R.K. Doughty
141st Infantry Regiment

Avellino, Italy, lying near Celsi where the 141st Infantry Regiment took up serious training again, after Monte Cassino, was to my mind one of the most beautiful cities Imaginable. This was due, no doubt, to the contrast it represented to the grim environs of Monte Cassino but also to the institutions and people I encountered there. Its beauty was further enhanced by the fact that I had seen it from a vantage point high in the mountains from which no ugliness, if any existed, could be discerned. Before that view appeared however, there were a number of intervening stops deserving comment.

Once out of the combat zone our initial destination had been the small town of Pratella, an ancient beehive perched on a hill top. I was in charge of the advance party sent out to establish a bivouac and training area for the regiment. At Pratella, I took over one wing of a Dr. Manfredi Mancone's home lying outside the main town at the foot of its central hill. The house was large enough to accommodate my group and, in a separate wing, the doctor's family.

The doctor, himself, was off visiting a sick patient at the time of our arrival and I had negotiated with his two daughters and a son, all of whom spoke French as a second language. In the early evening of the first day I learned a lot about Dr. Mancone for I was summoned to the front door of' the house and there, standing in freshly fallen snow was a slightly built man with a professional but somewhat humble look about him. He also spoke French and we stood and talked in the dooryard.

Something caused me to look down at his feet and I saw they had been cut and were bleeding through his shoes.

He invited me into his part of the rambling house where I met his wife who appeared frightened and tearful as she went about preparing dinner for the family at a wood-burning tiled stove. As we talked, I learned that the doctor had walked to his patient's home some thirty miles away, simply to be with her when she died. He had had to cross an ice-filled river in a leaky boat and, overall, had spent a miserable two days hoping that, somehow, he could alleviate her suffering.

He told me that German soldiers had taken all of his surgical tools and medical supplies when they left the area. He was concerned both for the civilian population and for our troops that no epidemic break out, now that so many people were to be crowded into the vicinity of Pratella.

A day or two later, I was awakened during the night by screams and rushed downstairs to the doctor's office where he had just opened a woman's infected arm without anesthesia and through use of an ordinary pocket knife for a scalpel. I had never seen a worse-looking infection and under the circumstances the woman was threatened with the loss of her arm if not her life.

Since we had no medics with us and I wasn't sure how long we'd be without medical assistance I felt it important to equip Dr. Mancone to take care of our needs as well as those of the civilians in the area. He agreed. I found some sulpha powder for the woman's arm that night and the next morning drove to the outskirts of Naples. I explained my situation to an Army medical supply officer to whom I was referred and he gave me what amounted to sufficient equipment to establish a small hospital at Dr. Mancone's residence, together with enough medical supplies to last several months. He also gave me a letter explaining the circumstances necessitating the use of a civilian doctor for military services and authorizing his use of military medical supplies.

Dr. Mancone, who had spent 18 years under the Italian system, qualifying as a doctor, took the next 24 hours reading all of the instructions accompanying many of the so-called wonder drugs which he had never used, I had helped him to translate much of what he read. With them he not only saved the woman's arm and life but was able to treat other patients who were suffering from diseases he had been unable to help.

All of this paid off, in a manner of speaking, a few days later when, as sometimes happened, one of our soldiers shot and killed himself. He apparently could not stand the release from tension that resulted from leaving the front lines. I took Dr. Mancone with me to certify, and detail the cause of death. He wrote it out in Italian. Together, we translated it to French and I re-translated it to English. We sent all three versions in multiple copies to higher echelons.

Higher headquarters commended us for the professionalism of the report and the Infantry School at Ft. Benning, Ga. cited us in its "Lessons Learned etc." for using ingenuity under unusual circumstances.

Since the Pratella area proved too restricted for our needs, we moved on March 5, 1944, to Maddaloni near Caserta, where we took over a large villa for Regimental headquarters and were entertained by several troops of actors and actresses, among them Jean Darling, formerly of the "Our Gang" comedies and Alfred Foye, Jr. Located in that area, too, was the 64th General Hospital, originally from New Orleans. A special affinity developed between the 36th Division members and those of the 64th General, not only because of their origin in neighboring states but because their respective members enjoyed each others' company.

Each organization held dances for the entertainment of the other, and in effect, provided oases away from the war for short intervals.

Opportunities arose, while we were in Maddaloni, to visit Caserta, where I met and talked with Irving Berlin at the Opera House. I also visited Pompeii and an orphanage in Naples where the children called each of us "Papa" and played on the floor with us.

On April 4th we moved to Celsi a small town just inland from Naples but reached by a road that, in those days, twisted and turned, corkscrew fashion, over the mountains. The terrain compared closely with that part of Italy, lying along the coast between Gaeta and Anzio, where we expected to re-enter combat.

