大象传媒

Action On The Adriatic COAST: June - October 1944
by Romuald E. Lipinski, Part I
12 Podolski Lancers Regt., 2nd Polish Corps

After Monte Cassino, end of May,1944,we were sent for a couple of weeks to the area of Campobasso. We were supposed to spend there enough time to reorganize and resupply our equipment. Unfortunately, our supplies could not come from Poland. The only source of manpower were deserters from German army. And they started to come to us in big numbers. Many of them were from the Polish provinces that Germans incorporated to the Third Reich. These were the areas near Poznan, Torun, Pomerania and Slask. They were Poles forcibly incorporated into the German army. They hated Germans and they deserted at the first opportunity. Our command recognized this fact and upon a declaration by a prisoner that he is a Pole, after a short training period, he was given a uniform and an assignment. They proved to be very good soldiers, motivated, well trained and disciplined. Another source of manpower were people that were trickling in from partisans, refugees from Poland, who made their way somehow through Germany, France or otherwise. In some regiments were people from South America who when they heard about organization of Polish army dropped everything and came to serve. In our regiment, there was Lt. Scazighino, whose father was a consul in the United States. He volunteered to our army and was killed at Monte Cassino. So, in spite of the fact that our army was outside of Poland our numbers instead of decreasing were increasing. I don't have exact figures, on the basis of the information received while in the army and later, the total number of soldiers in the 2-nd Polish Corps changed from 60,000 in Iraq, to about 100,000 in Italy, at the time of the end of the war.

Unfortunately, our recovery did not last long. Even at the time of Monte Cassino Battle, seven divisions were removed from Italy and sent to England to participate in the future invasion of France. Orders came to get ready and after about three weeks of rest we were sent to the Adriatic coast. At that time Germans were retreating on the entire front. We were trying to catch up with them, going for three days at full speed along the highway No. 16 from Pescara to Macerata. Everywhere that we came we asked: "Dove Teceschi" (Where are Germans), and everywhere we were getting the same answer: "Sono scappati via" (They just ran away). But at Macerata it was different. There Germans gave us a stiff resistance. In Macerata took place an incident that I will remember for the rest of my life: a piece of shrapnel went through my boot, ripped the leather, and did not touch the skin.

We had our mortars set up in an area of a soccer field, between two walls. One wall was separating the field from the street and the other, smaller, separated the area for spectators from the field proper. At the northern end of the field, our lancers set up an observation post. I went to see the observation post and since there was nothing interesting to see, I decided to go to my mortar and talk to my friends. I was just approaching the group of maybe six or seven men, when in short intervals three shells came: one was too long, one was too short and the third fell right between me and the group of men that I was approaching. It happen so quickly that I did not even have time to fall on the ground. I felt a painful blow on the inside of my right foot. I realized that I was hit and for a moment I was afraid to look down at my foot wondering if it is still there. Then, I realized that I feel my foot. I looked down and saw the leather ripped off. I moved my toes and sighed with relief; everything was O.K. It was not O.K. for everybody; one of the guys in the group that I was approaching got a piece of shrapnel in his head and died instantly. I didn't know why Germans shelled that particular spot. There was just a few of us, so it was not any concentration of our troops. They might have been signaled by one of their spies that were always left behind. That will be one of the mysteries of the war.

