Cunningham: All Randazzo found in ruins as Yanks enter
Allied artillery, German demolition squads wreck city
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
Randazzo, Sicily, Italy – (Aug. 13, delayed)
Randazzo looks like Mt. Etna had toppled over on it.
U.S. bombers hit the town first on July 13, and the bombers and artillery have been pounding it constantly ever since.
What they missed the German demolition crews completed before they left, for hardly a building is standing, and the streets are piles of lava rock of which the structures were built.
The entire population fled a month ago, but today they began coming back by twos and threes. Like shy youngsters, they poked their heads around the rockpiles, staring at the Americans before venturing forth to greet them.
Monk greets Yanks
At the edge of the town, a bearded monk, disregarding the mines with which the wreckage is filled, greeted the Americans as they arrived, giving each a holy medal and his blessing.
Through an interpreter, Sgt. Henry Ingargiola of New Orleans, I asked the monk about the 20 churches in the town. He replied:
Some are wrecked, but it was the Lord’s will.
Picking a way through the streets, I met Minio Luigi, an old man who gave me a hesitant “hello.”
He said:
I come from the farm to see my houses. They no here. They all wrecked. No, I gotta start all over again.
Luigi made his “fortune” working on a subway, “one that ran to Coney Island.” He returned to Randazzo to run a real estate business. Now he has no business.
The Germans burned everything they hadn’t wrecked before they pulled out about 7 o’clock this morning (2 a.m. ET).
A second lieutenant, poking through Fascist papers in the home of the escaped mayor, said:
This bird had a lock on this town. He was one of the Squadrista 23 years ago. Those were the boys who used to punish the people with doses of castor oil. The mayor’s cousin was secretary of the party here. Another cousin was postmaster, and his brother-in-law ran the bank. The mayor skipped town a month ago.
Yanks, Tommies meet
The Yanks and Tommies met at 8:55 a.m. today (3:55 a.m. ET) at a big road crater a mile and a quarter from the town, where the road from Bronte joins that from Cesarò.
It wasn’t an “historic” meeting. Since the start of the battle of Randazzo four days ago, Allied troops had been watching each other fight their way across the mountains.
The meeting occurred a few minutes after two U.S. jeeps struck mines. There was a mixture of Irish brogue and Bronx swearing as the Yanks and Tommies piled up the wounded men.
Cpl. Jack Miller of the Bronx, New York, said:
Dese guys is all Irish.