Entering the Mediterranean Sea
 I remember sighting the shores of Africa in the distant haze. We slithered by the Rock of Gibraltar. I  saw pictures of it in our geography classes. True enough! there it was! We passed ORAN which  glistened in the sun and appeared to be a city of great beauty. Not so! We had a lightning storm in the  Mediterranean.  I saw lightning strike the barrage balloons and go to the sea, burning the cable like the  filament in a light bulb  It was spectacular.
                                                   GERMAN BOMBERS
        A bit further into the Mediterranean, in the after noon of October 3rd, a squadron of Junkers 88 ( I  think) came over us from the direction of  Africa and dropped bombs on our convoy. I saw a bomb  drop on the starboard and the port side of our ship, missing us. I was surprised that the explosion was  a fiery red. I imagined the explosion to be like a depth charge. The ack ack from the convoy was  something to behold!  Terrific with all the puffs and tracers! I couldn't believe that all the GERMAN  planes would get by, but I think they went by unscathed although I heard a navy gunner holler, "I got  one I got one". There were empty 50 caliber shells all over the deck and I saved one for a souvenir. I  have since lost it.
    All hands on deck were ordered below.  A Priest prayed with the GIs.  I ignored the order and stayed  topside, on deck the whole night scanning the skies for another attack. I didn't sleep a wink. In the  morning in the distance were two P38s encircling the convoy. During the night I saw several ships  burning and the oil transport next to us was hit and the fire extinguished.  Along side was a patrol boat  and I could see them lowering a stretcher to the patrol boat, probably a crewman or more was burned.  That ship was in close enough to observe without field glasses.  There was a calm as Old Glory flew  over every ship with the barrage balloons over head.  One of the Merchant marines said in disgust! "I  wish we would have been in Harbor!" I asked him why? and he said, "because we get  paid double if the raid was in a harbor."  Sheeessh! See the difference?
                                                 BIZERTE AFRICA
      On reaching Bizerte Harbor I witnessed something shocking in person! The ship steward was tossing over  board cartons of meat which he was supposed to have fed US GIs I thought! I knew it was meat because in  my work at the Mink farm we bought meat for the mink in the very same type of carton!  USDA! At  times on board ship we nearly had a mutiny because of starvation. There were 150 sailors out of boot  camp and 150 GIs replacements side by side, rattling mess kits and yelling obscenities at the authorities. My sea sick buddy was a sailor just out of boot camp. I  was glad I didn't finally get naval duty! Terra firma for me! Yes siree!
   On the ship we were introduced to "C" rations at the end of the trip. I was yelling at the guy down on  the dock exchanging comments, and he said about the "c " rations,  "Oh yah? wait till you get the stuff  we got here".
    Next to our Liberty Ship I was surprised to see a whale like thing surface. It was one of the submarines which came along with us to guard us. I wonder now how it could have withstood all the depth charges which I saw the Navy fire close to our ship. The sub must have been on surface at that time. There's quite a shock under water from an "ash can". The walls of the ships would shudder when a charge exploded.
                                       A CONVOY INLAND
    We boarded 6x6 trucks and were hauled about 20 to 30 miles inland. I thought that we might get a chance to see Bizertte and what it had to offer in the way of food. There was no chance and we wouldn't have missed much anyway. It was a scrubby town as I viewed it from the 6x6 I rode.
 There was an established replacement camp situated in the sage brush and occasional olive tree. This area was the scene of great battles and there was still a lot of war debris plus mine fields yet un covered. The area also was a grazing area for the Arab farmers. Some of the brush was so dense that when you crossed the area you were walking on the branches of the brush not touching the ground. In the distance from my pup tent someone told me was hill 616 where there was a terrible battle. I can't confirm that.
