By this time Lieutenants German and Koeller had turned in their survey. They had discovered quite a bit of potential grain; but had also determined that there was a little known and understood cog in the Italian government machine called the ascertimenti ... an individual in every province with sub-offices or representatives in each commune. It was his job to keep all of the statistics on what was going on in his area; births and deaths, the number of goats and pigs, the amount of wheat planted and the amount produced, the number of rooms in the village -- literally a daily census taker.
The value of this information was immediately obvious; however, since these gentlemen in every province were a part of the Mussolini fascist machine, they like all other so-called fascist organizations, were abolished and sent packing or failed. Yet these were the only people with first-hand knowledge of what was really going on in the areas.
We rather quickly and unofficially revived these fellows and Major Hammmar, finding an old check sheet used by these people in gathering statistics, had copies made and promptly sent them out to the province and communes asking the ascertimenti, or someone who had taken their place, to fill them out and send them in.
Hammar worked day and night on this and came up with an estimate ... which later proved to be astoundingly accurate. The typed sheets were hardly out of the machines before they were put in a cable to Algiers, still the nominal headquarters of General Eisenhower and General Alexander -- though by now, General Eisenhower had actually moved to Caserta up a beautiful tree lined drive in North Naples.
From Algiers the data went on to Washington for the sharpers there to figure on. No wheat came our way immediately but later in the winter and early spring some came, this came in handy ... some of it, Canadian red wheat; something Italian peasants had not seen before, was released for seed.
While in Salerno one afternoon I was suddenly called over to the Badoglio headquarters to hear that he had named a New Minister of Agriculture, and that withink a few hours I was to meet him. He was Baron Lucifero, from Reggio Calabria province, the overlord of a literally feudal estate claimed to be some 200,000 hectares, or nearly 500,000 acres.
There was quite a story behind that appointment. Major Glenn Riddell, a former Arkansas county agent, and before joining the Military Government, an agricultural agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, had replaced Captain Schreiver in the Bari area, working with the then Minister of Agriculture Segatti. Lucifero was very upset about what farmers were getting for their wheat, was loudly critical of the way things were going in agriculture generally, and was especially concerned about the revolt of the Contradini.
Lucifero had held on to his little Fiat car but had no gasoline. He approached Riddell for gasoline coupons to get to Salerno and see what was cooking. Riddell worked it out on the gasoline and Lucifero showed up in Salerno. He almost immediately, according to his story, got an audience with Badoglio and gave his pitch which was pretty vigorous and critical. After listening for awhile Badoglio looked up andd said, "Lucifero, how did you get here and do you have an extra shirt?"
"I got here in my own car, at my own expense," Lucifero replied, "and I expect to go back tonight." Then, looking puzzled, he added that he had no extra shirt to replace the dirty one he had on.
Upon hearing that Badoglio said, "Well, you'd better get you another shirt because from this moment on you are the new Minister of Agriculture for Italy."
Lucifero accepted the appointment and set up shop that afternoon in the hotel where Badoglio was stopping. I was called in to see him less than an hour later. Our first discussion was about wheat, and the seeds and supplies needed for the planting of the new crop. The price of wheat was the big issue. It really made little sense even to a large farmer to sell his wheat for 200 lira a quintal when the black market was paying 4,000.
We had been discussing this in the Allied food and Agricultural staff, but we had been stymied by the so-called Morgenthau boys, US Treasury representatives, who were laying down fiscal policies for the occupation of Italy. After Major Hammar's study of supplies and bearing in mind the raging black market it was generally agreed that little if any wheat would come into the legal market at less than 4,000 lira a quintal. This had been sharply turned down by the US Treasury people.
As a result of the turn-down, Major Hartman -- now a Lieutenant Colonel -- and Lieutenant Colonel Dicky, his agricultural forestry and fisheries counterpart, went over the heads of all of the mid-command and bureaucrats, direct to Major General Harold McMillan, head of the Allied Commission, the supreme military government authority in Italy, and asked for an order raising the price of wheat. This was granted in moments, much to the consternation of the "hold the line boys." This did not do all of the job, but it did start some wheat moving in legal channels. That, with an occasional scare that "food ships were coming in from America," got the wheat log jam broken and created some semblance of order.
