Winter in Italy

Interviewer: So the, following Ortona, the, the rest of the winter campaign pretty much became a stalemate.

Well yes, just after we finished Ortona, we were put in Ortona, as I said, for a rest, you know, but the rest only lasted a week or so because the 11th Brigade went through us to take up a position the other side of Ortona, and the Germans beat the hell out of them, you know. And they were green troops, that was the worst part, and they didn't really know what was going on so we had to go back in and take over. So we stayed there practically all winter, or I don't know how long, it seemed like an awful long time to me. And when we were first there we just lived in, this was the winter time, we lived in, we lived right in the slit trenches.

Interviewer: So there would be mud and...

Oh mud, well it would rain but what do you, you know, you didn't have any way to drain it.

Interviewer: It wouldn't be snow, but it would mostly be cold rain.

Cold rain, wet, couldn't believe it, and that's where we lived that, practically most of that winter. Then we got, they got us out, we found houses around different places and we moved into them. Never asked anybody, we didn't ask anybody. If we could move, I didn't ask any officer, we just moved in. I said, " The hell with that. That's crazy." you know. To move into these houses, I didn't ask anybody if I could move or not if it was close I said, "Move in."