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Show ROYCEFLANDRO March 21, 2000 mind could help those guys after they had been traumatized like that TOT and come out and be helping one another and all that kind of thing. It just caused me to think there is another dimension that I'm more interested in, especially after seeing all of these people. I ended up studying sociology, psychology, and education. That's what I majored in, and I went on and got doctorates and so forth. WINN: Let's get back to the war. How far up the peninsula did your unit go? ROYCE: We went all the way up to the Alps and through Brenner Pass. We were stalled there for awhile just before we got to the Po Valley in the Apennines, right across there over one winter. We weren't going to make a big push over that winter until spring. That was the spring of 1945. Up until then we were fighting and moving and trying to keep moving. Then we bogged down. Christmas of 1944: Let me tell two incidents first, and then I will tell about that. One of the incidents was that I remember one time there was a house that was a three-story house. The bottom floor of the wall was out, but the floor was sticking out there, and it was on the second floor. We put sandbags on there to sort ofbuild up the wall to get protection from enemy fire. I was up there, and up above us were the walls with the brick wall and everything. But this wall was broken out, and we had the sandbags going up. But the weight of those sandbags on that floor caused a stress up above, and it started to make that buckle. I was in that location and a farmer out there said, "Paesano, paesano, paesano, paesano, via, via, via, via," and he pointed up above me. I looked up above and that wall was bending out like that. The bricks were folding out like that to come around. I looked back at him and he just kept saying, "Via, via, via." That means, "Hit the road. Get out ofhere." I jumped, and some of the rubble that fell down where I was got over my legs and that was all. I wasn't hurt, and he saved my life. That thing would have come right down and just clobbered me. That was one incident. Another incident was that I finally got one of the officers, the second in command that I had 27 |
