As August 1944 began to wind down, Rome shed the vestiges of the Nazi occupation. Collaborators were rooted out and tried; those deemed guilty enough were executed in Forte Bravetta. The war moved north. While Harold and the C Ration Kid were meeting on the Via Appia, only a two-hour drive away the Allies and Germans were slammed up against each other in a succession of bloody melees on the Gothic Line. Towns such as Rimini and Russi were being blown to pieces, and more refugees were streaming into the city, this time from the north. Rome was full of soldiers either resting from action at the front or on the way back, and mixed in with these men were the deserters. Estimations of their numbers ran wild. English writer Evelyn Waugh speculated that there were 9,000 American soldiers at large.1 In the British army, convictions for desertion rose from 160 in July to 251 in August to 245 in September. At the same time, convictions for absence without leave climbed to 944 in September and to 905 in October, peaking at 1,200 in November. It was a familiar story. Battle-hardened veterans cracked up or burnt out; fresh reinforcements were of a low calibre and many could not cope with combat. Disposal of deserters became a problem; the British authorities had to construct special prisons, courts and provost units to accommodate them.2
For soldiers on the run, Rome continued to provide the ultimate sojourn. Yet, wrote George Powell, although banners reading “Welcome to the Liberators” still hung above the streets, the “local belles no longer throw their arms about each and every Allied soldier to plant a kiss on his liberating lips.”3 Feelings among the troops were also cooling. They liked the Italians, but at the same time they were aware that since 1943 Canadians had been dying, all in the name of liberating these enemies-turned-friends. Meanwhile, the Italians had surrendered by the thousands and were getting away with their lives. “If the Italians could make war as they sing opera, they could have licked the world by now,” declared the Union Jack. The newspaper described the typical Italian male as possessing an “over-ready smile, the eagerness to agree with everything you say, the unnatural readiness to fall in line with anything that may be suggested … and the cold greasy fear which peeps out of a man’s eyes when an argument arises.”4 Italy was “nothing but mountains and fountains,” wrote one Canadian private.5
The ill will was reciprocated. Rome could be a rough town, with a population that increasingly displayed a deep-seated animosity toward the Allies. Yes, the Americani and the Inglesi had rid the city of the Fascists, but they were an occupying force nonetheless. Italian men resented seeing Allied soldiers cavorting with Italian women, and Allied officers on leave carried pistols at all times to ward off attacks. One Canadian captain recalled returning from the opera with his Italian girlfriend, only to be surrounded by a throng of young, angry Romans. Nonplussed, he did what any self-respecting Canadian officer would—he gunned his way out. A few warning shots cleared the crowd swiftly.6 This was the intangible that made military men with frontline experience both intimidating and unpredictable. To the seasoned soldier, violence was no longer a reluctant reflex, it was a tool ready for use.
Of course, after years of war, it would have been illogical to expect the two sides to lock arms and embrace. The tone had been set before the invasion of Sicily when General Bernard Montgomery gave a speech telling his troops, “Someone said to me a few days ago that the Italians are really decent people and that if we treat them properly they will come over to us. I disagree with him. Our job is to kill them. That is what we have to do. Once we have killed them we can see if they are good fellows or not. But they must be killed first.”7
In The Long Road Home, a memoir of his life serving in the Cape Breton Highlanders, veteran Fred Cederberg describes a similar speech given to Canadian troops. A general told the Canucks, “The Eyeties are officially considered our Allies. That’s the word. They’ve surrendered and they’re on our side. Bully! Well, I’m telling you this: As far as I’m concerned, they’re just defeated enemies and you can treat them as such. So help yourself to anything you want, providing it isn’t nailed down or guarded. And if that’s the case you’ll know how to handle it.”8
The most extreme form of “handling it”—killing Italian civilians—was a frowned-upon but accepted fallout of hostilities, and the closer the incident was to the front line the more legal it became. Civilians killed during combat were unavoidable casualties of war, the price of doing business. There were, however, more than a few incidents behind the lines, and by 1944 this sort of damage became an issue for the British Foreign Office. In a memo examining violence by Allied soldiers against Italian civilians, a British diplomat stationed in Rome reported that it was seriously harming relations with the Italian interim government and undermining the confidence of the general population.9 To illustrate the sort of violence he was worried about, he outlined three randomly chosen incidents. In October 1943, two British soldiers woke up Giuseppe Garufi and his wife and then robbed the house. It was the second tragedy to befall the Garufi family: three weeks earlier a British truck had run over and killed the couple’s youngest son. In December 1943, three off-duty gunners became drunk in a restaurant. They demanded more wine and the proprietor, Rudolph Mastrominico, refused. The gunners shot him dead, fleeing the restaurant. They returned shortly afterward, however, and ordered Mastrominico’s widow to hand over all the restaurant’s cash. On February 13, 1944, four Canadian soldiers set out from their billets to find some cheap wine. One of the party said he knew of a villa that sold it. Armed with an empty jug and a rifle, they drove a truck to the house. One of the soldiers knocked on the door and asked the owner, Nicolas Testi, to sell them some wine. Testi replied that they had no wine for sale, but offered the man a free glass. The soldier drank it and left. He soon returned with another soldier. Testi agreed to fill their jug with wine in exchange for cigarettes and matches. The soldiers left but returned a third time and tried to force their way in. This time they shot Testi. The Canadians left with more wine. One of the soldiers was eventually identified and charged with manslaughter. Since he was fighting at the front, he was tried in absentia. He was found not guilty.
