Chapter 11
Dear Johnny
It was a cold February in Rome. Johnny and the other bulldozer drivers were still confined to the temporary base while the 34th Infantry had moved on weeks ago. As the cold wind blew over the compound, Johnny looked up to the overcast sky. Previously, he imagined Rome as a place of gladiators fighting lions on a dirt floor in the Coliseum. It was an image in his head from a book he had read in high school. West Des Moines seemed a long way from Rome and was surely colder this time of year. He and the others had yet to visit the Coliseum, Vatican, or any other famous landmark within the city. The country was still at war in the north. Mussolini and the fascists were the first leg of the Axis to crumble. When the tide of the war turned, the Italian partisans turned on their fascist counterparts. As time went by, no one even cared that the Nazis discovered the mountain hideout and staged their daring rescue with paratroopers recovering Mussolini. Who he was in charge of currently was unclear, but he wasn’t coming back. To the men on the compound. It didn’t matter. There were no bombs dropping or gunfire in Rome. There were no buildings burning nor any bodies in the streets. Compared to fighting in the north and the collapsing ring around the Nazis, it was easy duty with a low risk of becoming a casualty and a high risk of returning home safely.
The men had not been on their bulldozers in over a week. Instead, the tractors were laid up in the motor pool, and the men transitioned to gate guards standing out front of the compound, waving vehicles on and off the base around the clock in four-hour shifts. All the vehicles coming onto the base were Americans. There was almost no point in having a checkpoint out front, as the Romans avoided the place entirely. No one spoke Italian, and none of the Italians spoke English, so the Roman newspaper that floated around the compound for a few days previously ended up as toilet paper in the latrine. The compound itself was a convenient location appropriated by the OSS from the Army’s 56th Evacuation Hospital once their operation found a more suitable setting in a fully staffed hospital in Rome. The purpose of the base was to interrogate the growing number of Nazis captured trying to escape down a variety of rat lines. The captured soldiers were taken into the main building on the compound and questioned by OSS staff. At the end of the day, the truck would load back up most of the Nazis into the rear of the truck, and they would depart. Shortly thereafter, another truck would arrive and back down into the courtyard behind the main building to load the remaining Germans that were being kept by the OSS. Their uniforms were thrown away, and they donned the brown cloth tunics that hung to their feet. The men looked scared in the back of the trucks as Johnny and the others took turns looking at their faces as they came on and off the base, day in and day out. The ones wearing their uniforms still were destined for a prisoner-of-war camp or a firing squad somewhere, they assumed.
Mail call was always infrequent and the highlight of the day when it happened. A postal clerk would pass out mail from the back of a truck by the sack, no more than once a month at best. Once it was broken down into smaller sacks and boxes, it would be disbursed to individual units. It had been long before Rome since the last mail call. Johnny thought it might have been in Sicily, but he received nothing. It was deflating to the men who received no word from home after days and weeks of loneliness in between battles. When the mail arrived on the compound that cold February morning, it was a refreshing break from the routine. Sergeant Marzetti was tasked with passing out the mail to the excited men gathered around a picnic table with a sack containing a couple of boxes and letters. “Looks like the first box goes to…Booby Blowzer,” teased Marzetti.
“Booby, that is great,” Johnny laughed. “Ol’ Booby Blowzer the buckeye.”
“Right here,” Blowzer spoke up, ignoring Johnny’s slight.
“First box is yours,” said Marzetti as he shook it like a child with a Christmas present trying to determine the contents before opening it. “All the way from Ravenna, Ohio. Sounds like there is a dried turd in there,” Marzetti declared.
“C’mon, Sarge,” begged Blowzer.
“Here ya go, Booby,” Marzetti said as he tossed the box to Blowzer.
“Kryliter, Perry! Mobile, Alabama!” Marzetti read the box aloud.
“Right here,” Kryliter spoke up.
