WWII Diary of Chick Bruns – 70 Years Ago

We are to land some time this morning. You can see the Navy ships firing toward shore. We heard over the loud speaker that the first wave of troops landed okay and we are waiting to go ashore. Planes came over and bombed the town and we have been bombed and strafed about five times this morning. One ship has been hit and it only took three and a half minutes to go down. We could watch the men dive overboard. It is now 11 am and we are still sweating it out. I’ll be glad to get ashore. Joe and I just came down stairs when the planes came over and dropped four bombs. They fell just short of our ship and it really jarred us. Not long after they were back again and two bombs hit right at the side of the ship and one in back. The sides felt like they were going out. Boy I hope we get off soon. This sweating it out is killing me. Again they were back and just missed us. We were then told that we would go ashore. It’s about 3:30 pm. We had a little trouble in loading off our LST onto an LCT. The pull type trailers were to long to maneuver around. Ross and I was the first truck ashore and we went right to the de-water proofing area. As we started to turn in we got stuck as the ground is very soft and marshy. We hooked two trucks up to pull us out but no success. We decided to stay all night and get pulled out in the morning. About 3:30 am Joe Iaccuzi came by with the bulldozer and he pulled us out. We went to the staging area and stayed there the rest of the night.

Ate breakfast, then listened to the guitar playing until dinner time. We are now leaving the harbor of Naples, for where we don’t know, it’s either above or below Rome. Miner, Ross, Joe and I all played pinochle all afternoon. No one is thinking about the coming landing. We played some more cards and then looked at the maps of where we are to land. Anzio is the name of the city or rather the main city. We land at Nettuno.

Up at 8 am this morning. Ate breakfast and then went down below to hear some colored boys play a guitar. They could really swing it. Played cards and shot craps all afternoon. Joe and I have a Bruns Watters Corporation. We started with a penny that we borrowed and now the penny is up to a dollar and a half.  Then played black Jack and got it up to $5.00. Then bet every thing we had made.

We were all up at 7 am this morning and was it ever cold last night. I just about froze. We ate breakfast and sat around and talked till dinner time. Played cards in the afternoon and in the evening. Joe Walters and I were partners. We are still anchored out in the bay near Naples. These Limeys surely don’t take care of their ships. I would much rather be on an American ship.

Up at 7 am. We are to leave at 9 am to load on to the LST. We have been here all day now and still haven’t left. We played cards and read. We loaded on the LST 224 at about 6 pm. I haven’t shaved for about 5 days so we all took a shower and shaved. Ross, Joe, Miner and I played pinochle till 11 pm and then went to bed. We should be leaving in a couple of days.

Up at six this morning. Loaded our sleeping bags and got ready to leave at 8:15 am. We went down to the Staging area and stayed there all day. Joe Watters, Miner and I went up town for a while. We were all broke so came home and went to bed.

We worked all day getting things packed up, ready to leave. Tonight Jim Nachtigal and I went up town. We dodged MP’s all the time we were in town. When we got home the company was packing the tents. We slept out in the open and I got to bed about 2 am.

We have to go on a hike this morning that turned out to be a parade. General Clark, Truscott, and Lucas were all there. They gave a speech on the coming landing. Its seem as it is going to be above Rome. Boy that parade was miserable. I was dead tired when I got home. I issued out some clothes, ate chow, talked, wrote a few letters and went to bed.

They are still waterproofing the trucks to day. I issued out the clothes we got in last night. Kept me pretty busy all day. Played a little pinochle for a while and then I wrote a few letters.