Ortona Read Online Free

causing extensive damage to communication and transportation systems, normal movement of food and goods became virtually impossible. Each community was forced to draw in upon itself and look to its own limited resources of food and fuel to ensure the survival of its population. But making life more difficult was the absence of young men to work the fields and crew the fishing boats. Most were away, serving in the army, navy, and air force.

    The chaos that descended on Italy in the immediate wake of the surrender swept up twenty-eight-year-old Antonio D’Intino. In 1940 he had been called back to duty by the Italian navy, in which he had served from 1933 to 1935. D’Intino, a small, slight man, wanted only to stay on his family’s land to the immediate west of Ortona and tend the olives and grapes, to find a good woman, to marry and establish a family. But the war cared little for his dreams, so he reported for duty. Initially he served aboard a destroyer, but by early 1943 Allied blockades had locked the majority of Italian ships in the two major naval harbours at La Spezia and Taranto, so he was set to work transporting naval shells from La Spezia to reinforced underground bunkers in the inland hills.
    On September 11, his commander called D’Intino and the rest of the unit together and told them the war was over for the Italian military. “You’re on your own now,” the officer said. “If you stay here the Germans will probably imprison you or send you north to work in their factories.” 6 He left quickly, without looking back, seeking his own safety. D’Intino and four other men, all from the Adriatic coastal regions of Abruzzo and Molise, decided to try to make their way home. La Spezia was south of Genoa, on the wrong coast, and several hundred miles from Ortona. The better part of two German armies stood between the two places. The men realized the journey would be hard, if not impossible. But they could see no alternative. If they could reach their homes, they might be able to pick up the threads of their lives and avoid capture and forced labour.
    Still wearing their naval uniforms, the five managed to catch a train north to Parma, an inland city on the rail line that led to Bologna. From Bologna a line ran direct through Pescara. Arriving in Parma, the five were told by a sympathetic rail official that there were Germans in the city who were picking up anybody wearing a military uniform. The men found some civilians willing to swap a few ragged clothes for the good cloth of the uniforms. They also learned that no civilian trains were running out of Parma to Bologna. They would have to proceed on foot. Sticking to back country roads and trails recommended by peasants, the men slipped through the ever tightening German military net to Bologna. It took a week for them to cover a mere seventy-five miles.
    In Bologna, luck was with them as they learned that a civilianfreight train was preparing to depart from a station just south of the city. D’Intino and his friends rushed across country to the station and arrived in time to board the southbound train. Dirty, unshaven, hungry from seven days with barely any food, the men hid in a boxcar and passed a fearful journey as the train rolled slowly down the coast, passing through several cursory military checkpoints manned by bored German soldiers. It was night when the train reached Ortona. D’Intino bade farewell to his friends and jumped off onto the gravel siding. He walked home and slept outside the house for the remainder of the night because he did not want to waken his aging father. Despite his hunger, filthy state, and weariness, D’Intino was happy. He was home and determined to stay no matter what the war chose to visit upon Ortona. 7

    On September 24, thirteen days after the flight of King Vittorio Emanuele III and Marshal Pietro Badoglio from Ortona and within days of D’Intino’s return, German soldiers