“Probably a lump of coal,” Marzetti teased as he shook the second box and put his ear to it, then handed it to Kryliter. Marzetti continued on until he called out Johnny’s name. “Meade, Johnny. West Des Moines, Iowa.”
“Right here, Sarge.” Johnny held out his hand. He accepted the letter and looked at the envelope. He could tell by the penmanship on the return address that it was from his mother. He walked over to an open picnic table and sat down to read his letter. The postmark on the letter was December 9th, 1944. It had taken two months to reach its destination. He had given up on the mail more than a handful of times. Planes were shot down and ships carrying mail were sunk without the sender ever knowing the letter was never received or the recipient ever knowing it was even written in the first place. This one made it.
“Dear Johnny,
I hope this letter finds you healthy and warm. It has been over a year since I have heard your voice, or Bill’s either. You are somewhere in Italy from the news we get about the 34th Infantry in the newspaper and on the radio. It sounds like you boys are closing in on the Germans. It also sounds like the Russians are making good progress on the Eastern Front too. The newspaper said the government is estimating millions of people have been killed already. I am not sure who I hate worse, Hitler and his stupid mustache or the Japanese Asian devils. They are using submarines to torpedo our ships and crashing their planes directly into the ships on suicide missions. A person has to be crazy to do that. Everyone supports you boys back home and hopes you give all of them what they have coming to them.
Life around West Des Moines has been quite busy. Valley Junction is bustling with trains hauling everything for the war back and forth. Your father believes the rail yard is going to close after the war. There is talk among the union and the companies about changing up the contracts because they want to use diesel engines and stop the passenger service. They have already torn up the tracks running down 5th Street and donated them to a scrap metal drive. People park sideways now in front of the stores along the whole street. The pavement on the sidewalks is a big improvement. Verne Poonrod is still the mayor and up to his shenanigans about the town. I don’t bother asking, but I know your father and him are always trying to cook up their next great idea. Jimmy is now done with school and he is working part time on the rail yard. Your father got him into the union on a trial basis. He said it won’t last long and Jimmy will be one of the first to be let go when the new contracts come out. The rest of the time he chums around with Domino. Domino is teaching him how to play guitar in the pawn shop. It is something warm to do indoors over the winter. Grandpa Lundborg is still in the Army at Fort Des Moines. He talks about going back to Sweden sometimes, after the war, of course.
Many of the local women have taken up jobs the men used to do in some of the factories downtown. There are a few even working on the rail yard. It has given us women a sense of pride and commitment to the war effort back here at home. There sure are a lot of single women back here at home with all the men off fighting. Maybe when you get back you will meet one. I stay at home mostly and keep up with the chores and taking care of the house. We have had a little snow already, but the ice is just now starting to form along Jordan Creek. Seems like just yesterday you boys were ice fishing with your dad. Your father and I went to the Bijoux the other night and saw ‘Going My Way’ with Bing Crosby. What a crooner! It was about a priest and the church and, of course, your father didn’t like it. I must admit my own faith has been tested with this war. How could an omnipotent and benevolent god allow the war to happen like this?
I am not sure if you know or not, but there is a prisoner of war camp here in Iowa. In the town of Algona there are thousands of captured men doing mostly farm work during the season. I don’t know what they are doing now since the crops are all in. Your father thinks we should shoot all of them.
Your beloved Iowa Hawkeyes took quite a beating in football this year. They won only one game. Your father is convinced there are women now playing for the Hawkeyes. Like your father says, “shoot straight, run fast, and give ‘em hell, son.”
Love, Mom
Johnny folded the letter and looked across the field kitchen at other guys reading their mail or opening boxes and CARE packages from home. It was a rare occurrence for men to smile and laugh since the fighting began. West Des Moines and his family seemed a long way away. It was good to know Bill was not dead. He imagined living on a ship had to be better than the Army. The idea of three hot meals a day, a bunk, a shower, and laundry service all on the same boat was amazing. The ride across the ocean was one of the more peaceful times of the war, except for the ominous feeling there were Nazi U-boats lurking underwater. Johnny tried to imagine Jap planes crashing into ships on intentional suicide missions. He took the news of the maneuver as a sign of the Japs’ desperation. No one would train a pilot for one mission. As long as his didn’t sink, Johnny figured Bill would be alright.
