America in WWII - (Page 11) rent of the river. Our company commander, Captain Luther Hunt, was one of those leaders you would follow anywhere. He was loved by all the men, and without hesitation when he saw the old man in the river he jumped into the water and pulled him to safety. In so doing the captain’s helmet was swept down the river and I heard an engineer remark, “There goes the crown off of a true king.” Our company’s first combat death occurred while at the Volturno. One of our sergeants, Leonard Kramer, was killed and another boy, Steve Puto, was wounded by fragments when a dozer ran over a double Teller mine [a plate-shaped German antitank mine]. All we could find of Sgt. Kramer was a small piece of his helmet with the 85th insignia visible on it. Later, German artillery tried to knock out the bridge but failed to do so. During one barrage I sought refuge under my truck and looking out I saw a buddy of mine named Henry Gregorio “pickin’ em up and layin’ em down” as he ran full speed across a field. He was headed for the only foxhole close by but little did he know it was In Italy in 1944, Mel sits with an Italian orphan boy he befriended. already full to capacity with engineers. When he got there he was so desperate for cover all he could do was stick his head down in the hole…. A common sight in Italy was orphaned children roaming the countryside in search of food and shelter. It was heartbreaking to watch these kids and we would slip them rations and chocolate as often as we could. When two little Italian boys started hanging around our Volturno camp the whole company decided to adopt them and they would stay with us all the way through Italy, France, and Germany until the war’s end. They took a particular liking to my brother Mel and me. One of the little fellas taught us an Italian song which Mel and I still sing together to this day…. By March 17, 1944, we had advanced to the Garigliano River, which we nicknamed the “Gargling Anna.” Our first duty was to maintain a Bailey pontoon bridge [a prefabricated bridge that could be assembled in different forms] that was under frequent German artillery fire. In order to distract the German guns from the actual bridge, we built a dummy bridge some 100 yards downstream. During construction we were under the command of a green lieutenant who had never experienced incoming artillery. When the German rounds started coming in we all headed for cover except for this lieutenant, who was yelling at us to come back. He caught on fast when the first round hit. The dummy bridge did its OCTOBER 2007 AMERICA IN WWII 11
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