Retracing Dad's Steps in Sicily - World War II

My sister and I, with our husbands, arrived in Sicily and immediately noticed the rugged ancient hilly environment. On the hillside, there were abandoned houses that looked to be about 1000 years old – literally. We drove from Catania airport to our base at the Hilton Resort in Giardini Naxos near Taormina, the eastern side of the Italian island. Our hotel view was of the Sicilian beach, but we immediately went to the other side of the hotel to view Mt. Etna. As my sister said, “Dad only said about seven words about his experience in WWII, and two of those words were Mt. Etna.”  We were now looking at what Dad saw when he arrived the beginning of August in 1943. We were to meet our guide the next morning to have him accompany us to the region where Dad fought, to see the terrain, if not the spot where Dad fought and was injured for the first of three times in the war. 

Dad’s march in Sicily - From After Action Reports July 31 - August 14, 1943. (WWII era photos from Robert Capa):

Dad had already served under Patton in Tunisia – arriving in North Africa April 13, 1943. After success in Tunisia, his Battalion left the port of  Mers El Keber – half way between Casablanca and Tunisia -  for Sicily  on July 29^th aboard the ship S.S. Orbiza They arrived in Palermo, Sicily late afternoon July 31^st.  It was too late to unload the ships so they stayed the night on the ship. At 4am, the next morning, German planes raided the harbor. The first attack was for 50 minutes and a second attack followed 15 minutes later lasting for 25 minutes.  Fortunately, no ships in the harbor were hit by German bombs.  Later that afternoon, the regiment disembarked and marched 15 miles southeast of Palermo to a bivouac area.

Starting at 11am, August 2^nd, the regiment moved by motors to an assembly area approximately 7 miles east of Nicosia, Sicily. The equipment arrived August 3^rd and the Regiment got ready for combat. After the officers reported to headquarters,  they were told that they were supposed to be on Mt. Pelato by late August 5^th or early August 6^th.  And their movement was supposed to be “with utmost secrecy”  so the Germans would be taken by surprise. They would move along the ridge line to the east and take the ground in the area of Mt Camalato. This would prevent the Germans from using the road between Cesaro and San Fratello, a major north-south passage. Afterwards, they were to take the town of Cesaro with the 47^th Infantry who was coming from Troina to Cesaro. To keep it secret, the movement of the troops would be at night. So during the night of August 3^rd,  the 2^nd Battalion moved to an area southeast of Capizzi., had four hours rest and then moved to north of Capizzi. A German detached patrol, estimated as a patrol, with pack mules was surprised when the leading element reached Mt Camelato. They fled, leaving their equipment, arms, and animals.

On the night of August 5^th, the 2^nd Battalion moved from their position following in the footsteps of the 1^st Battalion. They arrived northeast of Capizzi just after daylight on the morning of the 6^th after a very difficult night march over very rough terrain.  Dad was in Company E and was lead by Stephen Sprindis (who would later make a name for himself in Normandy). The 4^th Tabor Goums (French Moroccans) were attached to the Regiment and were directed to move to Piazza Tredicno with the mission of getting reconnaissance to the north and east of the regiment as it advanced. Also late on the 5^th, Anti-tank equipment moved into the area north of Capizzi. It was too difficult to get most of the equipment into the area so they reorganized into a “Pack Howitzer Company”.  They used mules from area towns to bring in what equipment they could. 

The night of August 6^th, the Battalions advanced with the 1^st leading the way, the 2^nd taking over where the 1^st had been and the 3^rd Battalion keeping the stronghold behind the 2^nd Battalion.  They fulfilled their mission of taking Mt. Pelato by the 6^th of August. 