“You get a letter from home, Meade?” asked Kryliter, who walked up behind him.
“Yeah, my mom sent me a note.”
“It’s good to hear from back home,” replied Blowzer, who was holding his box in his hand.
Johnny nodded his head and sighed, “It sure is.”
“My girl back home said she wants to get married when I get back,” boasted Kryliter.
Blowzer shifted his gaze towards Kryliter and shook his head. “Well, congratulations, Kryliter. What is her name?”
Johnny burst out laughing at the homosexual inference. “Blowzer, that was genius.”
“Joke as you must. Charlotte is a real looker, fellas. She wouldn’t give you boys the time of day,” retorted Kryliter.
“Is Charlotte gonna suck your little pecker and let you fuck her before the wedding night?” Blowzer was relentless in his attack. Johnny couldn’t stop laughing.
“This is none of your business. I understood long ago you heathens were better soldiers than civilians,” Kryliter tried to rise above the fray as he knew the men were enjoying themselves at his expense. Neither of them got a letter from a girl back home.
Johnny nodded, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Are you sure Charlotte is not Charlie? Does Charlotte have a cock?” I mean….” Blowzer’s insult was interrupted by Sergeant Marzetti approaching the table.
”Gentlemen, check your duty assignments on the sign-up board posted outside our tent if you want. I can save you the trip. All three of you are done with gate guard duty. They’re bringing in their own guys to stand watch now.”
“OSS. guys standing gate guard duty? That makes no sense,” said Johnny.
“Yeah, there are a handful of things around here that do not make much sense, but that is what is happening.
“So what are we going to do now?” asked Blowzer.
“We are all being assigned to the field kitchen. Blowzer, you are on latrines today,” Marzetti ordered with a smirk. Latrines was the worst job on the compound. It meant pulling the shit pots out from under the outhouse, pouring gasoline into the excrement and lighting it on fire until it burned itself out. The black acrid smoke stunk like burning shit and often made men nauseated from the smell.
Blowzer was pissed. “That is bullshit. I did it the last two days, Sarge.”
“That’s right. You almost lit the entire goddamn shitter on fire too. Yeah, I saw that. You guys pull those shit pots out from under the shitters at least twenty feet away from the latrine before you light it on fire. If you burn down the shitter, you will personally be reprimanded by me, and you alone will rebuild the new shitter in the cold. The ground is pretty frozen too. Keep that in mind.” Marzetti reminded the men that neither negligence nor sabotage would not only not relieve them of their duty, it would leave the men on the base with nowhere to relieve themselves, as they were not allowed in the main building of the old seminary compound.
“So, am I still on shitters?” asked Blowzer.
“Yes. Not only that, we are going to be working with the negroes in the kitchen,” replied Marzetti.
“Negroes? What negroes? What kind of order is that?” Blowzer looked around and saw no negroes.
Marzetti didn’t hesitate. “Mine. You got a problem with my orders and you will be burning shit pots until the end of the war, Blower. As far as the field kitchen, yeah, when you are done with the shitter, get cleaned up and report to the tall, skinny black cook. He is in charge of the cooks. He is a corporal and higher ranking than all of you guys, so keep that in mind.”
“We are going to be working for a nigger? I thought they reported to their own chain of command,” a confused Blowzer asked.
“Yes, you will be working with the negroes. I will be too, guys. I have been put in charge of the field kitchen for now. The medical unit had their own cooks and apparently took them when they left. The negroes are from another command somewhere here in Italy. They got peeled off to use in the kitchen here on this post just like we got peeled off so they could use our dozers,” Marzetti fired back. “I probably wouldn’t say nigger around them either if I were you, Blowzer. Those boys have been known to fight. They will probably give you a beaten just like Joe Louis beats up white guys in the ring.”
