TROOPS IN ITALY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 238, 8 October 1945, Page 3

TROOPS IN ITALY

DESIRE TO BE HOME PRESS STORIES RESENTED To read in newspapers that the troops in Italy are leading a life of luxury may give pleasure to relatives at. home. It gives none to the troops in Italy. They do not believe it. They happen to know that the picture is too highly coloured. This is made abundantly clear in a letter to The Southland Daily News from a soldier in Italy. Written in red pencil, a colour which, he says, "admirably suits the state of our temper when we hear, how we are 'enjoying' ourselves," his letter states. "We get quite a fewletters from our folks saying that, according to local paper reports the Division •is enjoying just one long holiday. Maybe the editor of our paper (the Union Jack, a British Forces daily).can enlighten you on a few points. However bright the picture may have been painted there is -only one place the boys want to be—and that is not Italy."

Enclosed is a copy of Union Jack containing a feature article by the editor-in-chief who deals with a story published by The Manchester Guardian from a correspondent in Italy. The story in The Manchester Guardian was headlined "Rome, Sweet Rome"; "Life of Luxury for Allied Troops." The correspondent a British woman who had lived in wartime Italy for 10 months— conveyed the impression that the troops were having such a fine time that they were dreading a return to normal life at home. Then, as the editor or Union Jack says, she "chooses to lambast the troops whose exertions and courage set Italy free and she does so in a manner which will appeal to Central Mediterranean Force men as oddly and gratuitously offensive." The correspondent of The Manchester Guardian wrote: "There is a sentimental attitude which maintains that those boys who have done all the fighting deserve a jolly good time now and the best that Italy can give." "Jolly Good Time" The correspondent then gives examples of the "jolly good time" . . . "Venice, where we recline in silent gondolas, wafted from one requisitioned hotel, concert hall or cinema to another in a never-ending stream of pleasure-seeking craft." Union Jack comments: "Does the Guardian's informant want the men who swam the Volturno, the Garigliano, the Arno, the Senio, the Fiumicino, the Adige and the River Po to go on swimming all their lives." The Manchester Guardian's correspondent then describes "whitecoated waiters, waiting jeeps, boxes at the opera, long lists of entertainment . . ."—and draws this retort: "That is the picture she gives to families at home of the present pleasures of the army which in five gruelling years saved Egypt, conquered Libya, liberated Northern Africa, crushed Italian Fascist power, snapped the European Axis and finally extracted the first unconditional surrender from the Germans. The heroes of the Italian campaign have miraculously transformed themselves, in this lady's estimation, into a mob of good-time Charlies elbowing the Roman smartset from their favourite bars." Cassino Recalled A reference to the life led by troops in Rome brings this broadside: "She forgets the Hotel Continentale and the Hotel des Roses at Cassino. There was no early-morn-ing tea brought by white-coated waiters in those luxurious places; there was a Jerry tank in the foyer, a machine-gun blazing from the cocktail bar, a Teller mine in the gents' and the music was provided by an orchestra of Schmeisers, Spanlaus and Nebelwerfers conducted by Maestro Albert Kesselring. Thousands of Allied soldiers who were enjoying 'the best that Italy can give' in Cassino's hotels were killed and buried on the spot."

After listing the pleasures cited by the correspondent, the editor of Union Jack sums up: "There is not one of these 'boys' vvho will not be eager and happv to exchange the .whole damn lot for his home and family when his turn comes for the Great Release."