A Week With My Father

By Bruno Di Carlo

Growing up, he heard bits and pieces about his family ordeal during World War II. He wanted to fill in the gaps.

In December 1943, the Allies and Germans fought a fierce battle in the city of Ortona, a few miles from our farm. The killing and destruction spilled over into Arielli and forced Di Carlo's 20-year-old father and his family to become refugees.

In 2002, he returned to Arielli and sat with his dad, Tommaso Di Carlo.
For a week, He listened and took notes as he recalled what he and others went through.

A work of fiction was created based on those conversations and stories Di Carlo heard from family members over the years. Most of the narrative is told through the voice of his father.
Those who've lived through war carry stories in their hearts that are difficult for the rest of us to truly comprehend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350943269

Bruno Di Carlo

Bruno Di Carlo, 67, grew up on a farm in Arielli, Italy, near the edge of the Adriatic Sea. At 17, he came to America with a dream to walk its street of gold. Instead he found Pina -- the love of his life for the past 46 years -- along with three children and four grandchildren. The couple live in Easton Massachusetts. A Week With My Father tells the story of one of Bruno's travels back tp Arielli. it was a trip with a mission. From the time he was a child, he had heard bits and pieces of his family's journey through the 20th century, including a tale of tragedy and escape during World War II. Now, on a visit in 2002, he sought to fill in the gaps of that history. A Week With My Father is an extraordinary work of love, research and imagination.

Book preview

BK90085729.jpg

Copyright 2024

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 979-8-35094-325-2 (print)

ISBN: 979-8-35094-326-9 (eBook)

Contents

Introduction

One: A Father Remembers

Two: The Farm in Peacetime

Three: What War Brings

Four: A Safe Place to Die

Five: A Son Returns

Six: Arrival

Seven: Rina

Eight: My Father’s Father Comes Home

Nine: The Corn Harvest

Ten: The Greased Pole

Eleven: The War Draws Near

Twelve: The World Upside Down

Thirteen: Milano

Fourteen: Homecoming

Fifteen: The Refugees

Sixteen: Leaving

Seventeen: Assunta and the Journey Home

Eighteen: Devastation and Unexpected Gifts

Nineteen: Into the Future, With Visitors From the Past

Twenty: Going Home and a Final Secret

Twenty One: A Promise Made, a Promise Kept

Epilogue

For my mom, who told me there is a story in everyone,

and my dad, who told me his.

The first casualty of war is innocence.

U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson in 1917

(paraphrased in the movie, Platoon)

Introduction

In 1974, at the age of 17, I left my home in Arielli, a small town in east-central Italy, close by the Adriatic Sea, and came to America.

Over the years, I returned to Arielli many times to visit with my parents, extended family and friends.

On one of those trips, I came with a mission.

Growing up, I had heard bits and pieces about the family’s ordeal during World War II. I wanted to fill in the gaps.

In December 1943, the Allies and Germans fought a fierce battle in the city of Ortona, a few miles from our farm. The killing and destruction spilled over into Arielli and forced my 20-year-old father and his family to become refugees.

In 2002, I returned to Arielli and sat with my dad, Tommaso DiCarlo. For a week, I listened, taking notes, as he recalled what he and others went through.

What follows is a work of fiction based on those conversations and stories I’ve heard from family members over the years. Most of the narrative is told through the voice of my father.

I’ve heard it said that if you stop anyone on the street and ask about their life, you will find an interesting story. Those who’ve lived through war carry stories in their hearts that are difficult for the rest of us to truly comprehend.

My father died in 2014; my mother, Assunta Piccirilli, in 2017. You will learn, as I did, that this is her story, too.

One

A Father Remembers

My father, Tommaso DiCarlo, was known as Tumaa to friends and family.

He speaks...

The details fade in and out. God and time bring me back to moments so vivid that 50 years ago seem like yesterday. Other moments are so foggy I feel like someone told me a story, but I missed the details because I wasn’t paying enough attention.

Now, as the autumn of my life approaches, I sometimes wonder if any or all of it really happened. Maybe sometimes we choose to remember only certain pieces of our lives. Maybe the survival instinct embedded in our DNA takes over to protect us from the pain that memories can bring.