                                    Harassing Hikes And details
    On another 'field trip' we were taken to a surplus ammo dump where I saw more .45 ammo than  I ever saw before or since. In piles! I could have had a field day burning up a .45 there. But we weren't  allowed that luxury.  Our detail was to stack and sort ammo.  Along the trip farther inland from our camp  we saw Arabs operating an old crawler tractor pulling a disk tilling the soil. His robes were flailing in  the wind as the tractor plodded along. I wondered if he ever experienced getting his robe tangled in the  tracks. It seemed dangerous.  At the side of the road I saw a vendor hawking some sort of food item.  Flies were all over the stuff. The name "Africa" must translate to FLIES. The bars he was selling were made of  dates. Compressed into a brick about a inch thick and four by six long. I'm nearly certain those Arabs  compressed the dates with their hands. Those people don't use toilet paper there y'know and  "sanitation" is unknown. It is primitive. Stone age. I wouldn't even 'sample' his wares! I must have  swallowed one the bugs there though unwittingly.

     I was feeling differently now on terra firma but not much for the better for some reason. I met up with a lethal mosquito I guess. I was never briefed on what Malaria would or could be like and I thought that it was a disease that was only in the panama zone.
    Before my malaria attack, we were taken out 'in the field' for training and refresher course in the use of  various weapons. The officers had a place selected where we could fire across open land which   had sort of a sage brush clusters growing sporadically.  Distant targets were set up and we were to  "fire at will"--I could interject a joke here, "who na hell is WILL? what'd he do to us?"
      I used a BAR (Browning automatic rifle) and fired it continuously, clip after clip, watching the erratic  trajectory of the tracers.  It was fun wasting ammo just for the hell of it. We also tossed some  grenades.  I was never able to toss a grenade like P.I. Thome.  He could lob one like it was shot from a  Mortar! My arm was ruined once when I was pitching baseball at school--my elbow can take a notion  to dislocate any time it pleases so I am reluctant to try to toss anything-I have to toss a rock like the  girls do--under handed.
      We were firing for an hour or so when we saw a lone Arab crossing the line of fire herding his cows  through the field of fire. He must have been thinking the firing might stop because he entered the field. But not so. I could  see the Arab's skirts flying as he was beating the cows to hurry. The cows were oblivious of what was  happening, stopping to grab a mouth full of grass. Finally one of the cows fell from gun fire. It was  having a heck of a time dying. A Lieutenant went to the rescue and pulled out his .45. He pumped a  clip full into the cows belly! Into the BELLY for the luv a mike! I knew about such things so I ended the  cow's misery with one shot to the head. I suppose the Arab came back for the meat after we vacated  the field.
    Later we fired 81 MM mortars. It's surprising that you can see the round as it leaves the barrel  especially if you are standing right behind the barrel. This practice educated me in how to dodge a mortar round to some extent. If the muzzle blast is straight up, you could be in line of the target. If the  muzzle blast is a few degrees to the left or right, you can't get hit. Of course that applies to night  combat.
                             GOOF BALL BUDDYS
     I buddied up with a couple of goof balls. I wish I had their names now. We had a fun time together. They were a couple of clowns.  It'd take too much time to describe their antics.  It'd be a fun movie in  itself.  We were taken out on harassing hikes into the old battle fields and camped out over night with out tents,  in the rain often just to harass us and to  make us wish we'd get where we were finally going--to the front. I came down with some ailment or  other. I had the shits and a fever. I'd sit in the four holer and urp in one hole and poop in the other until  I was inside out.  Something went drastically wrong with me. I went to the Medics and as usual they  take your temperature and then give you a little white pill which is most certainly a placebo.  I think  they considered a guy on sick call a hypochondriac.  I didn't have the fever when I'd go there but the  GI shits was surely there. Oh well Who cared?

      I couldn't seem to explain to the medics or anyone about my fevers and chills and poops--so when it  came time to go on one of those harassing hikes I took off in a different direction with my writing kit. I  needed to write lots of letters just to keep my sanity.  I was sitting beside a trail on a steep hill side  engrossed in writing probably to the girl friend and I heard foot steps and there beside me on the trail I  saw boots passing me!! The hillside was that steep! Holy cow!! Here they come!! What'll I do? I just sat there taking all the smart  remarks made by the GIs as they passed . Most wondered how come I was getting off the hike. Soon an  officer came at the tail end of the troops. He sat down beside me and asked, "soldier. how come you're  not on the hike?" and I answered, " you wont believe me sir" and he said, "try me". so I just simply said, "Sir I got the shits so bad I can't go anywhere too far from a latrine". with some sympathy he said,  "give me a piece of paper"  .He wrote a note to the medics stating more or less- "this soldier needs  treatment". He gave the note signed by him to me and he said, "take this to the medics right now".
