Ilio’s Story

Heroes Remember

Ilio’s Story

Transcript

We were driving up the main highway towards Florence and there was a white house. You drove up like that and there was a white house. I rapped on the door and no answer, so I broke the door open. We moved in and we put blankets up, wrote up some dope sheets, sent the dispatch writer back and we went to bed. The next morning we got up and there was a lady there with a young fella and I guess he was maybe 12 years old at that time. Ilio was his name. So we stayed there for 10 days, I guess, and we gave her food and what she could do with a can of bully beef ... you wouldn't believe. All these Italian people. And great coats ...they cut our great coats down and made nice three quarters for us you know. Oh terrific. Anyway, she says to me, she says, “You leaving now?” I says, “Yes we gotta go.” Cause they were going to go attack Florence. And she said, “Well, will you take Ilio with you? I said, “I can't take Ilio with us. He is liable to get killed.” Well, she said, “If he stays here he is going to die ‘cause we have no food.” So I said, “Well, I don't know.” So I said to Alex Stirton, I said, “Alex,” I said, “The lady wants me to take the young lad.” I said, “What do you think?” He said, “It's up to you. If you want to take him, take him. He may get killed, dunno, he may die here.” Anyway to make a long story short, I told the mother. I gave her a blanket, an American blanket, ‘cause they're khaki. She made a little suite for him. Put him in the jeep and away we went. That lad, that fella stayed with us all the time. We ... I don't know where we went from there ... but anyway we got into the town of Casino ... not Casino ... but (inaudible). And it was Alex and myself and a couple of others and we were invited out to an Italian house for dinner. So Ilio stayed behind. We had taken over this place and it was quite a nice place and we came back about ... oh 9 o'clock ... and he was drunk! This young 14 year old. He was drunk. And he was ... “Hello armano Sergenta Presto,” that's what he called me. I said “Ilio ...” He said, “Ilio ubriaco,” which means “I'm drunk.” I said, “Yeah you're drunk.” I said, “What were you drinking.” He said, “I drank your Canadian Club.” Oh, did he have a hangover in the morning. Anyway we took him, I don't where we went after that, we went all over the place. And then we went from thereup to Rimini right up to Ravenna. Anyway it was the last town that we ever took and then we were pulled out and I sent Ilio back to his family. I lost his address and he must have lost mine ... I don't know. He'd be ... I guess he'd be 74 years old now.

Description

Mr. Quick describes the adoption of a starving young Italian boy, Ilio, and having him with them for the duration of the Italian Campaign.

Norman Quick

Mr. Quick was born in Toronto, Ontario on April 22, 1921. His father, a cinematographer, moved the family to Ottawa when he was very young and he remembers in particular, playing a lot of hockey wearing homemade equipment. Mr. Quick enlisted in the Medical Corps, but quickly transferred to the Film and Photo Corps once it was formed in England. His active service took him to Italy, where he filmed such notable actions as Ortona and Monte Cassino. Interestingly, he and his crew adopted a teenage boy named Ilio, who accompanied the Canadian film crew until its tour in Italy ended. Mr. Quick was then deployed to NW Europe, where he served in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He remained in the Canadian Army as a cinematographer, but left after Paul Hellyer amalgamated Canada’s Armed Forces. Mr. Quick currently resides in Ottawa, Ontario.

Meta Data