Naples ’44

Theme

Disease & health

Disease & health
Signal Corps Archive from Ireland and United States · Public domain

Background

Illness, hospitals, epidemics, medical matters

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In Naples ’44

Appears in 10 diary entries.

  1. September 28 1943
    Hospitalized with malaria, Lewis hears disturbing accounts from wounded American soldiers about orders to kill surrendering Germans.
  2. November 26 1943
    Restaurants reopen with black-market prices; Lewis catches up with Captain Frazer, whose health and mood have visibly declined.
  3. March 3 1944
    An account of a bizarre, catastrophic Allied intelligence scheme prompted by fears that prostitution was being used to spread disease among troops.
  4. June 9 1944
    Hospitalized again with malaria, Lewis receives a parade of eccentric visitors from his network of contacts, to the disapproval of hospital staff.
  5. August 3 1944
    Lewis assesses the security risk of holding a wounded, notorious Italian saboteur in a hospital ward run by a nurse he knew previously in Algeria.
  6. August 28 1944
    Amid outbreaks of typhoid, smallpox, and typhus in Benevento, the local Marshal remarks darkly on outsiders' inability to survive the harsh conditions.
  7. August 30 1944
    Lewis races to Naples to fetch medicine for an ailing friend, discovering along the way a black-market pharmacy relabeling stolen drugs.
  8. August 31 1944
    Delivering the medicine, Lewis witnesses a bloody mourning ritual, a chaotic anti-typhus spraying operation, and the arrival of freewheeling Canadian troops.
  9. October 6 1944
    Back in Naples, Lewis finds the section overworked, understaffed, and increasingly worn down by illness after months of dispersal. He reflects that the strange fascination of the intelligence work itself — a kind of legalised eavesdropping on humanity — is what keeps him working dangerously long hours despite the toll.
  10. October 16 1944
    A large-scale, coercive round-up of women for VD examinations follows a tip from a gynecologist contact, exposing the harsh methods used to fight the disease.

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