Good or bad they may be, memories must be passed on and allowed to live in the hearts of those we love.

My son lives far away but soon he will be coming home. It will be a good time to share some of my memories with him.

*

My story begins with growing up in a time soon after the war to end all wars. The belief that the peace following World War I would last long was an illusion. Our innocence would be marred by the coming of an evil that would bring misery to all of Europe. Either directly or indirectly, people across the globe would feel the impact. World War II brought the deaths of millions, and a scale of destruction that would alter the lives of those who survived. The level of atrocity and pain inflicted on so many people would be beyond anything we humans had ever done to each other.

I lived through it. My recollections begin on Sunday, November 21, 1943. …

A bombing run runs into trouble

… I imagine that for the young, American Air Force captain based at Amendola Air Base in Foggia, the day starts like many others on which he’s flown bombing runs. The Charge of Quarters (CQ) officer wakes all the pilots at 0100. By 0230, the pilots are done with breakfast. The C.Q. assembles them in the briefing room, where they wait until an intelligence officer arrives and gives the briefing, using an aerial map to identify the target.

Today’s target will be a nest of German tanks and artillery pieces located in a small town about an hour’s flight north of the air base. It is our town, Arielli. According to reconnaissance, the tanks and artillery are hidden near the walls of the town cemetery and under the entranceway of a medieval castle that occupies Arielli’s main square. Most of the town’s 800 or so residents live around the square.

The Germans care little about exposing Arielli’s residents to a potential Allied attack. They are using Arielli as a base to shell Allied forces trying to take the port city of Ortona, nine miles east.

The Allies see Ortona as a strategic location for their landing forces. The 1st Canadian Infantry Division is pushing to break the German hold on the city, but are having little success due to the Germans’ daily shelling of their positions from Arielli. So, the Allies have decided to bomb the German positions there. The thinking is: By eliminating the Arielli positions, the Allied forces will be better able to isolate Ortona and surround it on all sides. This will give the Germans three choices: get pushed into the Adriatic Sea where Navy ships will obliterate them, fight to the last man, or surrender.

The Germans’ 1st Parachute Division will choose to fight to the bitter end. The battle for Ortona will last eight days, with combat from door to door, house to house and throughout the rubble that most of the city becomes. The fighting will come to be known as Bloody December or the "Italian Stalingrad."

*

The young captain probably feels very secure at the controls of the P-47 Thunderbolt, also known as the Jug. The aircraft has a spacious cockpit offering good visibility. Some pilots will later say that flying the Jug was like sitting in your living room. But it is a highly armed living room with eight machine guns and under-wing mounts that can carry up to 2,500 pounds of conventional bombs or unguided rockets.

The bombers are scheduled to reach the target area just around sunrise. After taking off from Amendola, the six P-47s follow the Adriatic coast until they are about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the target, which is when they bank inland. The plan is to split up when they get close to the target because reconnaissance photos have shown there are two different locations for the artillery and tanks. The bombers will come in from the east and southeast, hoping to confuse the Germans.

The rising sun is peeking over the horizon with the planes only seconds from reaching their targets. The fast approaching hill in front of the planes is the last barrier as they fly low over treetops. Once over the crest of the hill, the town will be visible in front of the approaching planes. The best intelligence from the town indicates there aren’t any anti-aircraft guns hidden in the hill.

But perhaps the intelligence wasn’t as good as it could have been. Or the Germans did a good job hiding the guns. Because just as the six planes divide in two groups, the three planes coming in from the east begin taking fire as they are about to crest the hill. Two of the planes are able to bank away from the fire, but the lead plane, piloted by the young captain at the heart of my story, takes direct hits to the engine compartment, fuselage and cabin.

Two

The Farm in Peacetime

It is the 1930s in Arielli, a town in the Abruzzi region of east-central Italy.

La nostra casetta (our home) was built to fit the shape of the land around it. It sits along a beautiful hill framed by a trail that circles around the house and then down to the barn.

