23rd Nov ‘43
Dear Mum,
I have just finished writing you an airgraph & I
am sending you this letter to tell you about our leave. Two of the five days
were spent in travel to & from Naples but the three days we spent in Naples
& Capri are the best I have had since I left home.
We left camp at 9 o’clock in the morning &B
travelled over the Appenines, through Avellino to Naples. The trip in all was
only about 110 miles but it took us over five & a half hours to get there. The
road wound around over the mountains & at times we were in low gear for five
& six miles at a stretch because the hills were so steep. The tops of most
of the mountains poked out above the clouds & when we looked down it was
very much the same as being in a plane. It was bitterly cold & I got a good
dose of the ‘flu out of our trip home & at present I feel anything but fit.
We arrived in Naples at about a quarter to two
& after booking in at our hotel we all went for a look around the town. From
what we heard on the radio we expected to find it wrecked beyond recognition
but there was very little damage considering the size of the town, only a
couple of houses in each street were knocked down, that is not nearly as bad as
we have seen over here.
We were rather tired afte our long trip & so we
went to bed early & got up next morning about 7 o’clock & had breakfast.
We took our own rations & cook with us from camp.
After breakfast we got in the trucks & travelled
through Naples & down to Pompei. We stopped at Pompei for two hours to have
a look around the old ruins but there was so much to see that two hours was not
nearly long enough. I will have to go back on my fortnights leave. About two
miles behind the ruins is Mt Vesuvius & it was belching smoke like an old
factory chimney. There used to be a road running up to the top of the crater
but after the eruption in 1940 the lava ran down the side & covered half of
the road & so now the only way to
get to the top is to walk. That’s another place I must see when I go on leave
again.
From Pompei we went to Sorrento, a very nice
seaside town about 35 miles south of Naples & not far away from Salerno. We
had a good feed of steak & eggs at Sorrento & at 1 o’clock caught the
ferry for the Isle of Capri.
From Sorrento to Capri is about five miles but a very
rough sea was running & the trip took us an hour & ten minutes & a
good few of the boys were sick long before we reached the island.
As soon as we landed we were met by the owner of
the hotel which the squadron had booked for us. From the wharf we went up to
the town of Capri in the Funicular.
The Funicular is Capri’s
tram & it is very much the same as the Scenic Railway in Katoomba except
that it is much steeper.
From the terminus of the
funicular we walked along the narrow, spotlessly clean paths to our hotel &
then, after putting our things in our rooms, we went for a look around.
There are only two towns
on the island, namely Capri & Anacapri. Both of these places are situated
on the tops of the highest points of the island & from them we could see
all of the island which is only about five miles long & a mile wide.
We wandered around until
tea-time & then went back to the hotel where we sat down to another meal of
steak etc. we had handed over our rations, which consisted of bully & meat
& vegetables, to the cook at the hotel & in their place they gave us
fresh meat, fresh fish etc & kept the tinned food.
Capri is one place that
has not been altered at all by the war & all the shops were lit up &
everything was just like a peace-time holiday resort & Capri is noted for
being the playground for millionaires. I must say it felt good to walk around
& pretend we were millionaires even if we didn’t have very much cash. No matter
where we went for something to eat or drink, whether at our hotel or a café or
a bar, we had no sooner sat down than along would come three or four musicians
playing a guitar, mandolin, violin & piano accordion & off they would
go into some well known Italian song with one of them singing & these It is
really can sing. Music with our meals is definitely good.
There is no beer left on the island but there was
plenty of champagne, good wines, & all sorts of imported spirits & so
the first night we just walked around looking in the shops & having an
occasional drink.
I will send you a small
booklet about Capri, in another envelope so if I mention any place you will be
able to follow it on the map.
The next morning, after breakfast, we went down to
Marina Grande & caught a rowing boat around the Blue Grotto or the Grotto
Azzurra as it’s known in Italian. To try & describe this place would take
too much writing so I will let you read about it in the booklet but I will say
that I have never before seen anything more beautiful. We went in through a
hole in the cliff face about 3ft 6” wide& 3 ft high & we were then in a
huge cave about fifty yards in diameter & the water was a beautiful blue
colour & it threw the light up on to the roof & gave everything a light
blue hue. The trip to Capri was worth going on just to see the blue grotto
& near it the Green Grotto. You would have to see it to realise its beauty.
We climbed up from the Blue Grotto to Anacapri
& then caught a taxi back to Capri because the walk up was just about
enough to discourage any more walking.
We lay down until
dinner-time & after we had eaten 6 of us caught a taxi & went for a
tour around the island, we went first to Anacapri then down to the Piccola
Marina where we had a look through a beautiful mansion which is nearly
completed for Monty Banks, Gracie Fields’ husband.
This house, so the
builder told us, will cost £7,500. Most of the rocks for the home are cut out
of the cliff face about 100 yards from the site & we were told that if it
wasn’t for this the “home” would cost something around the tune of £12,000. That
will give you some idea of what it is like. The war stopped work on it for a few
years but things are underway again now.
After the trip we were
standing in the main square when along came two very nice girls walking along,
& as Dave & I were all for having some company for the rest of the
afternoon, I said “Good Afternoon” in Iti. They turned around & said good
afternoon in English & so we got talking to them. They were both English
girls & they were in Capri when the war started & so they couldn’t get
home again. We walked around all afternoon & then went back to the hotel
for tea, taking the girls with us. That night the first English picture to be
shown in Capri was on at the local cinema & so we went to see it. The show
was “Sun Valley Serenade” with Sonia Henie & so a good night was had by us
all. We took the girls home, met Mum & Dad & then had supper. Quite like
home again.
The next morning we went to have a look around the
monastery at Certosa. This monastery was built in 1600 & was still in good
order. In the galleries were hanging hundreds of priceless paintings by old
masters which had been brought over from Rome & Naples so they wouldn’t be
damaged by the war.
The next morning we went to the Grotto Meravigliosa.
This place is like a miniature Jeno;an Cabes but it was wrecked by the Huns before
we came along & asked them to move on a bit. They had cut off all the stalactites
& sent them home to the museums in Germany.
It seems that wherever we go we run into an
Australian woman. First it was in Tunis & then we met another on the
island. She was about the same age as the one we met in Tunis & she used to
trot around the island like a two year old. To give you some idea of how old
she is I will tell you that she left Aussie in her late twenties & had been
living in Russia for some years when the last war broke out. She came to dinner
a couple of times & really enjoyed herself. One day one of the boys gave
her half a pound of tea because she said she hadn’t tasted any for about three
years. The next day she told us that as
soon as she got home she made a big pot of tea & sat down & drank five
cups straight off.
On our fourth morning we were up at 6 o’clock &
“After bidding”, as James Fitzpatrick would say, “a very reluctant farewell to
the beautiful Isle of Capri” we left again for Sorrento.
We had dinner in Naples & left for camp at 12 o’clock.
It rained & snowed nearly all the way home & so we had to crawl nearly
all the way with the result that we didn’t get home until 8.30.
Well, Mum, I’m back at camp again & looking
forward to going on leave again.
Excuse the writing but I am
writing this in bed because it is so cold.
Give my love to Dad, Bet & Leo.
Lovingly
Yours,
Frank
P.S. Hope you have sent the cash before the letter arrives
home. F
