Chapter 18
Casualties of War

As the 4th Indian div fought and clawed its way up the boot of Italy I started to realize that we were not the only ones suffering the horrors of war. The Italian civilians were getting a much rougher deal than we were. Although as soldiers we had to face a determined and deadly enemy, at least we had hot food in our  stomachs ( most of the time) and medical aid if we were wounded in action or sick. we also had the means to fight back. The poor Italian civilians caught between two opposing armies had none of these.

The war had not gone well for the Italian nation. Their armies had been defeated in Ethiopia and Libya and now their home land had been invaded by both the Allies and Germany. Following the Allied invasion of Sicily, Mussolini was deposed by the Fascist Grand Council in July 1943 and imprisoned. The new Italian government threw in their lot with the Allies and the Italian army now about faced and started fighting their former allies, the Germans.

By mid 1944 the Italian country side and major towns were in ruins because of bombing from both sides and thousands of innocent civilians displaced after losing their homes and families. Just about every road we would travel down we would usually come across the pathetic sight of these refugees trying to escape the battle field with as much of their personal possessions as they could carry. I often wonder how I would feel if my world was suddenly up routed and shattered like what had happened to these poor souls.

In Most of the smaller towns the battalion liberated in the early days  of the campaign it was a different story. Hundreds of Italians would crowd the streets to cheers us. We would get kisses from some very pretty young girls and some very not so pretty old lady's. The men would press bottles of wine in our hands and a good time would be had by all. I got the feeling that the Italians had never wanted a part in the war and all of them said that they had hated  Mussolini and his Fascist party blackshirts. We also started to see  the influence communism was starting to have on the Italians. The communists were fighting the Germanys in organized resistance movements and they were ruthless. These events have dogged post war Italy in that time.

One day we entered a small  Italian village called Pesgara which had been pounded by our Aircraft and Artillery for three days. The bombardment had been very heavy because there was a load of German tanks defending the village. By the time we arrived in Pesgara  there was not a living soul to be seen amongst the ruins. Until our officer Captain Ward discovered a cave near the village train station. It was crowed with all the surviving towns people who had sort shelter here during the shelling and bombing. There must have been about 1,000 of them crowed into this small cave. Mainly women and children. The site was very sad and the smell even worse as some of them had died during the last few day and the bodies had been left to rot at the back of the cave. Captain Ward ordered us not to go near them as he thought they might have typhoid. We left them as much food as we could mostly tins of sardines for which they were very grateful. The scene I saw that day really brought home to me that we were not the only casualties of War.

About the time of the Battle of Cassino heavy fighting took place near the town of Frosinone. A young boy of 12 called Luigi Miniotti watched in horror as his parents were killed in front of him when a German shell demolished their home. Two hours  later his sister was also killed. Homeless and terrified Luigi wandered the road with other refuges until he fell exhausted into a mud filled ditch. 

A patrol from the battalion passed by the same part of the road in carriers later that day. Pte. Lietch thought he saw something move in a ditch next to the road as the carriers drove by. He told his driver to stop so he could take a look see. He stuck he head over the top of the ditch and found Luigi asleep in the mud at the bottom of the ditch. The sight of the small boy lying helpless in the ditch brought him to tears as he was a father of five himself. He scooped up the boy and brought him back to the waiting carrier. The patrol returned to the battalion lines and  "Tony" as Luigi had been christened was give a hot meal and thoroughly washed.

We all felt very sorry for this poor little lad and did all we could to cheer him up. Two days later the battalion was ordered to move to a new position, Tony cried  and begged to be allowed to go with us rather than handed over to the Red Cross. His tears and pleading won us all over and we smuggled him into one of our trucks and took him with us. Tony stayed with us for the next couple of months until he was found out by the OC who ordered us to hand him over to the Red Cross. By then he was part of the battalion. Leitch had even made him a small Argyles uniform from old bits of kit we had given him. We were all sad to see him leave as we all felt like a father to him but he could not stay with us and he also knew this. I wonder what happened to him?