Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With the Allied beachhead forces in Italy – (by wireless)
We were due to sail for the Anzio beachhead a few hours after I got aboard our LST.
But at the last minute came a warning of a storm of gale force brewing in the Mediterranean, so we laid over for 24 hours.
Some of the sailors took the opportunity next day to go ashore, and asked if I didn’t want to go along. But I said, “What for? I’ve been ashore for three months already.” So, I stayed aboard, and just killed a full day with doing nothing.
We were tied up along the waterfront street of a small port city near Naples. All day long the dock was a riot of Italians grouped down below to catch cookies and chocolates and knickknacks the sailors and soldiers would throw down to them.
There must have been 200 people on the dock, either participating in the long-shot chance of actually catching something, or there just to look on.
Most of them were children, boys and girls both. Mostly they were ragged and dirty. Yet they were good-natured.
Call American soldiers, ‘Hey, Joe’
Every time a package of crackers went down from above, humanity fought and stamped up over it like a bunch of football players. Now and then some youngster would get hurt, and make a terrible face and cry. But mostly they’d laugh and look a little sheepish, and dash back in again after the next one.
All Italian children call all American soldiers “Hey, Joe,” and all along the dock was a chickenyard bedlam of “Hey, Joe, bis-ueet.” Each one crying at the top of his lungs to call attention to himself, and holding up his hands.
The soldier’s favorite was a stocky little fellow of about 8, with coal-black hair and a constant good humor. He was about the only one of them who wasn’t ragged, the reason being that he was entirely clad in military garb.
He had on a blue Navy sweater. Then for pants he had the biggest pair of British tropical shorts you ever saw, which came clear below his knees.
His legs were bare. He had on gray Army socks rolled down to his shoe tops. And on his feet were a pair of brand-new American G.I. shoes, which must have been at least size 8. To top it all off, he had a beguiling grin with a tooth out in the middle of it.
This youngster was adept at walking on his hands. He spent hours walking around the muddy stone street on his hands, with his feet sticking straight up in the air.
Easier to walk on hands
The soldiers and sailors were crazy about him, and every time he finished his little performance, he’d get a flood of crackers. I finally figured out that he was walking on his hands so much because it was easier than walking in those gigantic shoes.
Pretty teenage Italian girls in red sweaters would come and stand at the edge of the throng watching the fun. But the sailors and soldiers at the rail soon would spot them, and the play for them would start. Reluctant and timid at first, they would finally obey the sailors’ demand that they try to catch something too, and pretty soon would be in here battling for broken crackers.
Most Americans are touched by the raggedness and apparent hunger of the children over here. But it was hard to feel sorry for these kids, for although maybe some of them really were hungry, the rest of them were just having a wonderful mob-scene sort of good time.
It was the old women in the crowd that I could hardly bear to look at. Throughout the day there must have been a couple of dozen who came, tried for half an hour to catch something, and finally went away dejectedly.
They were horrible specimens of poverty and insanitation. They were old and pitiful, and repulsive. But their hunger most surely was genuine.
One elderly woman, dressed in tattered black and carrying a thin old shopping bag on her arm, stood at the far edge of the crowd, vainly beseeching a toss in her direction. Finally, one sailor, who had just started on a large box of Nabiscos piece by piece, changed his mind and threw the entire box toward the old woman.
It was a good throw and a good catch. She got it like an outfielder. But no sooner did she have it in her arms than the crowd was upon her. Kids and adults both tore at the box, scratched and yelled and grabbed, and in five seconds the box was empty and torn.
The poor old woman never let go. She clung to it as though it were something human. And when the last cracker was gone, she walked sort of blindly away, her head back and her eyes toward the sky, weeping with a hideous face just like that of a heartbroken child, still gripping the empty box.
It was a lot of fun watching this foreign riot of childish emotions and adult greed that day. But some of it was too real – greed born of too great a necessity – and I was glad when word came that we would sail that night.
