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African Safari
(Part 2) by Henry A. Jones, 764th Bomb Squadron (Continued from the December 1992 issue the "Liberaider" ) Now we were in Casablanca, an entirely different world than the one we were accustomed to - nothing at all like the good ole USA!!! One thing was for sure, this definitely wasn't paradise! On the way to camp we got our first look at where and how people lived. When I think of Casablanca or any part of North Africa, I get a "picture" of a tall, skinny, long legged Arab riding on a little burro. The Arab is sitting on the rump of the burro and his legs are long enough to reach the burro's head. To motivate the burro to keep moving, the Arab constantly kicks his feet up and down alongside the burro's neck and the little animal keeps trotting along with his little short steps. I don't recall ever seeing a woman or child riding. They always seemed to be walking, a little behind the man. More often than not, the woman would have a basket or bundle balanced on her head. Men and women wore robes and sandals and the women wore veils. Small children were bare-bottomed and only had a shirt for a top - if they wore a top. Most of the dwellings that I saw were one room with a fire in the middle of the room. The buildings were of stone construction so there was little danger of fire. Camp Don Passage was pretty normal, except that POWs did most of the work on the base, mess halls, barbershop, etc. This was where I got my first short haircut. Up until this time I wouldn't have been "caught dead" with short haircut, but I began to realize that in order to stay clean and well kept, short hair was the only way to go. An Italian POW gave me my first GI haircut. I must have liked it because I've worn my hair that way ever since 1944. We slept in pyramidal tents with five double decked bunks in them. Normally there would have been only five single cots. Ten men in one of these tents was uncomfortable for everybody. We ate from our mess kits which gave us no problem since we were accustomed to using them. We ate outside, either standing or sitting on the ground. The fly population was terrible, it seemed that they covered everything. It was necessary to keep a hand waving over your food at all times or the flies would completely cover it. I haven't seen that many flies anywhere. I thought that sleeping in my sheep-skin flying suit would keep me warm, but it didn't take long to find out that I was wrong. I found that by using them as cover was much better. That way I could keep my feet together. Besides that, sleeping on a straw mattress has no warmth at all, especially when it had been slept on for a long time before. It was also about as soft as an oak plank. From this point on we were to travel by train, and I'm not talking about a comfortable train. We were going by 40 and 8 -- that means the cars were large enough to carry forty men or eight horses. They were made famous during WWI in France. I suppose forty men could ride in one if they didn't mind standing most of the time. We weren't at all comfortable, and we were not hauling that many men. To sleep we laid crosswise to the car with our head to the side wall. The men next to you on either side had their heads to the wall on the other side of the car. That meant you could get kicked from either side at any time during the night. In addition, if you had to get up during the night, the chances of losing your spot were great. We spent one night in these crowded conditions, but the next day we found a way to remedy the situation. By using some of our shelter-halves (pup tents), we made hammocks that were swung across the boxcar. I don't remember how many men slept this way, but it was enough to relieve the crowded condition. For food we had "C rations" which made up the main part of the "meal" (meat, beans, spam, etc.). Then there was a box containing candy, sugar, 4 cigarettes and instant coffee. The coffee was probably the first attempt at making instant coffee. But whatever the case, it was not very good. The candy and sugar we saved for kids along the way. The kids would begin to run toward the train the minute they saw that it was a troop train. Even if we had already passed, they would look all along the track for anything that we might have thrown to them. In one town where we were stopped in the station, a crowd of people gathered to watch. There was one little girl, probably eight years old, standing with her father. We motioned for her to come over, and when she did, we filled the skirt of her dress with candy and sugar. She ran back to her father holding her skirt up in front, showing him what she had. He went to his house, which was nearby, and came back with two big bottles of wine - they were glad to get those sweets likewise, we were glad to get some good French wine! The CF&M was the railroad we were riding. It ran all along the Mediterranean Sea from Casablanca to Tunis through mountains most of the way. There were a great number of tunnels along the way, some of them quite long, especially when you're riding in an open box car. The smoke was pretty thick at times. At the beginning of the trip the train was being pulled by a wood burning steam engine used ordinarily to switch cars around in the yards. They had a lot of trouble pulling some of the steep grades with it. There were times when they had to make a second attempt to make it over the top, even with the Arab crewmen spreading extra sand on the track. Eventually we got a GI engine and crew who really moved us down the track. We went through the towns of Fez, Rabat, Oran, Tangier and others. Anytime the train stopped, the guys would