The kitchen is near the front entrance. If you stand in front of the house looking at it from left to right, my parents’ bedroom is to the left. To the right of the kitchen are two rooms that at different times – depending on the size of the family – are used as a dining room, family room or bedroom.

The house has a terrace framing the front façade. Each room is connected to the other through a corridor, but each room also has a front door that opens to the terrace, to allow for privacy. If you walk the length of the house following the terrace, you start at ground level in front of the kitchen and eventually find yourself looking down two floors to the sloping ground level.

On that level, there are two rooms side by side with different entrances. The first is partially underground with no windows, and is used to store winter feed for the animals along with barrels of our wine.

In the next room we keep cows, sheep and donkeys. Going down with the slope of the land, on the next level you find the room we use to house chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs and a pig.

The trail follows the slope of the land down to the bottom of the valley and the river. The sloped land that surrounds the house is very steep, so over the years the family built a series of ledges that go for about 100 meters to the bottom of the hill. By building these terraces, my family created different options for using land that might otherwise only grow prickly pear bushes or be used as grazing grounds.

From the crest of the hill across the valley where Arielli, my town, is located, our house looks like a small cottage encircled by gigantic stairs leading to the sky. When the terraces were created, some were planted with olive trees for the production of oil. At harvest time when olives are picked, we separate some of the bigger and better olives from the main crop and save them. Once the harvest is done and the olives are taken to the frantoio (mill) to be processed, we use some of the freshly squeezed olive oil to preserve the previously selected olives. Others are preserved in salt.

In the cold winter months, those olives are like candy. On one of those terraces that surround the house, a pomegranate tree and persimmon tree stand side by side. In late fall as the fruit matures, both trees turn a crimson red. If you see our home from across the valley, it looks as though we have two Christmas trees decorated for the upcoming holiday season, with hundreds of red balls hanging from their branches

Continuing down the slope as the pitch of the land softens, we have fruit trees – apple, peach, cherry, apricot, plum and pear. We consume a good part of what those trees produce and make marmalades. We sell or trade the remainder.

Our vegetable gardens live in the next section of our land, bisected by the fontanella (fresh water spring). We grow tomatoes, potatoes, beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, Swiss chard, cabbage, broccoli, anise, melons, and any other kind of vegetable you can think of. Beyond the vegetable gardens, a small vineyard produces grapes for wine-making.

Down from the vineyard, the slope of the land flattens. We use this part of the land to grow our family’s main means of support: wheat, oats and corn.

At the edge of those fields, close to the river, there are small areas – too wet to cultivate any other crops – that we use to grow l’erba pirata (a type of ryegrass). The grass loves the wetness of the river plain, and we need the grass to make hay for the winter feed of our animals. So, it works out well. Two times over the late spring and summer, we cut the grass, then dry it. We store part of it in the underground room under the house for easy access. The rest is piled up as a covone di paglia, (a pile of hay). The pile will grow to five meters (16 feet) tall, with a round base three meters across, and it is topped with la cannizzera (a roof made of wild bamboo), which, like the grass, grows on the river bank.

We weave the grasses together over the top of the pile of hay to create a waterproof barrier that keeps the hay dry. In the winter months, we use the storage room not only for the hay, but also occasionally as a nice place to take a nap.

On average, we have about 50 chickens producing up to three-and-a-half dozen eggs each day. The eggs provide a nice source of extra income. Along with the chickens, we raise rabbits and guinea pigs for food and to be sold. We usually have between 30 to 40 rabbits and guinea pigs. We also own two donkeys and one cow to help us with field work, and four sheep for wool, milk, cheese and meat.

*

At the edge of the grass fields, the footpath follows the river, surrounded by lush foliage and wild flowers. Most of the foliage around the path consists of blackberry bushes with thorns as sharp as needles. But that doesn’t deter us from picking handfuls of the fruit when it’s ripe.

The path merges with a ponticello (wooden footbridge) six meters long that we use to get to the other side of the river. In summer months, when the river dries up and becomes a small stream, we’re able to just jump across it. We don’t need the bridge.

