Naples ’44

Place · Region

Sicily

Sicily, officially the Sicilian Region, is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea and one of the twenty regions of Italy, situated south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe. With over 4.7 million inhabitants, including 1.2 million in and around the capital city of Palermo, it is both the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea.

In the book

Referred to as the campaign’s starting point and, more often, as shorthand for the deep-rooted world of Southern Italian banditry, landowners and assimilation that Lewis keeps coming up against.

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Appears in 9 diary entries.

  1. September 12 1943
    A German counterattack triggers real chaos — panicked tank crews, gas scares, and rumours that Mark Clark may abandon the beachhead.
  2. November 15 1943
    Lattarullo hosts an elaborate lunch cobbled together from borrowed furniture and his one prized heirloom, despite having almost nothing.
  3. December 18 1943
    Lewis describes how gullible unit commanders and their local interpreters get dragged into baseless denunciations and village feuds, including against a corrupt police marshal.
  4. March 5 1944
    The growing, increasingly careless traffic of "line-crossers" and letter-couriers moving between Allied and German territory raises serious security concerns.
  5. June 27 1944
    A colleague describes a revived, medieval-style flagellant procession at Guardia Sanframondi; two more feast stories follow — Nola's Feast of the Lily disrupting army telephone lines, and a trip to Amalfi for the thrice-yearly 'manna' relic of St Andrew.
  6. August 20 1944
    The local Marshal frets over bandit threats to the town, but Lewis notes how absurdly under-armed and unprepared the local security forces really are.
  7. August 21 1944
    A schoolmaster explains the long, entrenched history of banditry in Southern Italy, including bandits' traditional ties to landowners.
  8. September 25 1944
    A reunion with an old colleague who has become almost entirely assimilated into Southern Italian life prompts reflection on how deeply the region changes people.
  9. October 24 1944
    Lewis is abruptly ordered to a new mission repatriating Russian ex-POWs, sensing this marks the end of his time in Naples.

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