The New York Times (March 22, 1944)
VESUVIUS FORCES MAY MORE TO FLEE
Lava threatens to cut shore highway and oust other villagers in the area
Crater pours streams; two children killed when a water tank explodes after boiling over ashes
By Milton Bracker
Cercola, Italy –
Smashing through San Sebastiano and Massa di Somma on a broadening, though generally slowing, front, the Vesuvian lava flow tonight had resulted in complete evacuation of this town of 7,000, two miles to the northwest.
At the same time, reports reaching field headquarters established here by Lt. Col. Charles Poletti, AMG chief in Italy, indicated imminent danger at Torre del Greco, on the coast between Naples and Torre Annunziata, with the possibility that a further breakthrough of the southern rim of the crater would cut the vital shoreline highway and force a far greater evacuation than has yet been necessitated.
The volcano put up another spectacular show tonight, although the encroachment of lava between buried San Sebastiano and this truck-cluttered town was less than early this morning. The fiercest displays were on the slopes above coastal towns, with red jets leaping high in the air and spilling down the sides in multiple new streams.
Dust spurts from crater
One of the most awesome spectacles of the entire eruptive period came at 5:30 p.m. CET, when a seething plume of gray lava dust billowed from the crater.
“That’s what killed Pompeii,” mused Lt. Col. James L. Kincaid, AMG executive for Naples Province, as he watched from the balcony of the threatened City Hall here.
He also revealed that two children were killed at San Sebastiano yesterday when lava reached a water tank, which exploded in a great hiss of steam, throwing them high in the air. So far as is known, theirs are the only deaths so far.
Another official observer at Cercola was Prof. Giuseppe Imbò, director of the Royal Vesuvian Observatory, who said the current phenomenon was completely different from that which overwhelmed Pompeii in 79 AD. He conceded the danger of further inundation by molten rock, but he said the exact situation would remain unclear, possibly for several days.
The entire semicircle from Torre Annunziata around to Santa Anastasia is more or less under the shadow of the worst eruption since 1906. This poses a serious problem for the Allied authorities and is diverting hundreds of men and vehicles from normal work.
Roads leading here are choked with trucks and laden with household supplies. On the direct road from San Sebastiano, families huddled over fires lit in doorways waiting for soldiers to assist them in loading.
At San Sebastiano, the end of the road is cut off by a crunching wall of lava, which is following the road’s axis directly toward the south end of the town.
People move before lava
Life in this stricken town revolved around the Town Hall, in front of which the Army has set up a food kitchen. Long lines of women and children waited hours for a share of available soup, cheese and bread. Meanwhile, men helped to move out belongings, and the streets are packed with bent figures carrying pieces of furniture larger than themselves.
AMG officials estimated that there were at least 4,000 refugees already, many of whom have been taken to a Naples refugee camp. Others went to Santa Anastasia and Aversa.
The last moment of San Sebastiano came about 3:15 a.m., when a seething mass 12 feet high burst across, the main street and the bridge in the center. A three-story yellow schoolhouse disappeared as in a fiery meatgrinder. So did a nearby wine shop in which the tall figure of San Gennaro, patron saint of the province, had been stored earlier after a priest had used it to help quiet the populace.
Cercola seemed tonight to have an excellent chance of escaping complete destruction, although it is most likely that both ends will be chewed off by the flanks of the inexorable foe. An outlying school has already been devoured.
Col. Poletti is hopeful that, once past here, the stream will dissipate itself in the flat terrain.