The Things Our Fathers Saw Vol. IV - “Up the Bloody Boot” The War in Italy

The Things Our Fathers Saw Vol. IV - “Up the Bloody Boot” The War in Italy

From the deserts of North Africa to the rugged mountains of Italy, the veterans of the Italian Campaign share their untold stories of one of the most grueling and overlooked battles of World War II. This war was so brutal that news of it was often downplayed back home.

By the end of 2018, fewer than 400,000 WWII veterans will remain with us, out of the 16 million who served. Yet, so many of their stories remain unknown. Why have we forgotten these voices?

In Volume 4 of The Things Our Fathers Saw series, fifteen men and women who served in the Italian Campaign open up about a war that tested every ounce of their courage and resilience. This was America’s first major offensive against enemy forces on western soil and the longest single campaign of WWII. Allied forces faced a fierce and desperate enemy, slogging through a brutal conflict that changed the course of history.

From the Mediterranean to the Aleutians, these are the stories of a vanishing generation—preserved to remind us of the sacrifices they made and the lessons they left behind.

Quotes from the Book:

• "There was an old French fort there, and we could look down on it during the day. We gauged the way we would hit that place so that the moon would set right between two mountain peaks; we timed it so when we got there, that moon would silhouette them, but not us... We carried out the first and only bayonet charge [of the war] by our Rangers; we didn’t fire; very few people knew that we carried out an overnight bayonet attack. I'll tell you, that's something. You see that, it'll shake you up real good." —U.S. Army Ranger, WWII
•  “We attacked another hill, and I shot a German soldier. And then the Germans counterattacked on the hill, and I could not escape, so I decided to just lay down on top of that soldier and make believe I’m dead. They passed me by, I got up and [this German I shot] starts talking to me in English, he says he’s from Coney Island, in Brooklyn; he went to visit his mother in Germany and they put him in the army. And he was dying, and he says to me, ‘You can take my cigarettes; you can take my schnapps.’ Then he died right underneath me. And I imagine he knew I had shot him...." —U.S. Army scout, WWII
• “So there was a terrific fight going on in a place called Santa Maria, south of Rome. While we were going through, in transit, we stopped at a big Italian barn; they had a kitchen set up, and we had our own mess kits. As we were going through the line, we saw this huge rack of shelves with American Army duffel bags packed on there. And Hendrickson said to me, ‘Hey, Tony, you know what? My brother must be in the area someplace. There’s his duffel bag.’ The name was stenciled on. So I said, ‘That’s nice.’ [But] I was thinking, why is his duffel bag there? Well, there was a military policeman guarding these bags. I went back to the MP. I said to him, ‘What are these bags doing here?’ And I told him about Hendrickson. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t know if you want to tell him, but these guys are all dead. They were all killed at Santa Maria.’” —U.S. Army map maker, WWII