Johnny and Kryliter looked at Blowzer and laughed at the idea of one of the negroes smacking him to the ground. Johnny changed the subject: “The medical guys had their own cooks, but the OSS. don’t?”
“I have no idea, Meade. I just know they were brought in to cook and we are going to be helping out,” replied Marzetti.
“What happened to the idea of segregation? President Roosevelt never said we had to work for them,” asked Blowzer.
Kryliter agreed, “Yeah, it is one thing to know they are on our team. They’re Americans. I am not sure about taking any orders from one though.”
“Are they going to be using the same shitter we are?” Blowzer realized the obvious.
“I imagine so. That is unless you want to build a separate shitter for them,” Marzetti responded, shaking his head at Blowzer’s stupidity.
It was not the news Blowzer wanted to hear. “That is just great. I can’t wait to tell the family back home I was burning shit pots of black turds when I wasn’t fighting Nazis.”
“So, we don’t drive bulldozers anymore?” interrupted Kryliter before Marzetti could reply to Blowzer.
“The D7’s are in the motor pool. They are either being used by someone else or undergoing maintenance. They will let us know when they need us is how it was explained to me,” Marzetti relayed the info from the morning briefing.
“So we end the war standing around here on the compound?” asked Johnny.
“No, there is a bit more,” continued Marzetti. “There will be no more morning muster either. I just report to this morning briefing now and then tell you guys what is going on. There were two OSS officers talking with each other in this morning’s briefing, and I overheard one of them mention quarters for the new ‘prospects’ they are calling them now.”
“There are gonna be Nazis on this post too now?” asked Blowzer. It was one thing to deal with negroes; they were at least Americans. But Nazis were the enemy. “Are we shooting ‘em?”
Sergeant Marzetti could only shake his head. “Guys, nothing has officially been told to me. It is something that I overheard.”
“Personally, I think it is bullshit these OSS guys are cherry-picking these German bastards. I think we should kill every one of ‘em,” Blowzer spouted off.
“I agree with Blowzer,” added Johnny.
Marzetti nodded his head in agreement. “I do too. Unfortunately, you guys, and the negroes in the field kitchen, are probably the only ones around here I outrank.”
“It is better than a foxhole. Three hot meals a day and no one shooting at us? I hope we don’t go anywhere except home from here, to be honest,” Johnny’s comment reminded everyone of the tough fighting that was in the rearview mirror already.
“I agree. I don’t care what those OSS guys are doing with the Nazis,” replied Kryliter.
“They’re killing ‘em too. I am pretty sure. The place you guys went to initially break down those doors? I can’t remember what the name of that place was, but that place is full, I think.”
Johnny leaned in. “What did they say?”
“The place you guys buried the bodies was the wrong place, or that place is full of bodies now. I am not sure. They don’t want bodies stacking up there, and I guess they don’t have anywhere else to put these new guys coming in, so they’re rolling over here until the OSS decide to keep them, put ‘em on trial, or kill ‘em.”
“I don’t care about burying bodies. I want my dozer back. I am sick of burning the damn shit pots and standing out in the cold in front of this damn place on guard every other night.” Blowzer scowled as he looked over at the waiting latrine.
“Well, sounds like we will be in a warm tent for most of the day now,” replied Kryliter.
“Why don’t they just let us off the post? There is no one here from the 34th,” asked Johnny. “We don’t even have our dozers now.”
“I don’t know. I can ask tomorrow. What I do know is the negroes are going to be driving the trucks back and forth to the Vatican too,” Marzetti informed the men.
“They can drive trucks now?” Kryliter was surprised. He had never seen a negro drive an Army truck.
“If you can drive a truck, Kryliter, I am sure the Army can train some negroes to do it too,” Marzetti politely reminded Kryliter he was not intellectual thunder himself.
