Our objective, as laid out in the instructions from Washington, was to go to Italy and buy citrus fruits, apple pulp, and other surplus products piling up in that country as an opener to normalizing trade; but more importantly as a gesture of the United States toward Italy which now approached a vital decision, on her political future.
Italy was now free of military government control, operating under a Monarchy and parliamentary system headed by Prince Humbert II of the House of Savoy. The representative government was headed by Bonomi, a Christian Democrat of the center, against the strong communist party then surfacing in Italy. The elections were to be held in June 1946 and the people were to decide whether they would continue under a Monarchy or a Republic. Our spending of some 18 million dollars allotted was expected to relieve the explosive citrus producers in South Italy and Sicily of some of their problems and the apple growers of the North of some of their surplus apple pulp, vinegar, and apple sauce. At the same time, this would provide the Germans with treats they had not had in nine long years.
Somehow a leak out of Washington hinted that our mission, with 18 million dollars in pocket was to spend it for goods in Italy. Upon our arrival in Rome, headlines in the Italian newspapers proclaimed the fact that a mission from the American zone of Germany had come to buy the Italian citrus crop. The price of oranges in the market stalls doubled over night and our mission, expecting to really negotiate good prices, was a dead duck so far as the Italian sharpies who were cornering the citrus market were concerned.
When our little group of four was getting ready for takeoff from Berlin word came that we would be going to Italy in a four-engined DC-4, the plane which had only recently been introduced on the commercial airlines in the States. General Eisenhower's plushed-up job was the only DC-4 with which we were familiar in Germany, and we had visions of making a real VIP sortie in Italy in a posh plane. However, that was not to be. On arrival at Templehof there stood our DC-4 all right, but it was a freighter loaded with a couple of spare engines lashed to the floor, an assortment of tires, boxes and other freight, and two iron bucket seats on each side of the cargo for passengers.
This heavily-loaded plane lumbered off the runway and we were soon Italy-bound. On arrival over Rome that airport was completely under clouds and we passengers knew little of how high or how low the clouds were. Our pilot made two passes at the runway but never did get through the overcast. Finally he headed away from the field for several miles, dropped to what looked like fifty feet, and banked sharply. The giant crates shivered and groaned as if they were going to break loose from their moorings on the floor. After what seemed like hours, but were only seconds, the plane leveled off and skimmed the tree tops into the runway. We were there at last -- four pretty shaken emissaries to trade with the Italians.
Our first meeting was formal with the various government officials, the Minister of Trade, Agricultural Minister, and others. Then we were turned over to the chaps who had the lemons and the oranges and the apples and pulp. Since the mission was dealing mainly with agricultural products, it fell to me to do most of the arguing with the Italians. They took us for a ride, no doubt, but after two days of haggling we ended up spending the 18 million for oranges, apples, lemons and a list of processed by-products to be delivered to the great fruit and vegetable exchange center at Munich. In prewar days this exchange had been the principle distribution point for fresh fruits and vegetables from the south, spreading out over all of Germany and much of Eastern and Western Europe.
We ended our mission on the third day with a sumptuous lunch during which the Finance Minister, whom I had met a couple of years before when he was a sort of a runner and interpreter for the Allied Commission in Rome asked, "Didn't you have something to do with that Northern Italy operation with Switzerland which for a time resulted in a great deal of illegal traffic between firms in these two countries?"
"Yes," I said, "but I hardly classed it as illegal since Italians wanted to get rid of their apples and wanted Swiss cattle and the Swiss wanted to get rid of their cattle and wanted apples." "Ah yes," he said "but there were no border taxes paid on the products going either way and that was illegal."
There could be only one answer. "That," I said, "is something the bookkeepers will have to work out among themselves."
Our return to Berlin was routine and by now it had been made definite that I would be leaving Berlin on May 7ty, 1946 for that long-awaited trip home. I had been waiting for that for thirty-three months. In the meantime, the Italians, especially the Sicilians, served notice that two solid train loads of lemons and oranges would be arriving in Munich pronto.
On the evening of May 6th the whole gang, including General Hester, crowded into my office, and what turned out to be a "going away ceremony" got under way. During my stay in Germany we had wanted a couple of cameras, in anticipation of returning to the States and eventually taking up journalism again. The German Leica was the most sought-after of all cameras and they were worth a fortune in the black market which was the only way they could be procured since the Leica factory was closed tight.
The black market was notorious in Berlin, and while I was no more moral than anyone else, I felt that in my position of responsibility I could not, in all conscience, deal in cigarettes, coffee, cooking oil and the many things of trade for which the Germans were giving up their most prized possessions. I had refrained from trading on the market and had been pretty critical of those on my staff who did.