The morning of the 7^th of August at 05:30, they were directed to seize Mt. Camelato and then join the 47^th Infantry and capture Cesaro – an area where Germans were concentrated as they fled the American troops. As movement began, there was contact with the enemy and there were heavy concentrations of mortar and artillery fire. To the rear of the 2^nd Battalion, there was an ambush by an enemy patrol estimated in number at approximately 30 men. The IV Tabor Goums returned to the area with 3 German prisoners. They found a considerable number of enemy on the forward slope. An artillery concentration was put in place and as soon as the artillery occupied its new position, the enemy was attacking. The enemy had excellent observation from the high ground to the northeast.  At 10:00 the 2^nd Battalion was ambushed by a strong German patrol and caused 5 casualties.

Due to heavy fire, 100 men from the 3^rd Battalion to the rear were used as litter bearers to evacuate all the wounded from the 1^st and 2^nd Battalions to the rear of the front lines using poles and blankets as improvised stretchers. There were 27 dead and over 100 wounded. It was difficult to extract the wounded and took until morning – about 12 hours - to get them all out over the difficult terrain.

Dad was one of the wounded from this day. He was hit in the leg and received a Purple Heart for his bravery. He was taken via ship to a hospital in England where he remained for 2 months to recover. Dad’s brother Harold visited him in the hospital and then sent Dad’s Purple Heart and the shrapnel from his leg to their parents to keep. Dad was returned to duty after he recovered. Another brother Frank also served in Sicily but managed to come out of that battle without injury.

The Germans were on the run and a week later on August 14^th, the American  troops reached Floresta, Sicily. Germans blew two bridges on their way out as well as mined and cratered the main road. The Germans had reached Messina on the coast to leave Sicily altogether. Some Italian soldiers left in towns surrendered without offering any opposition. This closed the Sicilian campaign as Mussolini surrendered and Germany lost Sicily.

Our Experience Following Dad’s Steps

Marcello, a native Sicilian, met us in our hotel lobby at 09:00 and we started by showing him the combat maps that we had of Dad’s Battalion during the weeks of August 1 – 8^th, 1943. Marcello was an archaeologist by trade but worked as a tour guide to supplement his income. He had some knowledge of Operation Husky and knew the area very well.

We asked him to start our tour in Capizzi, since that would be the closest town to where Dad fought. He immediately declined to take us there.  He essentially said that we would not be received well in the area for several reasons. First off, he said that by the time the battle took place, the Germans had already left Sicily for the most part. They left a few patrols to move around and shoot to make it look like there were many Germans left on the island. Secondly, Patton wanted glory so he came in and bombed the area (after the Germans had left) so that he would look good. The citizens in Troina and Capizzi met the US military with white flags out. Many Sicilian citizens told the soldiers and commanders that the Germans were gone – there was no need to bomb. Finally, Patton brought in mercenary soldiers called Tabor Goums (who were French Moroccans) according to Marcello. These soldiers went into Capizzi and ravaged the town, by murdering and beheading citizens, stealing and violating women and children.  Most people in Capizzi were still affected by WWII and he would not take us there. He also said it was a rugged part of the country infested with wild boars and was only reachable by foot using an abandoned rail road to get there. Besides, we would not have the vantage point to see the battleground from there.Our hopes were dashed - we would not be walking on the ground where Dad was injured as we did in France.

Marcello suggested that we go to Troina instead, a city that had a vantage point of the battlefield. Troina was settled in the 7^th century BC by the Greeks and there have been Roman baths discovered from the 4^th century BC.  This town was conquered by the Normans in 1061, led by Count Roger and  he established his residence in Troina, founded the monastery of San Basilio and the first Norman diocese in Sicily. (Marcello thought it was ironic that our Dad also served in Normandy, right after he served in a town settled by the Normans).

 
 We stopped about 30 minutes prior to reaching Troina to stop to take in the beauty of the area. The impact of the terrain was ominous as we thought of our Dad fighting near here. There were mountain villages that were built in the first few centuries and at the top of the mountains were caves and tunnels that were still in use. We shot some photos and climbed back in the car to visit Troina. Marcello mentioned that he would try to find older citizens in the area so that we could talk to them about what they remember and what it was like for them.

