1944 May 28: Welcome to Italy

The Combat Team debarked and found a ruined city. The panorama of the Bay of Naples was still breath-taking, but the port itself was a shell. Demolished buildings and gutted interiors were all that was left of the waterfront. Yet for all this, Naples was busy. Hundreds of GI trucks of all sizes, shapes and descriptions raced to and from the port. It was worth the man’s life to cross a street intersection within a half a mile of the waterfront. Some units marched to the railroad station, loaded aboard little inner-urban trains, and rattled and rocked the ten miles or so to Staging Area #4 at Bagnoli. Others moved out in trucks. Immediately everyone went to work uncrating all the equipment that had been so laboriously crated the month before at Camp Shelby. Waterproofing had to be cleaned from metal parts and weapons had to be made ready for combat. Motor personnel drew the authorized vehicles for the Combat Team and got them in operating condition. Some of the officers and men took passes to Naples, most of them did not go back. The ruins of Pompeii were much more attractive than the ruins of Naples and much more interesting to the GIs. Consequently, many of them took the trip to the ancient city and to the cathedral of the new Pompeii, one of the most beautiful in Italy.