We slept in a large room on straw, men and women. At night we did our business in some buckets, which we sometimes exchanged for buckets of water to drink… we ate leftovers from the Americans, which we collected in buckets.
Antonio Caira – Resident of Viticuso, Italy during WWII.
Preface
The story that follows is a blending of fact and fiction. Marco, though woven from first hand accounts of Acquafondata in 1944, is fictional. Sergeant Stanley Grimes, my grandfather, is real. His smile and voice are etched into my heart. But in this story, he is a work of fiction melded with the real man that I knew. Bringing him back to life in my mind has ben a joy. His little black dog is real, his job as mess officer and gunner of the 50 caliber machine gun in battery D of the 67th Coastal Artillery Batallion is real, but the diaolague between he and Marco and what went though his mind as he was firing on the four BF 109s that winter day in Italy came purely from my mind. Acquafondata is a real town, which I visited in the fall of 2023 with my family, meeting some of its beautiful people and imagining what it would have been like when the 67th CA was stationed there during that harsh winter of ’44. The letters between Stanley and Mary Lou, which became in large part the inspiration of this series (and where the name comes from) are all actual excerpts from this very personal correspondence which reaveals the budding romance of these newlyweds. In accordance with a wish she told me many times, the letters now lie at the foot of Mary Lou’s casket, so she can be close to them and Stanley forever. It’s a love story that created my family and one which I know I am privledeged to be able to glimpse 70 years later.
What follows is the third installment of three stories about Acquafondata, the first centering entierely around its people, the struggles they endured, the hunger, the fear. It was inspired by an interview I had with Agostino Mancone and Eugenio Verrecchia, two wise and charming old men that graciously and emotionally relived their stories and welcomed me into their town (and even their home) as if my family and I were one of their own. The second vignette shifts its focus to the men of the Lufwaffe that had this town in its crosshairs, their shrewd determination in the face of doomed odds with a quickly advancing and numerically superior enemy a story which although on what we now know as the wrong side of history was valiant and worth remembering. The third and final one below also focuses on the people of Acquafondata, but also the lives of the 67th and their encouters with the enemy. Each is a glimpse of my granfather’s tour in WWII, and each stands alone in that way. But the larger narrative of letters home is one which I hope gives a picture of the whole story. None of this will ever do his or those around him’s story justice, but I hope it pays tribute to those who lived through this world defining time.
January 1944. Acquafondata, Italy
“Corri, Marco! Corri!” the old man shouted.
Marco looked at his mother, lying there, eyes open. She was still. Her eyes seemed to ask him for something—help or maybe to leave. He didn’t know.
“Mamma!” He clung to her, pressing his face into her chest, hoping his tears might bring her back. She was warm, but she was gone.
The sharp crack of rifles and the dull thud of pistols mixed with the cries of the villagers. The air burned with the smell of gunpowder and blood.
“Corri, Marco!” The voice came again.
He turned and saw a soldier coming toward him. The man held a pistol, his eyes fixed on Marco, cold and sure. The arm lifted, slowly, the barrel pointed right at him.
Marco shut his eyes.
“No! Per favo—”
He woke up, gasping. He was not in Collegluno, but in the barn. It was still dark, but for thin shafts of light through the door. The air was thick with the smell of waste and the dry, bitter scent of burning flour from somewhere far off.
He lay still in the straw, his breath coming back. He didn’t want to wake the other boys. The nightmare faded, but only into another.
The Rossi’s Barn
The cold had settled into the mountains and to keep warm he had to lie with the other children in town who had gathered in the Rossi’s barn. Since the Germans had abanondoned Acquafondata last month, life had brought a new set of challenges. The soldiers of the French Expeditionary Corps were in many ways no less harsh than the fleeing Wermacht, and to make matters worse, the Germans, grossly undersupplied and preparing for a desperate winter had taken with them all the supplies and provisions they could handle. The meager portions the villagers had saved that fall were stolen. The goats that had not been hidden away in the forests were taken. Blankets, tools, medical supplies. Finally free from the grip of facist Italy and Germany, they now faced their most desperate trial of the war: surviving the winter of ’44 with barely any supplies.
Marco had to find his own way. His parents were gone, killed by the Germans at Collegluno. Other children still had their mothers or fathers that winter, but he had no one. The villagers tried to help—they had all known him, the lively boy everyone liked—but no one had much to give.
At seven, Marco was learning to be a man. He learned how to find food, how to keep from being bullied or taken advantage of by the strange men now in town. He had heard some of the girls had spent nights with them to keep warm. He thanked God he hadn’t had to, and he kept his distance from them all.
