Hunger and disappointment
In May and June 1945 my family was still in the little house in Gaggio Montano, as the Porretta-Bologna railroad could not run, since the Germans with a powerful locomotive equipped with a very large harpoon, had cut the wooden sleepers that connected the two tracks.
Highway 64 was mined and therefore impassable in several sections.
For us now the war was to be considered distant and over.
But how could I not remember what had happened in the first quarter of 1945.
By early April 1945, the front line had moved away from Gaggio Montano. Toward the end of February, the FEB had driven the Germans out of Monte Castello.
At that time, the gunfire was on Montese.
Various Allied troops were attempting an assault on Montese, called by the Brazilian newspaper “O Cruzeiro do Sul” < a cidade fantasma >, but without success.
Only the glorious Brazilian Division, at the cost of heavy casualties, managed to enter the town, expelling at gunpoint the Germans barricaded in the ruins of poor houses.
In Gaggio Montano meanwhile, only a few groups of PRACINHAS remained, so food for civilians again became precarious.
Brazilian kitchens had followed their troops.
We knew that near the Reno River beach in Porretta Terme there were large North American tents with various provisions inside.
The hunger of us boys gave us a glimpse in our imagination, large wooden crates overflowing with tins of meat and packages of chocolates.
A cakewalk!
Such thoughts increased our “appetite.”
All that remained was to go down to Porretta Terme and also attempt the impossible.
And so we did.
The alternative was that between sampling U.S. food delicacies and the thrashing imparted with the hard, half-meter-long, bludgeons by North American M.P.'s.
The choice fell on the possibility of filling the stomach.
Very cautiously, we approached the big tents.
We waited for a “tall M.P.” USA walked away for the usual round of checking and inspection.
Quickly, crawling on the ground, we slipped under the first tent.
The spectacle that presented itself to our eyes , was fabulous.
So many wooden crates were waiting for us.
With an iron (the well-known “crowbar”) found nearby, we unhinged a wooden lid board.
Leather balls , deflated but oval in size , appeared.
My first amazed comment, was to think how stupid Americans could be playing with a “crooked” ball.
The sport of “rugby” was a foreign thing to all of us.
We decided to move on to another crate.
Same procedure: but this time inside were cardboard boxes containing toothpicks.
Then, making myself heard by the other guys and in good Bolognese dialect I said that if we (Italians) had waged war against some people who brought from the other side of the ocean, for their soldiers, crates of balls and toothpicks, we had already lost the war before we started it.
To see that on every Willys jeep that passed by, there were only three North American soldiers and to know that the boots of our soldiers in Greece were “”nailed“” with a double row of wooden toothpicks, was a great humiliation to me.
However, in spite of ourselves, we had to abandon the enterprise and return to Gaggio not only with a dry mouth, but also with an empty belly
I remember that long ago, a soldier of the Royal Italian Army one day told me that he had been issued for his rifle, a single magazine with six cartridges, but when he was supposed to fire even a single shot, not in the combat zone, it was his obligation to fill out a written justification.
But,according to Benito, we had eight million bayonets!!!
And we had gone to smash the kidneys of Greece !!!