During this period, I went back to Sicily to see how things were coming there. It was about the same story as on the mainland. The raids by the military, which we had counted on to scare peasants into delivering, simply did not work. I was told that more than 25,000 peasants had beeen jailed -- but we still did not get the wheat. The 4,000 lira did help, however, and with some supplement from the USA, the Sicilian people got through the winter. While we had our problems on the mainland, it was livable; at least nobody starved, thanks to the black market.
During February and March of 1944, Naples was pounded almost nightly by relatively small but sometimes very destructive air raids. The target was transport in the harbor; either ships going out to Anzio or bringing food and military supplies from the US or England. Few people were killed, but very often the Germans would overshoot the harbor area and bombs would land at the edge of the waterfront or sometimes up in town. An overshot I well remember was on the Volmoro, the high hills overlooking Naples harbor, and the dwelling places of the more wealth residents of that city on the bay. We had combined British-American Military Government billet -- quarters and mess -- in a villa on the Volmoro. On that particular night our bed danced a jig and the house next door was hit at the same time taking off a corner of our billet.
One of our officers, an American, who had a very narrow escape at Salerno in a similar situation, was badly shaken up. In World War I, we would have called this shell shock. This time the medics labeld it "undue nervous tension." He was sent to a military hospital in Salerno for treatment where he was later declared unfit for further duty in the war zone. He returned to the States and being an able person in his field rose to a very top position in our government bureaucracy. While our little group was small, we suffered a relatively high attrition rate that winter in Naples. Another of our officers contracted milk fever from eating Sicilian goat cheese and another was killed by a floating mine as he crossed a stream in his jeep.
The winter and early spring and summer in Naples had been pretty much routine -- trying to allocate and distribute the food stuffs and agricultural inputs which were now reaching Naples in volume. The main job was to see that these shipments were distributed equally; the food to the population and the inputs, seed, fertilizer and insecticides, to the farmers.
Our commune committees, which had been set up with the memorandum which Captain Case had developed, were functioning admirably in assisting the collection of wheat and olive oil and our reopening of the Regional Consorcio in Naples. The former manager of the Consorcio was restored to his managing position, which helped solve the pilferage problems on supplies coming into Naples harbor.
Under the system, the Consorcio would deposit Italian lira with the army officials and the Consorcio would be responsible for getting the goods from shipside to their warehouse some miles from the harbor. On previous occasions military trucks with GI drivers would pick up the fertilizer and other goods and deliver them to the Consorcio warehouse and the Consorcio would be responsible financially for only the amount delivered. On several occasions under this system there would be a shrinkage of several tons between the docks and the warehouse and the drivers would either get lost and dump their load or peddle some off to the black market.
On one occasion of record we had a shrinkage of more than 100 tons out of a cargo of 700 tons of ammonium sulphate. Investigation developed that the drivers had traded some of the fertilizer for liquor, sold some to the racketeers, and had developed a lively and lucrative trade with local gangsters. With the responsibility being fixed on the Consorcio at shipside, the pilferage ceased.
During this period much of the talk and many rumors, as well as positive preparations, pointed to the final assault on Rome. Two previous bids for Rome had stalled. The Anzio invasion had bogged down at the foot of the Albian Hills and that front was to remain stagnant until the big breakout later in the summer. The Fifth Army had been battered down at Cassino and the job of the military government team was mostly finding food and fuel for the cold and drizzly winter and spring, during which time the army build-up was going on.
As I now recall, Rome fell on June 6, 1944, and there was wild rejoicing in Naples with the crowds milling in the streets and expressing as much joy as could be expected, considering the conditions at that time and place. On our part we noted that "surely this will take Italy out of the war" and with the armies landing in Normandy and the dramatic developments in Europe coming over the BBC radio broadcasts nightly there was some hope that the war might be over in September as some of the experts had predicted.
In view of the break-out from Anzio, and the German retreat northward, we closed up shop in Naples, leaving Major Glenn Riddell in charge of the Regional Office of Military Government to keep watch on supplies coming in and working with the new Italian officials we had been able to recruit. There was a big job yet to be done in the amassing of olive oil and the distribution of food products -- everything from sweet potatoes to pea soup -- which were coming from the United States.
But new problems lay ahead in the wake of the advance of the American Fifth and British Eighth Armies and we prepared to move northward seeking solutions.
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