Crime and Punishment
SOMEWHERE IN ITALY—There's a tiny village of about 20 houses here, where every person in town thinks he's the luckiest man alive.
Some drunken German soldiers had wandered into the village, broken into the houses, filled themselves with vino and used the wine barrels for target practice, laughing loudly when the old wine gushed onto the ground.
Finally the American artillery started shelling nearby, and the Nazi drunks began to stagger out of the place—all except one, who decided to see how his “tommy” gun worked.
He lined up all the Italians he could find and was all set to start shooting when some shells hit the top of the building across the street and the falling rubble killed several people, including him.
The townspeople buried their own dead but they left the German where he fell. For a week the body lay there, stinking in the sun, and nobody would bury it. Instead, every time the Italians passed the body, they spit.
When the American soldiers entered the town, they buried the German. The Italians still haven't forgiven them for doing that.
SOMEWHERE IN ITALY—There's a tiny village of about 20 houses here, where every person in town thinks he's the luckiest man alive.
Some drunken German soldiers had wandered into the village, broken into the houses, filled themselves with vino and used the wine barrels for target practice, laughing loudly when the old wine gushed onto the ground.
Finally the American artillery started shelling nearby, and the Nazi drunks began to stagger out of the place—all except one, who decided to see how his “tommy” gun worked.
He lined up all the Italians he could find and was all set to start shooting when some shells hit the top of the building across the street and the falling rubble killed several people, including him.
The townspeople buried their own dead but they left the German where he fell. For a week the body lay there, stinking in the sun, and nobody would bury it. Instead, every time the Italians passed the body, they spit.
When the American soldiers entered the town, they buried the German. The Italians still haven't forgiven them for doing that.
-YANK Field Correspondent
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