“Yeah, in other words, Kry-baby, you’re dumb as a nigger.” Blowzer burst out laughing at his own joke.
“Blowzer, you speak with the devil’s tongue. You always do. You will pay for your sins in the end,” Kryliter responded angrily.
“Kry-baby,…?” Johnny repeated aloud and started laughing at the moniker.
Sergeant Marzetti pointed to a group of negroes in the same Army fatigues they were wearing, beginning to unload out of the back of a truck near the main building. “You guys knock it off. They are going to be riding with the Swiss guys for the first few days until they have the route down to the Vatican. They are going to change out trucks once they are within the confines of the Vatican. They will drive the empty truck back with a new pile of tunics and return to the motor pool. The same goes for this other new site. I just can’t remember the name. They are going to be driving the Nazis to some other place and just dumping them off and coming back here, I guess.”
“Yeah, they’re killing ‘em,” assumed Johnny.
“Maybe. Or, it is a train station and they are being taken to a prisoner of war camp by train once they are rounded up,” replied Marzetti.
“Why do they get that job?” asked Blowzer as he looked at the negroes standing behind the truck. “I’d rather do that than burn off shit pots in the cold.”
“I don’t make the orders, Blowzer. I just follow them and pass them along.” Marzetti explained what they already knew.
“I think they’re killing those guys they take off in the trucks?” Johnny said.
Marzetti nodded and agreed. “I think the ones getting the brown monk tunics are the ones they are keeping. The other guys are now prisoners of war.”
“Probably,” replied Blower.
“The ones they are killing and burying are naked. There was this guy there taking pictures of the nude bodies before we pushed them in that pit we dug. That was pretty weird. They were all dead.” It was a scene Johnny would never forget.
“Yeah, they are taking pictures of them inside the building before they talk to them too. I took a box of sack lunches up there to their post. I could see through an open door they were taking pictures of them sitting in a chair. It wasn’t the same guy as the other place,” replied Kryliter.
Marzetti nodded. “Someone will recognize their picture later down the road, probably.”
“So, we just jerk off around here peeling potatoes, serving the food to Nazis with the niggers? Yeah, we will probably get a bronze star on the uniforms for this, Sarge. If only the folks back home could see me now.” Blowzer was unimpressed with new orders.
“Yeah, no kidding.” Johnny reflected on how angry and scared he had been in gunfights with the Nazis. The last thing he wanted to do was serve them food. The negroes didn’t bother him. He grew up with Domino and they got along great. He doubted the other guys had a negro friend back home like he did. He kept it to himself.
“Sorry, Sarge. You can write me up or take a stripe. I ain’t burning no Nazi shit pots.” Blowzer objected.
“No one said you guys are going to burn their shit pots. Listen, I don’t know how many are going to be here. I don’t know how long they are going to be here. So, don’t get all bent out of shape over stuff we don’t know,” Marzetti tried to calm his troops.
“Where are they going to shit, Sarge? There is only one latrine unless they are going inside the building.” Blowzer wouldn’t let it go.
Kryliter looked over at the tent with the portable showers. “Are they going to be showering here too? I mean, the 55-gallon barrels freeze overnight and need refilling with warm water five gallons at a time already. It never gets full already because by the time the 3rd or 4th bucket is poured in there, it melts the ice and it’s just warm enough for one guy. The next guy has to do the same thing. There have to be a hundred cots left behind in these tents.”
“I honestly don’t know, Kryliter. It is a good point, and I will bring it up too in tomorrow’s morning briefing.”
“I just want it over and to go home,” Johnny said to the group.
“It might be sooner than we think. The OSS. captain running the morning briefing today said Berlin just got hammered again last night by over 1,000 bombers.”
“Damn, that’s crazy. How is that city still standing?” Blowzer was pleased to hear the remark.
“They’re getting their asses kicked now. And, sooner than later, they’ll surrender. Or, we kill ‘em all, I guess,” added Johnny.