It is difficult to describe our action on Adriatic coast. It was a mobile type of warfare. The terrain was rolling, from time to time cut by rivers flowing east, to the Adriatic Sea. Germans were retreating in an orderly fashion, leaving practically every bridge destroyed. Also, any passage through any stream or river was mined. Our sappers had plenty of work in removing those mines. Germans used all kinds of tricks to make our life more difficult and short. For example, when it became obvious that metal mines could be detected by means of a metal detector, they started to use plastic mines. These could be detected only by sticking a bayonet in the ground and if it did not penetrate further there might be a stone or a mine. Then they started to bury two mines, one on the top of the other, coupled together, hoping that the bottom one will explode upon raising of the one above it. They also used small cubes of TNT, in wooden boxes, which could be placed anywhere. That was just enough to blow off one's foot. Their tactics was to retreat and set up resistance line behind a river. When our troops would cross the river they would put a barrage of artillery on the troops that established a bridgehead and also cut off any supplies that could be brought over across the river. Then they could easily liquidate the bridgehead. They were always on the slopes of hills facing south. Under these conditions visibility was a problem, because in the afternoon they were in a shade and we could not see them very well. Being a reconnaissance regiment of the 3-rd Carpathian Division, our task was to move right after the retreating Germans, camouflage ourselves, and detect any machine gun nests, mortars or artillery, so that when our main forces arrive we could be able to define their targets. There were situations that we were practically surrounded by Germans. Sometimes, we spent whole night with our guns at the ready expecting fire at any time. Sometimes we would advance close to Germans during the day and retreat for the night in fear of being surrounded. Under these conditions we were moving a lot, there was no time to dig any decent shelter. Most of the time we were sleeping in a small foxhole, just dip enough to be below the ground level, so that fragments of a shrapnel would not hit the body. Sometimes I could find an old crater from heavy artillery. That was a feast, because there was a decent shelter and it was already made - no digging. The time was summer, it was warm and this outdoor sleeping would not be so bad. But sometimes a rain would come during the night and you wake up in a pool of water. Well, you just shake it off, like a dog and go ahead with your duties. Being a mortar platoon, we were assigned to whichever line squadron was in action. So when our line squadrons were changing, one being in combat duty and the other in reserve, we were in front line all the time. As a result of this we were in constant action from about 15 of June until October, when I was sent to the officers-cadet school.

We drank a lot of wine; for breakfast, lunch, dinner and in between. Wine is as common a drink in Italy as water in other countries. Every contadino had an enormous barrels, maybe 15 feet in diameter, filling the entire room, full of wine. We had two 5 gallon cans, normally used for gasoline, that were assigned for the purpose of carrying wine. When one of them was empty we had enough time to replenish the other. Since I quickly learned Italian, I was the one who negotiated with Italians the supply of wine. In view of my knowledge of Italian my position and popularity in the regiment in general, and in our platoon in particular, increased greatly. When we were embarking on a trip for wine I refused to carry it myself; I would take a guy to this job for me. I was the supplier. I guess the taste for wine never left me since that time. When we had any money we paid for wine and rather generously; when money was gone we usually were able to talk the contadinos to give us wine for free.

Our relationship with the Italian population was very good. I don't remember any case of a major offense committed by those that I knew. The general rule was that we could take from abandoned houses, and there was plenty of those, the things that we needed for our personal use, i.e., food, clean underwear, soap, etc. Of course, nothing was allowed to be taken by force. There few interesting characters in our platoon. One of them was a young fellow named Grzes. He was not very educated, but it was evident that he wanted to learn. Since I had couple of books (I think it was text on geography that was given to us at the 鈥淜urs Gimnazjalny鈥� organized in Palestine -it lasted only a month and half and we were sent to our units) he always asked to tell him what is in that book. There was also another peculiarity about Grzes. He was a dog for women. He always had a supply of ladies clothing, fancy underwear, stockings, etc., that he took from some empty house and used it for favors from local girls. Whenever we came, Grzes would disappear in search for some female company. He was always successful.

Another rather colorful guy was the master sergeant Leon Skiba. Skiba is a Polish word for ridge, but it was his real name. He was an old cavalry man, at least fifty, and he spent his entire adult life in the army. He was fighting Bolsheviks in 1920 and should really retire a long time ago but for some reason they kept him in active duty. He was a skinny, cheerful, pleasant man, always full of stories about the "good, old days" when cavalry was the way it should be, of course on horses, about the days when they were charging at the Russians with their sabers draw, his various small battles of the WWI, the parades and so on. It was entertaining to watch him preparing for a parade or any other special occasion. It was amazing how much time and effort he devoted to have everything polished and cleaned. His shoes were so shining that could be used as a mirror. The buckles of his belt were polished, his shirt ironed (I still don't know how he did it because we did not have irons), his head shaved (he was bold), in other words he was in top shape. And it was evident that he took pride in his looks and he enjoyed it. That was his pride and glory, when he was standing in front of the platoon, straight as a stick, giving an example to us, the young guys how a soldier should look like. Good, old Skiba, real horseman. I remember him fondly.

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