The barn where the eight boys slept smelled of stale hay, goats, and urine from the buckets they used overnight. Some families had hidden in nearby caves when the Germans took the town, but most had returned, seeking refuge together now that the snow had come down hard. The Germans, afraid of being trapped as the Allies pushed closer, used the storm as cover for their retreat.
What should have been a peaceful winter scene had turned to chaos. The Germans broke down doors, raided pantries, and took what little the villagers had saved for the winter. Marco had watched from the edge of the woods that grey December afternoon, snow falling, as some of the braver—or more foolish—townspeople tried to stop the soldiers.
He remembered Marta the baker, wrestling for a sack of flour. The soldier slapped her hard enough to send her to the ground before he hauled away the last of her stock.
And then they were gone. Marco watched the last truck disappear down the mountain road to the north. He felt relief. Finally. The oppressors were gone.
For the first time in weeks, the villagers gathered in the streets. They laughed, spoke freely, and moved without fear. They broke what little bread they had and shared their stories. A group of old men gathered in the bar, passing around a bottle of grappa one had hidden from the Germans. It warmed them as they talked about peace—a fragile thing they barely remembered.
It had been over 20 years since Mussolini came to power. The boys in town had never known peace. The old men could remember it, but barely.
But a new enemy was coming. Even as they drank their grappa, the snow was coating the streets of Acquafondata in a white blanket. The old men sat by the window and watched the snow fall, lit up by the oil lamps in the plaza.
“The Americans are in Venafro,” one said.
“It’s a long way off in this snow.”
“Nonsense. They’ll be here by tomorrow afternoon.”
“And the Germans? They’ll be stuck in Cassino all winter.”
“Cassino, Rome, Milan. What does it matter? The war’s over for them.” The old man stared into his glass. The thought of a world without war warmed him more than the drink.
“Che importa? There’ll be another Mussolini next year. There’s nothing new under the sun.”
They sat in silence, pouring another drink. The barkeep came over, a bottle of Fernet-Branca in hand.
“The Germans didn’t take everything,” he said with a grin.
“Why not? While the sky is falling,” one of them said, motioning for the bottle.
Late into the night, they stumbled into the plaza. The only sound was the crunch of their footsteps in the soft snow. The silence, with their occupiers gone, felt strange. That night, against their better judgment, they pretended the peace would last.
February 1944. The American Kitchen
Marco looked around the barn in the dim morning light. Hunger made him get up. He stumbled over the other boys, lying close together for warmth, and wondered what he would do. He had never known this feeling before. He had grown up simply, but he had never feared dying from hunger until now.
He thought of the soldiers, lined up at their mess. The laughter. The smell of coffee and bacon that sometimes drifted up the hill when the wind was right.
He grabbed the two buckets they used for urine and stepped out into the cold. As he dumped them by the roadside, he kept waiting for a soldier to shout at him, or worse.
The snow had piled up against the trees, and the cold made Marco’s teeth ache as he trudged down the windy road. Below, the American detachment had been camped since last month. Three or four big guns stood there, their barrels pointed at the sky, and a few men moved about in the grey February morning.
There were several large green tents, one with a red cross, another with a long metal stovepipe curling out white smoke. Marco’s heart raced as he walked down toward the camp.
The sky in the east lit up the hillsides, and the snow sparkled where the light touched. Marco found a stand of trees and waited. Soon the soldiers would head to the kitchen, but after they were gone is when he would make his move.
He crouched there, his eyes following every movement. His heart beat fast, nervous they might see him and think he was a spy. Boys had been hanged for less when the Germans were here.
Finally the men began to leave the mess tent until only a few were left there cleaning up, these few now held Marco’s life in their hands. Slowly, carefully, he approached the tent, his pails in hand and looking as pitiful as he could, which was no difficult task.
As Marco neared the tent, a man in a cook’s apron came out, holding two bags of trash.
“Shit!” the man exclaimed, dropping the bags when he saw the boy, frozen in place, unsure of what would happen next.
The man’s expression softened as he noticed Marco, a terrified figure clutching the two pails, his breath puffing in the cold air.
“You really gave me a start, kid!” he said. “Sarge,” he called inside the tent, “better come have a look at this!”
A young man in his twenties stepped out, dark hair slicked back, a pencil mustache above his lip. His boots were laced high, trousers tucked inside to keep the snow out. He had sergeant’s chevrons on his arm and a friendly look that put Marco at ease.
For a brief moment, they stared at each other, both curious. Finally, Marco blurted out what he had prepared to say:
“Femelico. Per favore, signore. Cibo.” He glanced down at the pails, still smelling of urine.