Across the bridge, the land begins to climb towards the town. That part of the path is named the Costa Dell’Arcata. We have groves of hazelnuts and almond trees on that side of the river, followed by areas at the edge that are left wooded. Tall oaks frame the background of our land, and in between them are acacia trees. When spring comes and the acacias flower, they look like tall white clouds suspended above the ground. A walnut tree – tall, wide and lush – is always mixed someplace in between, as if to say to the others, Hey, I’m just as big as you are and I belong here.

Our land and our town of Arielli are framed around the river at the bottom of the valley. From our home, looking down toward the valley, the river appears like a silvery ribbon weaving in and out of the tree groves. While we can jump it in the summer, at other times it can flood the bottom of the valley with areas of water and mud 20 to 30 meters wide.

We manage the woodlands with great care, partly because of how valuable the wood is to us. The town has some electricity – in most homes maybe just enough to power a lone bulb in the kitchen now and then. On the farm, though, we have neither electricity nor gas. As a result, wood is precious. It’s worth good money if sold or used also as trade. Wood gives us warmth in the winter months and provides the fuel, year round, that enables us to prepare meals in the fireplace located at the center of our home.

The fireplace is big enough to roast any kind of meat, barbecue-style. We boil water to cook our homemade li sagne (pasta) by hanging a kettle on a hook suspended in the center of the fireplace. The fireplace is so big that on cold winter nights as the flames die down, our parents allow us kids to sit in the inside corners of the fireplace to better keep warm.

Like so many of the farms in our area, we are self sustaining. Yes, we buy things like salt, coffee, sugar, some clothing and other small items. But otherwise, we mill, we press, we preserve. We weave blankets, sheets and towels on the telaio (weaving loom). Every female in the house, ages two to 102, spends winter months knitting gloves, hats, undershirts and long johns, all made of pure wool sheared from our sheep or from some wool bartered from other local farmers.

This is life for us.

Until a time when it no longer is.

Three

What War Brings

It is November, 1943.

We have only one cow now, along with a couple of chickens and two rabbits. We used the rest of the animals to feed ourselves or we sold them for a few Lire needed to buy necessities.

The war isn’t the only cause of our slide downward; the family has experienced other misfortune. But it is the arrival of World War II to Arielli that has turned everything upside down.

The wheat fields we worked so hard to prepare for the fall planting are filled with craters now from the daily bombing by American planes on one side and German tanks on the other. Most of our fruit and olive trees have sustained damage. I’m hoping that with good pruning I may be able to save some of them. But the season to prune is long gone. Winter will soon be here. I will have to take my chances and wait for spring.

As for now, our home has not been hit in the bombing raids, but I’m wondering how long our luck will hold. The time to leave – to join the thousands of refugees flowing through our town – may soon come for my family.

I am 20 years old and I am home after serving in the Italian army. My family has already given its sons to the war effort. (I’ll tell you about that later.) And now the fighting has come to our doorstep.

*

Sunday morning, November 21, 1943

I am by the barn putting together some feed for the few animals that remain when I hear the rumbling of anti-aircraft guns in the distance. It is a nice, clear morning. The sun is about ready to show itself over Arielli on the other side of the valley. I watch as a shroud of fog floats across the bottom of the valley.

I don’t own a wristwatch or a pocket watch anymore, but by the light of the day and the fact that the sun isn’t showing over the town, I figure it to be around 7 o’clock. Soon the sun will rise over the town and the fog will lift. The sound of the guns is not unusual for this time of the day. Then again, nothing is out of the ordinary anymore. War has arrived.

Most of the shelling and bombing going on in between the Germans and the Allies has been happening during the day. But over the last week or so it has been shifting to different times, and the frequency is increasing. I can now distinguish the difference between cannon fire, tank fire, and bombs being dropped by planes. I figure the Americans are trying to weaken resistance inland as they get closer. They control the air space and now they are softening the ground resistance. But the anti-aircraft guns are well hidden all over the sides of the hill. To dislodge them, the Allies will have to bring in ground troops to supplement the bombing. In my heart I hope the Americans get here soon.

