Naples ’44

Place · Town

Paestum

Paestum was a major ancient Greek city on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, in Magna Graecia. The ruins of Paestum are famous for their three ancient Greek temples in the Doric order dating from about 550 to 450 BCE that are in an excellent state of preservation. The city walls and amphitheatre are largely intact, and the bottom of the walls of many other structures remain, as well as paved roads.

In the book

The Greek temples beside the landing beach, where the leaderless section spends its first rudderless days in Italy amid dead soldiers, and later the pointless idle life of the beachhead.

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Appears in 5 diary entries.

  1. September 9 1943
    Landing at Paestum amid dead soldiers and eerie calm; the section is left rudderless, with no briefing, next to the ancient temples.
  2. September 12 1943
    A German counterattack triggers real chaos — panicked tank crews, gas scares, and rumours that Mark Clark may abandon the beachhead.
  3. September 21 1943
    Ordered back to the idle beachhead life at Paestum despite its pointlessness; the section finally gets a small, real intelligence task that evening.
  4. September 28 1943
    Hospitalized with malaria, Lewis hears disturbing accounts from wounded American soldiers about orders to kill surrendering Germans.
  5. October 4 1943
    Discharged and hitching toward newly-liberated Naples, Lewis passes through Battipaglia, devastated by Allied carpet bombing, and learns nearby Altavilla was shelled to rubble on the mere suspicion it held Germans. Further on, he witnesses desperate Neapolitan housewives publicly exchanging sex for tins of rations with American soldiers.

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