The cook looked at Marco cautiously. “If we start this now, they’ll come back every day, Sarge. You know they will,” he said in a hushed voice, as if the boy could even understand if he had heard.
“Jesus, Hilbert. Look at the kid. He’s just skin and bones…” said the sergeant.
“Io sono Stanley,” he said, using the few Italian words he had picked up. “Come ti chiami?”
“Marco.”
“Aspetta.” Stanley took the pails and went back into the tent.
After a few minutes, he emerged with the buckets, cleaned out and filled with loaves of half-eaten bread, opened K-rations, and a large link of cured sausage.
Marco’s eyes lit up as he excitedly grabbed the food.
“Molte grazie!” he managed to say as he ran off before they could say another word.
“I’m telling you, Sarge, he’ll be back. Tomorrow. The next day…” the cook said.
“Well then I guess we’ll keep filling those pails, won’t we?” Stanley replied, looking at the cook with an air that suggested it was an order.
“Yes, sir…” the cook said, wiping his hands on his apron as he went back inside the tent.
Stanley watched the boy disappear down the road. Marco’s little legs struggled up the winding path, nearly dropping the full buckets a few times. He thought of Junior, his youngest brother, who must have been about the boy’s age, safe in Kentucky, thousands of miles away. He wondered if the winter was as harsh there and if Junior was hungry, too, with all the rationing. Surely not, he thought. But the thought made him miss home.
He looked up at the sky, grey and drab, little flakes of snow blowing in from the treetops. This was a good day, he thought. Overcast skies meant no planes.
A little black dog wandered over, mangy and dirty, looking up at him with hopeful eyes, tail wagging so hard that it wagged her body too. He bent down, rubbing her head, and fed her a small piece of bread. Hilbert would rather see you through this winter than that damned poor kid, he thought, glancing up the road where Marco had vanished around the bend. The boy’s clumsy footfalls left a trail in the new snow.
“We’ll get through this winter yet,” he said to the dog before taking one last look at the sky and stepping into the tent.
Registration Fire – February 1944
The morning of February 6th began like any other for the 67th. The harsh winter of ’44 showed no signs of letting up. The road out of town to the west was socked in with snow, completely impassable, while the road to the south was well-trodden as resupply trucks of men and material from the French and Americans made their way up the mountain every few days.
Ice fouled the men’s carbines, and a blanket of snow covered Monte Pagano, towering above them like a lonely white hulk. Both the Germans and the Allies dug in along the Gustav and Winter Lines, with little to show for the previous fall’s fighting except the unburied corpses now frozen along the roads.
Battery D, attached to the brutal Goumiers of the Morrocan Colonial Army of the French Expeditionary Corps had been swinging to the fight flank of the German lines, taking positions in the mountains to the east of Cassino, only because the main thrust of the Allied attack on the German positions could not keep pace with the FEC’s advance.
The French, eager to prove themselves after prior humiliations, and even moreso when it was not at the expense of French lives, had been relentless in their assault on the German flank, the Goumiers earning a reputation of ruthlessness in battle but also towards the local population.
It was now half past noon, and after that first encounter nearly a month ago, the local village boys had began to come regularly with their pails to the American kitchen, begging for the leftovers that the other soldiers refused to give per official Army policy. Often there was little to spare, but Stanley couldn’t leave them with nothing, especially knowing from the bitter and dry odor in the air of burning flour that the FEC kitchen was incinerating all of theirs: he was likely their only lifeline.
The Reconaissance Boys
In the forest west of Acquafondata, a tall, wiry boy in his early teens walked with Marco along the ridge. He, too, had lost his mother in Collegluno and felt eager to prove his worth to the Americans—or maybe it was to avenge that night. He didn’t know. A mix of excitement and nervousness filled him as the German position came into view through the trees. He glanced at his tattered wristwatch. 12:30. In just fifteen minutes, it would begin.
He explained again to Marco what the tall man in the American camp had said that morning before they set off: “Five. Five. Five.” He repeated it. Five bangs from behind. Count. Five from ahead. Stop. Then another five. Then another. The man just wanted those numbers and for Lucas to mark on the little paper map where they had landed.
They watched as men in drab grey uniforms moved about their camp, looking miserable yet methodical as they trudged through the snow in the clear blue afternoon. 12:41. He could hear German voices drift faintly up the hillside. 12:44.
“Get ready!” he said to Marco. “Don’t forget the numbers!”
He heard muffled booms far behind them. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Almost immediately, a yell came from the camp.
