the feeling that most of the Western world was going mad with celebrating the end of the war against Hitler and Germany. Perhaps they could be forgiven because it was of course a tremendous victory and relief, but at that particular moment there was still a very bitter was going on with Japan and while they had been pushed back, they were now showing signs of being beaten. It could be said that we were partly on the way there, so that at least for a while it was rather like looking over your shoulder wondering what was going to happen next, and it was just possible that we could be in it.

As we were not within walking distance of Klagenfurt, our amusements were mainly within camp and the surrounding countryside where there were long walks in the woods. There was a large field where the Germans had left a light tank and a BMW motor bike which we couldn’t help noticing was much better made than our motor bikes. Both of these seemed to be in working order. Also there was a horse which seemed to be on its own, we tried to ride it but without much success, perhaps it couldn’t understand English. Occasionally there was an evening vehicle into Klagenfurt and once there were tickets for a show at the theatre for the forces, which even though it was in German was nevertheless very enjoyable.

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