naturally get off to stretch, relax, go to the bathroom, etc!! Well, no sooner did the train commander (a Major ) even think the train was going to move he would begin to yell at the top of his voice, "get on the god damn train!" I'm sure that with the attitude he had, some of the guys took their old sweet time getting on the train just to irritate him - and it worked every time. The poor man probably had an ulcer by the time he got rid of us. The British were guarding the rail yards and bridges on our route, and I must say they did a good job. British soldiers were in the rail yards, and I'm not sure of the nationality of troops on the bridges. They did not wear the conventional uniform of the British and their weapons were long barreled rifles with fixed bayonets. They wore white turbans on their head and wrap leggings on their legs. They looked strange compared to what we were accustomed to. We had learned early on the trip not to leave things at or near the door-way because an Arab could run up to the door and grab what was there and be gone in no time. It was especially bad at night. The British soldiers who were on guard were always on the look out for such things. If the guard said "Halt", he meant just what he said. The Arabs were very aware of that because if they were caught, they were dealt with harshly. We arrived in Tunis after more than a week on the train. There is no doubt that we were a sloppy looking bunch. None of us had had a shower since we were in Casablanca - and we probably smelled like it!! Soap and water was not plentiful here for some reason. However, we were allowed to take a shower with the water on long enough for us to soap up, then it was turned on again long enough for us to rinse off good. From that time on we were allowed one helmet full of water a day to wash and shave with. We were, however, allowed unlimited drinking water that had been treated to kill the bacteria. It had a heavy chlorine smell. We were advised to neither eat nor drink at any place other than those approved by the military authorities - sanitary conditions were bad. From the train we had seen places where the people and their animals drank from the same well. There would be a stockade around the well, and the area surrounding it would be nothing but a "lob-lolly" of mud. The people and their animals lived, ate and drank in this same stockade. At Camp Sevier in Tunis an Infantry T/Sgt. was put in charge of our group of men. He, like our train commander, was a "gung ho" type person who was going to teach this bunch of Air Corps men a few things - so he thought! We all had as much or more rank than he did, but we went along with him to a great extent. He had roll calls, some of which were necessary, and then he attempted to put us through close order drill (back to boot camp). That went over "like a lead balloon", so he stopped that. Next he sent some of the men to the mess hall on "ration-breakdown". That was loading, unloading and sorting rations. This time someone stole a 25 lb. box of ground beef and brought it to the tent area. That night we built a big fire and had a "cook-out". By this time he had "lightened-up" a bit and began to get along better with the guys. I will say one thing for this bunch of men - we did not need close supervision. When left alone we did very well. Every time someone tried to push us around, he ran into trouble. During all of the time we were together, I don't remember a time when there was any disagreement among the men in the group. All of us got along very well together. There were many things the populations of Europe and Africa could not buy. Some of these were sugar, cigarettes, candy and shoes. If a man had a pair of silk hose he could almost name his own price. However, there were places where some items could be purchased, but the prices were very high. That was the "black market". Some of the men that carried on this type of business got a lot of their merchandise from the GIs. They would come to the fence around the camp and "haggle" with the guys for things they wanted to buy or sell. These men would buy anything! One fellow I knew sold a pair of badly worn civilian type shoes to one of these "traders". These men were usually in groups of four or five and each carried a long stick like a shepherds staff - in other words a club!! One time when these men were at the fence, somebody got one off to the side and talked him into raising the price he paid for an item. When the others found out what was going on, I thought they were going to beat him to death with their sticks. The last time I saw him, he was running for his life, and the others were right on his heels. After more than a week in Tunis it was decided that we should be in Algiers, about 300-400 miles back the way we had just come. We loaded onto another train and off we went back to Algiers. This took another 2-3 days of traveling. In the meantime, the Fifteenth Air Force learned where we were and sent planes to pick us up. We finally arrived at our destination on Sunday, 6 April, 1944. To say the very least our trip was some kind of an adventure. It took us just three days short of three months to travel from Fresno, CA to Cerignola, Italy, a distance of at least 7,000 miles, and by all modes of transportation - except horseback. It's a shame that I don't have total recall so that I could write about everything. I have just "scratched the surface". We rejoined our Squadrons at Torretta Field, Cerignola, Italy on 16 April and took up our duties of maintaining the B-24 airplanes of the 461st Bombardment Group as if we had not had an "African Safari". |
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