      I went as ordered to the medics and what do you think happened? They took my temp which was  normal at that time and gave me a white pill and a drink of water.  They said go report to your commander.  Instead I went across the road into the brush following a trail which was made by cattle  over the years as long as Africa was a continent. I   followed the trail to a big spreading tree which covered an encircled area of about 40 or more feet in  diameter. It was like a tent from long use of animals in the past.
 There under the tree were GIs who really were goofing off! Playing dice and cards etc. I sat on a rock  on the perimeter and began writing again. For a few minutes all was okay. Then we heard some one  shout! "Put 'em UP".
  It was a gol danged Corporal and PFC with rifles trained on us saying we were prisoners!       They marched us into our head quarters with out hands behind our heads as you've seen it done in  the movies. I was taken to my officer in charge along with a little Italian GI name Nardello.  He was one of the goof offs. He was a small soldier barely making the height restriction. Nardello came up to the  make shift desk behind which sat a Lieutenant and snapped a salute, clicking his heels. He told his  story and the Lieutenant gave him his sentence-or punishment. Then I went up to his desk but did not  salute. He chewed me for not saluting and asked me why  not.  Some how some where I learned that a prisoner loses his right to salute the colors! I said, "Sir, a  prisoner loses his right to salute the colors". He said, "you're not a prisoner." I answered, "Sir, I was  brought in under armed guard-I consider myself a prisoner".      He didn't argue that point but my punishment was to walk the ground in front of his desk for 24 hrs.  with full field pack, come to the bill board and come to attention, present arms salute with the rifle,  About face and around and around I went. Needless to say I was seething with hate and anger. Here  was another unbelieving bugger who wouldn't recognize that I was sick with something. Guess what? It  was the first stages of Malaria.
  I went to the medics another time and this time I did have a fever.  They asked, "do you want to go to  the hospital or be shipped out?" and I said, "Get me outta here"! I chose to be shipped out. I think that was  a mistake now to think of it. A bad move.  I might have been reclassified and reassigned into a safer environment  than where I was finally shipped.
    Before shipping out we were taken on more hikes.  On one of those harassing marches, they took us out into an old battle field. We tossed grenades into an old stone building which suffered a lots of damage when the German army and the British were here fighting for this acreage. Then when evening came we were told to rest in the brush which was the kind I mentioned, so thick that when you stepped you were walking on brush hardly ever touching the ground It began to rain which turned into a tropical storm. We had no shelter at all having to hunker down under your helmet and raincoat. In Africa the nights get cold. We were all blue from the cold. Someone started scrounging for some dry wood. By golly his scouting abilities produced a flame which needed a lot of dry limbs. Each of us took turns feeding the fire with what ever branches we could find. The wood or brush was still in full leaf. The days were summer like. You know how hard it is to keep a  fire going with wet green brush, but we did it. We were able to dry our shoes and socks when ever the rain ceased to pour. I took cat naps whenever I could be next to the flame. Not too soon the morning sun was peeking over the horizon. The officers were somewhere around and probably just as miserable as we were. We were ordered to "move out'. We followed a trail which was probably an arabs camel trail. I found a lot of souvenirs from the war as we walked along. I have a few arab coins which look like old bus tokens. I have them on a string somewhere in my souvenirs.
      We were all warned not to get off the beaten path lest we would step on a mine. I adhered to the warning. So did all the others. I can't emphasize enough how much I hated to be here. Early one morning we were ordered to strike our tents and prepare to ship out. We boarded 6x6s and made the trip back to Bizerte.
The army would allow piss call but there was NO  provision for the other relief! and so I had to hold it. When we got to Bizerte and unloaded, we were  lined up to get aboard an LCI.  At the boarding plank, I asked the officer if I could go aboard ahead of  being called-I needed the latrine badly (in the Navy it's the HEAD). He said it was okay. I locked my self in the head for as long as I needed even though the door was being almost kicked in. Later I tried eating some of the K rations to get energy back.  The food packed in one of them is nutritious but unpalatable. I survived the trip to Naples on an LCI.  OH a tale of woe! It happened.

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