The other camera I wanted very much, also unobtainable except on a lottery basis, was the new 2 1/4 by 3 1/4 Speed Graphic -- one of the prize newspaper cameras going at the time. Occasionally one came over from the States and was on display at the PX but it could not be bought. It was always given away on a raffle deal. One of the civilians, a lady economist who had just come over from Washington to join our group held the lucky number and won the only new Speed Graphic in Western Germany. I offered her a fabulous amount of money for the machine but she refused. So I was getting ready to go home without cameras, except for a little Decker machine which I had brought from an RCA industrial scout in Frankfurt months before.
When things got under way in my office that morning I was handed, with proper ceremony, both a Leica, which I had dreamed about, and the Speed Graphic. The Speed Graphic I could accept with a great deal of gratitude, but my conscience hit me pretty hard on the Leica. In a little speech I told my staff that I could hardly accept the Leica since I knew it had been bought for 17 cartons of cigarettes on the black market and with all that I had been saying about the black marketing it would be unseemly for me to accept the Leica.
At this point, General Hester stepped up and said, "Andrews, damn it, take that camera, if you don't I will!" and that was that. I took the camera, a military model of the original Leica with a 3-5 universal lens which I have to this day. I have carried it to more than sixty countries of the world, have in my possession more than 2000 slides made with that little camera, and it is still going strong.
The black market in Germany, I must say, was one of the most shameful and degrading aspects of the military occupation. It really started right after the surrender and the printing of a German military occupation currency to be used instead of the German Reichmark. The plates which were used in printing this new money for the Western Zones were lent to the Russian zone and the Russians made plenty of hay with the plates. Their soldiers, many of them, had not been paid in five years of fighting. The new marks were printed in bales and the soldiers were paid off. The Russian soldiers, rich as lords, bought everything in sight and loose.
The GIs and others, found out before one could hardly blink, and a roaring market was established in the Eastern zone where anything from a necktie to a jeep could be sold at a fabulous price. An ordinary wrist watch brought the equivalent of $1500 U.S. dollars. In no time GIs and others were importing watches from the States and selling them to the Russians. The nick in the wall was the fact that those marks used by the Russian soldiers could be taken to the U.S. Military Post Offices and converted into a postal money order and in the end transferred into U.S. dollars in America.
Millions upon millions were so converted, and the occupation authority woke up in time to the fact that it held literally millions of these marks which had been exchanged for U.S. dollar currency. The racket was finally stopped, but not before literal fortunes were made in this maneuver. The racket not only involved military people, high and low, but when the civilian staff of President Truman in the Potsdam Conference learned of this racket they rushed the market and many of them boarded their planes home with everything sold but the shirts on their backs and their pants -- even shoelaces and neckties were absent.
As the winter grew grimmer and conditions became worse, Germans found that they could trade their fine furniture, porcelain, art works and cameras for coffee, cigarettes, and stolen food from the commissary. This they did in an ever-increasing volume until currency reform in 1948. The authorities tried many devices to either close down these markets or legalize and control them; but when an attempt was made to legalize and police this traffic, a howl went up that the military authorities were encouraging a barter market.
Many of the civilians, as well as military staff, would systematically order from the States coffee, cooking oil, and cigarettes by the case and trade for goods. One gentleman of our acquaintance joined up with a German authority on Meissen China and systematically developed one of the largest collections of fine German porcelain in the country. He and the German wrote a book about his collection and he has since become something of an authority on Meissen. He should not be singled out as an example, however, because apparently everybody did it if they could get away with it.
This whole pernicious operation sprang, I am afraid, from a very permissive and lax policy during the fighting and after it of allowing -- or at least closing eyes -- to a great deal of plunder. When a high-ranking General was caught exporting some stolen priceless art from Italy, one could hardly expect the GIs to be very observing when it came to "enemy property." The rationalization for all of this was that "The Germans, principally Goering and Hitler, had plundered the art treasures of Europe and had stashed them away in their private and state collections." This was generally true, but what was also generally true -- the Germans made a meticulous record of each item they plundered and this led to easy recovery of most of the valuable pieces.
I closed my May 6th notes with the observation: "General Clay, General Draper, and General Hester are making me feel as if I really mattered here -- a few odds and ends to shore up and I guess I'll be away soon."
My notes on May 7th read: "Things surely happen fast. It is now 9:20 A.M. and I am to report to Templehof by 12:30 for take-off for home." My few possessions were hastily thrown into a valpack, two cameras slung over my shoulder, and with two bottles of champagne in my duffel bag I made the plane by an eyelash. Just as I stepped in the jeep I was handed a special brown envelope which I was to deliver to the Pentagon on arrival in the U.S.A. This brown envelope put me in a courier class, which meant that I would not be delayed anywhere along the line for whatever reason. I did not know what the envelope contained at the time, but I learned later that I was carrying a copy of the surrender terms of Bulgaria to the Russian Army. I later read those terms, which were spartan to say the least.