As we pulled into the city, we temporarily parked at a gas station and Marcello went across the street to the jeweler to inquire who might have knowledge of the war. I found a poster showing the citizens of Troina welcoming the US soldiers in 1943. Within a few minutes he came out and told us that he called the town historian Basilio Arona who immediately closed the doors to his shop and would arrive in minutes to show us around. He assured us that Sicilian people were always helpful and he knew that the whole town would help us find the information we wanted. Basilio arrived and we found that he knew no English so Marcello served as translator for our many questions. Basilio told us to get in our car and follow him to the base of the older part of town and we would take the bus up the mountain to view the hills northeast of Troina where the fighting took place. We parked our car by an 11 ^th century St. Augustin church and jumped on the city bus which took us to the top of the town. 

From this point, we could see the entire landscape of the Nebrodi National Park that served as the battleground during the war. Basilio inquired which unit our Dad was with and then proceeded to point out where the Germans were pocketed and how the battle progressed by day. By the recently-constructed dam was the area where 30 Germans were pocketed and shot freely at the US troops for 2 1/2 days while the rest of the German troops abandoned the area towards Cesaro.  The Germans used tunnels to store their weapons near Cerami, southwest of where we stood, and where more Germans were located. A bigger battle occurred there with hand to hand bayonet fighting involving US troops and Germans. Basilio pointed out Mt. Pelato and we recognized this name as the peak where Dad was wounded August 7th. Mt Pelato is in the hills to the right of the dam - the bald peak near the horizon mid-picture. That day, Mt Pelato was shadowed by a puffy cloud that stayed overhead, making it easy to identify which hill it was. We asked if they know how the injured were evacuated and they supposed they were taken out by their fellow soldiers or by mule over the top of the ridge to the port in Messina, though they could have been taken back to Nicosia to a bivouac area with road access to Palermo and waiting ships.

We followed Basilio through a neighborhood, into a building, and up some stairs to a museum that was being constructed. One room had costumes from medieval times. Another room had about 15 photos and newspaper articles from the 1940s and WWII maps of the Sicilian Campaign.  We were able to stay for a few more minutes before the museum closed for siesta hours. Basilio promised to send us copies of the photo set by Robert Capa.

 We walked back down the street to the base of the city to our car.  As we walked along, Basilio told us about various buildings along our walk. One wall remained from the 12th century. The Augustine church near our car had workers inside restoring the building. Basilio bought us a coffee and wouldn’t let us pay him for his time. As Marcello translated, Basilio said it was his honor to spend the day with us. It made his day to give us the story of our father.  

Right before we got to our car, I saw another poster made from photos of Robert Capa from the battle during World War II. It has a city wall that was damaged by bombing and from there a viewpoint of the 11th century Augustine church at the base of the town, where we parked our car. The city wall was damaged in this photo, but then restored after the war and that is where we stood with Marcello and Basilio to discuss where our father fought.  Seventy-two years have passed between Dad being here and our visit. Though he never talked about it, I felt a closeness to our father, who was 21 when he fought in this region. My dad was a hero, several times over. He carried those horrible memories privately to his death. I marvel at what it took to face the enemy and come out a hero. To mourn is respectful, to remember is holy.

Definition of a Hero

I've known many World War II heroes in my life. But most of them didn't emphasize this often little-known fact about themselves to others. The years they spent in the war never came up in conversation, except sometimes incidentally. My Dad, three of his brothers, and three of my mother's brothers served in WWII and came home with medals. In my Dad's case, he received a Purple Heart, two Oak Leaves (essentially 2 additional Purple Hearts), four  Presidential Unit Citations, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Ribbon, and a Combat Infantry Badge.  He also came home with a piece of shrapnel still behind his ear. He never talked about it.

I don't think my Dad ever knew the profound impact his years of service had on the world. There are two kinds of heroes. Heroes who shine in the face of adversity, who perform an amazing feat in a difficult situation. And heroes who live among us, who do their work unceremoniously, unnoticed, but who make a difference in the lives of others. My dad was a hero in both regards.

