Larry & Marion, thanks so much for this info!
Larry, it must've been alot harder on your Dad to come home & then
have to go BACK! I can't even imagine how he must've felt!
I never really thought much before about how my Dad got home.
He wrote alot of letters during the Italian campaign, but there aren't
as many from France. In the ones that I have, he talks about "our boys being kept
very busy" and I think they were moving around alot.
It never occured to me before that he might've come back to the States
escorting POWs, but now that i think about it - he had a bunch of photos
of German prisoners. They puzzled me, especially the ones with German sailors.
Clearly, they weren't taken near any water and the sailors are smiling for the
camera (they didn't look at all unhappy about being POWs, in fact they all
look like they're on vacation & sightseeing). Camp Edwards Ma is on the list that Marion sent,
so maybe Dad was taking POWs there.
I don't have any letters saying: "I'm coming home!" (I wish I did!).
How I wish I'd asked my Dad what it was like to see his mother & father & be home again!
Here's a photo of Dad and Bob Cunningham Oct 13, 1943 in Maddaloni Italy
(that's right near Caserta). VI corps had secured the Naples area and Southern
Italy I believe by Oct 6. He looks pretty good in the closeup photo, but in later ones,
taken after Anzio, he looks AWFUL. I'll have to find those, so you can see the contrast.
Mary Ann