Still, many Italians adored the Allies, or at least appreciated what a North American or British accent could do. These were the profiteers who ran black market gangs. To an Italian living outside the law, Allied friends were essential assets. With the proper paperwork, a soldier could pass through road checks and in and out of Allied camps. After Rome was captured, Allied drivers were highly coveted. Ivan Gunter remembers how Italian black marketeers scoured the city looking for them:
They had Italians who were on the lookout for drivers, as long as they were in the army. They would find these fellows on leave and then a girl or two would approach them. The soldiers would be brought back to a house and then they would be kept drunk for a week or two, all the while being seen to by these girls. Just a grand old time. By then, the soldiers had overstayed their leave and were AWOL and going back to their units meant a heavy penalty. The Italians would make them an offer. Stay and drive trucks for the black market. With a Canadian accent or whatever, they were perfect for moving contraband.10
The system worked well. Back in December 1943, three months after the capture of Naples, a Union Jack editorial had declared, “Everywhere I have been in Italy, I’ve seen the Black Market flourishing. The authorities are trying to stamp it out but it is a crime which only the people as a whole can destroy. And that’s the point. The people are accepting it.”11 By 1944, the black market had grown exponentially. A random check on the route from Avellino to Bari caught fourteen military trucks transporting black market goods. Seven Americans, four Frenchmen, two Englishmen and one Canadian were arrested. “These,” the officer in charge reported, “were the unlucky ones who had not been tipped off about the posting.” In total, sixty-six charges were laid against British and American drivers.12 “The scale on which this illicit trade is being carried in Allied Military vehicles is disgraceful and the result of slackness and inefficiency. It is very possible that the bulk of black market grain is being carried by Allied military vehicles.” In one month in 1944, 212 British and Commonwealth soldiers were fined a total of $97,000 (US), and another 419 were charged with sequestering contraband.13
Both deserters and military personnel were active in the enterprise. In 1944, the Criminal Investigations Division of the Provost Marshall General’s Office conducted a survey of two thousand cases of various activities connected with the black market. They found that fifty per cent of black marketeers were civilians and fifty per cent servicemen:
The extent to which AWOLs are involved in black marketing is not accurately known but is believed negligible. The rigid controls at various supply installations preclude the illegal removal of supplies in substantial quantities. AWOLs attempting to sustain themselves and remain at large generally engage in petty crimes and occasionally serious crimes of violence such as robbery etc. It is felt that, due in part to publicity of a few cases, wherein AWOLs engaged in large scale black market activities, an erroneous and overrated conception of this phase of the problem exists.14
IN AUGUST, A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD petty officer from the British navy appeared in Harold’s neighbourhood on the Via Appia. His name was William Robert Croft, and he was from Grimsby, a town in northern England. Bill was a handsome fellow, with straw blond hair, a fair complexion and smiling blue eyes that lightened when he laughed. He had left school at age fourteen, working in a steel foundry and then a biscuit factory. He then went to sea as a galley boy, working the route between Immingham and the Norwegian city of Narvik. He was fifteen when the war broke out and he immediately volunteered for the Royal Navy. Croft was clever; he managed himself well in the navy, learning how to play the system to his advantage. He was always looking to make a little extra cash, always ready for a scheme. As a hobby, Croft loved to read pulp thrillers and he spent many hours dreaming of a glamorous life lived on the edge.15 He was particularly mesmerized by the exploits of American gangsters such as John Dillinger. Bill Croft came to Italy in 1943 to join the ship the Empire Ace. In March 1944, his ship was sunk and Croft volunteered to join the Patroclus, which was heading to Anzio. Croft spent four weeks there under fire and returned to Naples, where he joined the Empire Griffin.
Also in March 1944, Bill Croft met a young Italian woman named Maria Fedele. She was a Neapolitan beauty with night-black hair, full lips, chocolate eyes and a lithe figure. Friends remember that Maria had a soft, melodious voice. Bill and Maria had been introduced at a party in Naples, where, she would later recall, “a love sympathy arose between us.”16 For the next few months they carried on an affair. In June, Maria discovered that she was pregnant and was terrified of the shame she would endure in the eyes of her friends and family. Bill decided to spare her. He would drop the war in favour of love. Living like the characters in the thrillers he read, he would take his girl and go on the run. Bill Croft deserted on July 28, and he and Maria moved up to Rome.
In August, Bill Croft entered a restaurant on the Via Appia and ordered himself a glass of wine. He was dressed in his petty officer’s uniform and a white peaked cap. Seated not far away were two American soldiers. One was a tall fellow, with blond hair and a scar that ran down his face to his mouth. The other was shorter and better looking. He had a perennial smile plastered across his face, as if it had been planted there since birth.