Last week, I was able to spend some time in the company of WWII veterans who are also heroes.  They came to the Netherlands to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands. One American veteran named Armando Marquez, 90 years young, was in the 101st Airborne and dropped into the Netherlands in 1944 during Operation Market Garden. He was flown by the Dutch government from El Paso, Texas to the Netherlands with his wife Christina of 66 years and his daughter Martha to attend the week-long ceremonies to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Liberation. I met with him at a lunch stop in a tank and military vehicle procession and got to know a little bit about him. We bonded as fellow Texans, he said he was glad to know someone from home. This was his first trip back to Europe since the war. In coming back, I think he was starting to know the impact his service made on this world. His regret was that from his company, he was the only still living.

Many attending the procession wanted Armando's autograph, some wanted to ask him questions about the war, and others just wanted to say thank you. During our conversation, we were interrupted many times by others who wanted some of his time. I commented to him that he was like a "rock star", considering the following he had among the attendees. I asked his wife if he told any stories of the war and she mentioned that he wouldn't keep quiet about it. Armando leaned over and said he only told the good stories.

Armando's first jump during combat was in Normandy and his second jump during Operation Market Garden, when he landed in Son. He lost his helmet during the jump and grabbed one from a soldier who unfortunately would not need his after his jump. In Armando's home in El Paso, he has a photo of a German tank in the streets of Eindhoven, newly decorated with American flags after the liberation.

Later, I asked Armando if he realized that these people thought he was a hero. I mentioned to him I talked to a gentleman during the procession who was a 8-year-old boy during the Liberation of Eindhoven 70 years earlier. This man remembered the tanks and military men in the streets that day and in his mind, those men saved his family and his country. Armando smiled and didn't answer for a while. He said that he supposed that perhaps they thought he was. His smile was slow. It is worth celebrating 70 years if for only to let one veteran know that his courageous efforts and service in the World War II really mattered. Armando is an ordinary hero from Texas whose actions 70 years ago defined greatness.

Berlin - The Presence of Absence

So far Berlin might be my favorite city in Europe. Paul and I decided to go there on a whim when our bike ride from Munich to Prague was canceled the week before we were supposed to go (that's another story . . . ). In Europe you can just jump on an airplane for the weekend easily and cheaply. And so we did. We arrived on a Friday afternoon and stayed at the Hotel Am Steinplatz in the Steinplatz neighborhood of formerly West Berlin. The hotel is decorated with a 1920s theme, There are videos playing in the hallway and lobby that were shot in 1920s Berlin in the neighborhood that we stayed in. Our room had a photo of a 1920s Berlin flapper on the wall. Germany had fought in WWI which ended in 1917, but the videos of the city at that time didn't show any effects of the war.

 We walked around the neighborhood and found nice shops and many outdoor restaurants. The neighborhood had a vibrant feel to it and the restaurant our first night was at a tapas bar called Mar Y Sol. The food was tasty and uniquely prepared. In a funny way, we felt like we were home. Berlin is a green city, the vibe was alternative and edgy, and there were bikes and street musicians everywhere. Except for the language difference, it almost felt like we were in Austin, Texas.

And then we noticed 4 inch by 4 inch brass nameplates
in the sidewalks in front of many houses and at the corner of many streets. These plates had the names of the Jewish person that lived in that house prior to being murdered by the Nazis during WWII. There is a concept called the Presence of Absence, introduced by Micha Ullman when Berlin started to be restored. What used to be there, isn't any longer. The people that used to live there had their lives cut short by evil. And the absence - what was lost by war - is noticeably present in the way the city was rebuilt. One monument had the shelves of a library with no books on them. Hitler had a book burning in 1933 in one of the central areas of town that was known for being an academic area. 40,000 people participated and they burned a total of 25,000 books identified by Hitler as being anti-German. Scars of Nazi Germany still exist throughout the city.