“Artillerie!” The grey men scrambled like frightened ants, disappearing into tiny holes or beneath trucks.
Marco counted.
“Uno… due… tre…” A faint whir of the shells passed overhead. “… quattro… cinque… sei.”
Five booms came down well beyond the camp, leaving puffs of black smoke and dirt in the air.
“Sei,” he said to himself.
The second set fell closer to the camp, the third too short.
They saw the German soldiers still frantically scrambling to find cover, yelling and pointing up the hillside as if at them. In a panic, the older boy yelled, “Let’s go!”
They took off quickly, retracing their path through the snow, grasping at branches and trying to keep quiet as they climbed the steep, rocky hill back to the ridge. Under the weight of snow on the branches lay a smooth sheet of untouched snow, marred only by their footprints from an hour ago and the fleeting tracks of deer or coyotes from the night before. They knew if the Germans came in pursuit, they would be easy to track. So they ran all the way home.
The registration fire that morning was routine for the 67th—a way to keep the Germans on their toes, test-firing their weapons, and honing in on enemy positions, dug so deep into the snow that moving even a few hundred feet would be difficult once they were known to the Americans. Although somewhat unconventional, the Captain had authorized civilian help in scouting the registration fire. The boys were eager to earn the kindness of the American kitchen, and the Americans were glad not to spare soldiers for hiking trips into the unknown Italian wilderness.
The Letter Home
After lunch, Stanley scribbled down a note to Mary Lou:
Hello Honey,
How are you? I recieved your letter today and was sure glad to hear from you. That was bad about Everett. I just got a letter from him a few days ago. Did Mary Kay ever go and see him? Is baby coming along by now? I would sure like to see him. Well honey some day we will have us one. Or two of three maybe. And maybe four of five. Haha… I’ll tell you another thing I want is a little boy. Do you think we can get one? They say they don’t cost much. Haha. You should see my little black dog. I’ve had her for about three months. She’s just about the size of a big rat. I’m going to bring her back to the states with me if I can. If she’s not too old. Haha.
Too bad I am not coming home. Well any way I dont think this will last over ten more years, do you? What’s ten years to me? I could stand on my head and do that. No sugar, some day I’ll get out of this army and we’ll make up for lost time. And I dont think that day is too long off. I don’t know how the news is over there. But everything is coming along just fine over here. So it couldn’t last much longer.
Well darling I guess I better close for this time.. So be good honey. And answer soon and write me a big long letter.
Lots and lots of love,
Your husband Stanley
Stanley swung the barrel of the .50 cal toward the sky, lining up the circular crosshairs with the incoming planes. He focused on aligning the correct concentric circle with their angle of approach and speed. It was a quick process he had drilled hundreds of times, but with real planes in the air, he was terrified he’d forget something or get it wrong. At any second, he expected to be obliterated by a bomb.
Nearby, the giant Bofors roared, issuing their deafening explosions in big black puffs that seemed to burst just above his head as the planes dove in, now recognizable as BF 109s. Everything happened so quickly. The four Bofors between them fired fifteen shots, none finding their mark, before falling silent, unable to target the incoming planes at such close range.
The 109s, just a few hundred feet above, erupted with cannon fire, and the .50s around the camp answered back, creating a chaotic and lethal exchange of steel that made Stanley think the world was coming to an end.
He pulled back on the cold steel trigger handle, the gun roaring to life, throwing its 2.3-inch bullets at 3,000 feet per second and 600 rounds per minute. Just a few needed to connect in the right spot to take one of the 109s from the sky.
In a sudden burst, one of the planes erupted, trailing black smoke, pulling up out of its dive. Shouts of triumph rose among the men as they watched, expecting to see it crash to the ground. But disappointment came when the plane swerved upward and disappeared behind a mountain towards Monte Pagano.
In thirty seconds, it was all over. Panting, Stanley looked around to see if any men had been hit by the cannon fire. The spent shells around him steamed and hissed in the snow, while men ran about like frightened children. What the hell had he signed himself up for?
Catching his breath, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a Lucky Strike. With shaking hands, he lit the cigarette, dropping his head into his hands and thanking God that this was not the day.
Sources:
- Le interviste son state realizzate da Eustachio Gino Mancone – c. 2000. Luigi Manfellotto
- Interview with Agostino Mancone and Eugenio Verrecchia. 2023.
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. “US Army Morning Reports. 67th CA. 1943.”
- Excerpt from Stanley Grimes’ Letter to Mary Lou. 1944
- Photo From Stanley Grimes’ collection. Date and location unknown