“I agree. The Japs too. They never made it past Hawaii. That explosion in California I read was actually friendly fire, not another Pearl Harbor,” added Kryliter.
“I think I remember that,” Marzetti paused and lit up a cigarette. “I would also like to hear their side of the story, honestly. Before we kill them, that is. It is just hard to say who they are, let alone what they know or who they know.”
“Starts with knowing how to speak German,” Kryliter mentioned the obvious. None of the men spoke German beyond a few words. Italian was impossible for them to understand.
“Sure, we got some German speakers on our team too. I guarantee you those O.S.S. guys have someone in there that knows it.” Marzetti replied as he pointed at the main building.
“I don’t care what they do with them. But, if we are staying here, there really isn’t much else for us to do except work in the field kitchen if the negroes are going to be doing the driving.” Johnny was comfortable with the confines of the base. One thing he had already become familiar with is the concept that things often got worse in the war, not better. They could be assigned to another unit headed north into battle. Hot food and no one shooting at him was a perfect place to hunker down until it ended.
Kryliter seemed confused. “That is another part that, honestly, just doesn’t make sense. Why are they having a bunch of negroes doing the driving? I can’t believe the Stars and Stripes is going to take pictures and run a story about interrogating Nazis and sneaking some of them off to the Vatican dressed in monks’ robes in trucks driven by negroes.”
“Yeah, no one would believe it,” Johnny said as he noticed around a dozen negroes being led into one of the former medical tents across the compound.
“Bingo. That is why we are here, I bet,” Marzetti said as the group watched the negroes filing into the tent.
“What do you mean?” asked Johnny.
“We are the stooges. We are on temporary assignment just like the negroes. We have no one to corroborate our story when we get back to the 34th. No one will believe us in the entire battalion. No one will believe us back home either. If there were a hundred guys from the 34th left behind here with us, would this still be going on?” Marzetti thought out loud.
“Wow, I never thought of it like that. They don’t want anyone to know what they are doing.” Blowzer looked back to the main building.
Marzetti nodded. “It is true. They need bodies to do the heavy lifting. People need fed, the gate needs guarded with a couple guys at the checkpoint…”
“Shit pots burned,” added Blowzer.
“Bodies buried,” Johnny chimed in.
“It does make sense. No one will be able to verify our stories. We are on temporary assigned duty. This is not even going to show up in our service records. How do you explain this operation without people thinking you’re full of shit? It is nonsense.” Blowzer connected the dots.
“You think we are a part of a secret mission, Sarge?” Johnny asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine anyone back home wanting to hear about this. Most would look at Nazis as war criminals and want them killed on a firing squad, I imagine. Maybe if they were being used as bargaining chips in a prisoner swap, at most. But there is something fishy going on here. That is for sure. We never get off the compound. We haven’t seen the dozers in days. They may be in the motor pool, or not. There may be someone else using them right now to bury more bodies, or not. I don’t know. It just sounded like the O.S.S. guys were discussing a new location for something,” Marzetti said and then took a long drag off his cigarette.
“Why would they be discussing that around you, Sarge? We don’t have any security clearances,” Kryliter asked.
“They aren’t worried about a cook or a soldier working in a field kitchen hearing anything. Who am I going to tell, you guys? Just like they are not worried about a bunch negroes driving these guys around. They are not going to drive off with the Nazis. They have no idea where they are, like us, other than in Rome. They know no one. They don’t speak Italian. The Nazis have no money to bribe them or weapons to commandeer the trucks in transit,” Marzetti said confidently.
Johnny thought about it for a moment. “I think you are right, Sarge. It just makes sense.”
Marzetti flicked his cigarette on the ground. “Yeah, now that I think of it, the guy that handed me the mail didn’t mention anything about stamps, sending mail home, or any mail collection either. We are also all single, no women and kids back home. No one from the 34th around. We are expendable, gentlemen.”
“You think they hand-picked us, Sarge?” asked Johnny.
“I am starting to.”