I visited the officers' club at Avellino where I met several officers of the Royal 22nd "Van Doos" Regiment of Quebec, Canada. A Lt. Vincent, Capt. Piccard and Capt. Parquette and I, following an evening of popping champagne corks at Cherubims adorning the ceiling of the club's main room, repaired to the 22nd's supply room where a burly sergeant fitted me, exactly, to a regimental uniform with its Beaver insignia. Then, in a candle-lit ceremony in a military chapel at midnight, I was sworn in as an honorary member of the "Van Doos".

As a footnote to that event, I called the headquarters of the Royal 22nd when I visited Quebec City several years after the war and was given a conducted tour of the Citadel. It included the long bar where veterans gather daily to fight the wars again, the mess where the Queen's portrait is always ready for her visit and the holy of holies where the regimental combat history is maintained.

I could not remember the names of the officers who had inducted me at midnight for I had misplaced a journal I had kept when behind the lines. Subsequently, I found the journal and wrote to confirm my bona fides only to learn that two of the officers had been KIA shortly after my induction and another, having returned safely from the war, had disappeared into the wilds of Canada.

While training at Celsi was carried on each day, there was still time to do some sight-seeing, even if it necessitated setting up problems for the I and R Platoon. By conducting such a problem, I managed to visit the Sanctuario di Monte Virgine on a towering mountain overlooking Avellino. A Capucini brotherhood runs the sanctuary and in summer the brothers climb the mountain, via the seven stages of the Cross, in order to spend the warm months in the sanctuary cooled by perennial snows packed deep in a crevice behind the buildings.

Of all the beautiful places to be seen in Italy the Sanctuario di Monte Virgine was the easiest for me to relate to because it did not overwhelm me as did St. Peter's when I saw it, later, in Rome.

The approach to the mountain fastness that surrounds the sanctuary is fourteen miles up a winding, twisting road leading to a stronghold that has guarded its special occupants since the 15th Century AD. The sanctuary and all of its buildings are reached through an archway in solid wall. There were animals and poultry in the inner quadrangle whose southern side was open to a view that stays with me even now. It was springtime in Italy, when I first saw it and flowers and blossoming trees are the lasting impression that met my eyes as I looked down the hills and valleys stretching for miles below.

The mosaic work of the sanctuary, whose roof stands seventy-five feet above its floor, is unsurpassed in its artistry. As one approaches the altar it becomes even more beautiful with its designs and alternating colors in marble. There are patterns in roses, greens, violets, blues, milky whites and greys forming a scene unmatched anywhere, so far as I am concerned.

On either side of the main vault are lesser chapels and places of worship.

It was freezing cold in the sanctuary due no doubt to the black encrusted snow lying at the rear of the building. I stopped a young monk and asked him if he spoke English or French. He spoke French and took me on a guided tour of the monk's living quarters. I learned that my guide was called "Pere Charles" and that, surprisingly, he was the head of the brotherhood.

During our tour of the living areas the monk pointed out a member of his order sitting at a library table hand-painting the pages of books. Many of the monks, my guide said, had taken a vow of silence, never speaking to anyone. This was such a man. He sat there, his face almost lost in a great mane of white hair that fell to his shoulders and a beard that disappeared below the table. A ray of light entering from a clerestory window, high above, lit up the rough texture of the robe he wore. He did not seem to move but, with head bent slightly, stared at the book in front of him. Beside his left hand, positioned on the table, were one or two more books.

According to Pere Charles the silent man was more than 90 years old, had joined the order many years before and spent his time illuminating the pages of old books. For all practical purposes, here was a man reduced to the most fundamental aspects of living. Beside him on the desk were the only remaining vestiges of all that his life had meant. I couldn't help but think to myself that, for him, there was no war, no walls, only self.

While I had told Pere Charles that I was not a Catholic, he nevertheless spent a long time showing me some of the treasures of the sanctuary. In a drawing room were several solid gold vases contributed to the monastery by King Umberto I of Italy. In the main reception hall was an iron cross bearing Christ's figure. It was some 700 years old and the gift of Victor Emanuel, another Italian King. Although rusted the cross was delicately wrought and greatly prized by the monks since it had been found at the site of St. Peter's in Rome.

A painting in a small chapel where the monks gathered for morning and evening prayers, was of unusual composition. Seven feet high and three feet wide the "canvas" is actually hewn wood on which chip marks of an ancient tool are visible. Contributed in 1500 by the monastery's founder, Father Guillermo, the head and halo of the main figure protrude from the rest of the composition denoting that they had been carved in that relief before being painted.

I also learned that Pere Charles was heading a group that was caring for many of the Italian civilians who had been injured by the bombing of the Monte Cassino Abbey. They were located on the grounds of the brotherhood located within the city of Avellino.

My last view of Pere Charles was after he had taken me by the arm to look over a balustrade at the flowered landscape fading into the distance below us. "From here," he said, "we see only beauty." He turned and walked toward the sanctuary where vespers were about to be said. I moved slowly toward my jeep knowing there was no beauty like that where armies fought.