My trip home by air was something of an adventure. I had crossed the Atlantic in World War I in an Australian cattle boat out of Halifax, Nova Scotia -- rabbit stew and cheese the main menu all the way. I had come back from World War I on the old battleship Rhode Island, the flagship of the fleet Theodore Roosevelt sent around the world. I had good navy food on that ship, but we were caught in a storm in mid-Atlantic and bobbled around like a cork for days -- taking exactly 22 days from Brest, France to Newport News -- too sick to enjoy food. I came over in World War II in a convoy of Liberty ships loaded mainly with tanks and ammunition and landed at Casablanca, making the trip in some twelve days -- powdered eggs and spam on the menu. Now I was going home high-class in a DC-4 and would make it in less than 20 hours, my first transatlantic by air. Of that long ago trip, I wrote in part:
"While transatlantic air travel has long ceased to be an adventure and commercial and military planes lace the Atlantic and Pacific skies like so many shuttles weaving the fabric of modern commerce and travel, to a "first timer" the prospect and actuality of a transatlantic air trip is something more than a routine affair.
With baggage flying in all directions, armed with orders and the laundry list of clearance, inspections, property releases, overdue inoculations and all of the papers and routine it takes to officially clear an army command, we presented ourselves at Templehof Airdome -- that one-time pride of German commercial air development and probably the first really modern airport in the world.
Customs had to be cleared here but with an air of having done this thing all of my life, the hour came and the big ATC C-54 four-motored liner came up to the ramp and we were ready to board the ATC which in other lingo is Air Transport Command -- which operates with neither the studied courtesy and formality of a commercial airline nor the lackadaisical indifference and boredom of a strict army outfit like the EATA. So with a firm and courteous "good voyage" from the young Lieutenant who seemed to run things around there, four of us disappeared into the cavernous tube which is the body of a C-54.
There were four passengers and a small amount of mail. In a matter of seconds we were leaving behind Tempelhof resting like a green octagon mirror in a forest of building shells -- heading into the sun across the green and brown striped carpet which is Germany west of Berlin. In one hour and twenty minutes we were circling Hanau Field for the landing, at the ATC field for Franfurt on the Main. Here more mail and two additional passengers came on. Coffee at the Red Cross and then, with ten thousand pounds of mail aboard, six passengers and fourteen empty seats we flew into the sun for Paris one hour and thirty minutes away. Here we were scheduled to eat a bite and in an hour be ready for the next stop -- Paris to Iceland -- but fog over Labrador meant holding up the flight until six the next morning.
Paris at dawn is no less intriguing and lo less beautiful than Paris at dusk. At the air field we found our giant transport ready for the morning hop. Five more passengers came with us -- most of them lads who were going home on emergency furlough -- a black soldier from Claiborne, Louisiana, a sergeant from Raleigh, North Carolina, and a young serviceman from Texas among them. There was sickness in their families and Uncle Sam was sending them home the fast way.
In a matter of minutes we were out of France and across the English Channel skirting the craggy shores of Scotland -- seven hours then above the North Atlantic during which we read, slept, and ate a meal; then snowcaps of Iceland loomed ahead.
Meeks Field in Iceland is a cluster of Niessen huts, a series of landing strips and a radar station plumped down in the most desolate shore of grey stone and gravel clay that a human could imagine. A chill sharp wind whipped across the field when we landed to stay for an hour while the plane was refueled. Inside the little station made from a Niessen hut was a neat restaurant operated by ATC. We had breakfast and while we waited other planes came in -- one with a man, his wife, and six-month-old child. They were Russians on their way to Paris -- other civilians on missions abroad -- diplomatic and otherwise -- a few officers returning from leave at home -- GIs bumped off by priority big shots.
Next was Westover Field, a port of debarkation for air travelers where the formalities of customs inspection and debarkation papers takes about an hour. But since our mission was an official one and our destination Washington, we were permitted to go ahead to New York with our plane crew. A scant forty minutes and we were sitting down at LaGuardia Field -- four o'clock in the morning New York time -- my plane for Washington, an American Airlines DC-3 would be taking off at five o'clock. This time eats were in order but we could not eat: the glitter and galaxy of clothes, jewelry, luggage and things to buy, porters to carry bags, ticket counters, telephone girls, newsstands, throngs of well-dressed men and women, important-looking businessmen drowsing in chairs waiting for the morning take-off: gosh, we just sat and looked at the passing parade. Before we hardly knew it, the hour had passed and we were taking off in another dawn in another world -- where hunger was a matter for discussion and not an ever-present fact.
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