The next morning we jumped on the train and got off in the Alexanderplatz - in former East Berlin where we met a group from Fat Tire Bike Tours to tour Berlin. We met under a TV tower that was built by communist Russia who occupied East Berlin, to show off their advanced technology to West Germany. Communist East Germany had to have it's own broadcasting system to restrict the programming that it allowed it's citizens and to show West Germany that it didn't have a monopoly on new technolgoy. We could see in the sunlight that the shape of the ball at the top allowed for a reflection cross to be portrayed onto the ball of the tower. The West Berliners called this the Pope's Revenge. We were fitted with our bikes quickly and we were off.

Fat Tire Bike Tours is based in Austin, Texas and has a shop also in London, Barcelona, and Paris. Neal, our guide was very knowledgeable about the history of the city and was easily able to answer all of our questions on the 3-hour tour. We knew we would be very interested to see how the city has been restored after WWII, both in East and West Berlin and to see the differences between the two parts. We knew the city had been rebuilt after the Russians bombed and pretty much destroyed the entire city at the end the war.

On our ride, it was intriguing to me to see how they rebuilt the city to make it look old. The stone for many building restorations was burnt before it was cemented in place to give it a centuries old look. There were several churches restored after the war, but they were used as museums, not churches in Communist Berlin. Several buildings still had the evidence of artillery fire from the war - 70 years earlier. We saw the area where Hitler's bunker was located. Hitler committed suicide May1, 1945 and he had asked that his body be burned so that it wouldn't be hung in effigy as Mussolini's had been in Italy. There is a dirt parking lot where his burnt body was found. The bunker was later  destroyed and was so thick that it had to be bombed out of the ground.

We visited 2 of the 3 remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall. Like many Americans, I've always just taken freedom for granted.  In Berlin, the concept of freedom,  and how precious it is, permeated just about every block we traveled.  

There is an imprint of where the entire wall used to surround the city embedded in the streets as we rode along. The remaining sections of wall are almost entirely covered with graffiti, some of it very nice artwork. When Reagan said the famous words "Mr. Gorbechev, Tear down this wall", it was not taken down by government officials or a wrecking crew. It was taken down by the people in the streets who were reclaiming their freedom. My husband Paul thought the graffiti on the wall was a bit disrespectful of something historic, but I saw it an expression of freedom by the people that tore it down. A person affected by Communism, who was walled off from freedom, has the right and privilege to be creative on the very wall that restricted him for 28 years. In riding through Tiergarten, a large park and garden in the center of the city, many men were sunbathing in the nude in the open field. This might be another edgy expression of being free. 

We saw Checkpoint Charlie and the site of a museum that stands where the offices of the Stasi (SS) used to be. It's called the Wall of Terror, and is a memorial explanation of what the Nazi SS did in Warsaw, Poland. It's staggering the evil and destruction of so many lives that were caused by the Nazis. He oversaw the killing of 11 million people, 6 million of those were from Poland. This museum let the horrors be known and felt that were the result of the evil of Hitler's empire.

We rode by the Jewish Memorial. From the outside, it gives the impression of undecorated grave markers. To go into the memorial gives a very different experience. The floor of the park is created in rolling waves, and the stones are very tall. To walk along the rows, you get the feeling of not having sure footing and it's a bit disconcerting to not know what is around the corner as you turn. I felt it was a beautiful way to memorialize the Jewish people that were murdered.  Hitler also killed homosexuals, Roma Gypsies, as well as Jehovah's Witnesses, priests, and ministers of all denominations and the disabled. There are several more memorials throughout the city. I have been in many parts of Germany, but I was deeply impressed in Berlin to see the honor, solemn respect, and apology that is given the victims of the war. In the rest of Germany, it is hardly spoken about.

To visit Berlin is to have hope.

The practice of rebuilding, forgiveness, and healing gives Berlin a very unique soul to be enjoyed when visiting. Healing those wounds in history is the central story in all of Europe. Berliners are acknowledging the evil of the past, but are also letting hope, not the hurt, shape it's future.