I go on with my work and become immersed in it until I realize a whining in the distance I wasn’t paying attention to is getting closer. I move away from the house to get a better look over the roof. When I look up, I have to shield my eyes. The sun is still not fully showing on the other side of the valley over the town, but its brightness is like a floodlight, blinding me.

The noise is growing louder and when I move to the side of the house, I see five planes flying by and turning toward the town.

The Americans are coming! I think to myself.

With my hand still up to protect my eyes from the sun, I watch them float toward the town. The strange part is that while the planes have flown by, I can still hear the approaching whining of an engine. When I turn to look back, I see the nose of a plane coming over the house. It comes so close that it blows some tiles off the roof. The tiles momentarily follow the plane in its wake, then fall to the ground and shatter.

I run for the cover of the terrace in front of the house to avoid the falling tiles. From the safety of the terrace, I am relieved to see the plane still floating toward the valley. I see a fleeting shadow of the pilot in the cabin and a big star painted on the fuselage. The Americans aren’t coming, I think to myself. They are here!

In previous days, I’ve heard distant mortar and cannon shelling coming from the Allies in what I believe were positions near Ortona. I suspect they were trying to dislodge the Germans from the port city and push them inland. I also noticed there were more bombardments from the air, and with each day they seemed to get closer.

Now, American planes were flying over our heads, and I thought: Things are about to change.

As the plane flies by, I realize the single engine propeller is sputtering and smoke is pouring from what looks like the engine and pilot compartment. More smoke seems to be coming from the tail end. I know for sure that the plane has been hit. I’m guessing the pilot is in trouble and that he won’t make it across the valley and over the town to fly beyond the anti-aircraft guns and find safety.

I come out from under the terrace and run toward the end of the clearing in front of the barn so that I can follow the flight of the plane. I see it’s losing altitude and is going to crash. It moves in and out of patches of fog as it floats toward the bottom of the valley. With the distance growing, I can see that the black smoke left by the plane in its wake is becoming more prominent, spreading and mixing in with the fog. I lose sight of the plane for a moment, but when it comes into view again, I see its belly hits the ground close to the bottom of the valley. It seems to skip along our freshly planted fields until it reaches a grassy area. Then it looks as though an invisible hand is pushing the plane to give it momentum as if it plans to take flight again.

But that is not to be, for the inevitable happens.

The plane reaches the tree line, and almost instantly one of its wings clips some low trees and breaks off, flying out to one side. The rest of the plane continues toward the bottom of the valley. It crosses the line where the v of the valley forms and the climb up the other wall of the valley begins.

I know my land, so I realize that from where the plane has crashed and skidded to the opposite side of the v, it will meet what amounts to a steep cliff. I keep watching the plane. It leaves a cloud of smoke and dirt in its wake that continues to mix with the ground fog. Then I lose sight of it as it disappears in one of the denser pockets of fog and hits the bottom of the cliff.

The other planes have reached the town, and I hear the first of the explosions as the bombs start to hit their targets and unload on German positions.

Now, I hear my mother ask, "Tumaa’, che’ succede?"("What’s happening?") She is looking down at me from the terrace as she comes outside with my brother and two sisters in tow.

A plane was shot down, I say. I’m going down the valley. Maybe I can be of help to the pilot.

No, Tumaa’! There are Germans all over the place! My mother’s voice sounds even more commanding than usual. Her words come as I hear more explosions of bombs being unloaded on the town followed by the rat-a-tat of German anti-aircraft guns.

Please Tumaa’…don’t go! They are bombing the town. It’s too dangerous.

Don’t worry. I’ll be okay, I answer as I start to run toward the valley.

But after a few steps I hear my mother’s voice again. Rocco, come back!

I turn around and see my mother standing at the edge of the clearing in front of our home. She is calling to my brother, Rocco, who is 10 years old. He is running after me. The pleading in her voice makes me stop and wait for Rocco to catch up.

Dove vai? Vai a casa! (Where are you going? Go home!") I tell him.

No. Vengo anch’io. ("I’m coming, too.") he replies.

I wave to my mother to reassure her. I don’t want to lose time arguing with my brother, so I decide to take him with me. I can hear my mother saying something, but by now we’re running down the hill toward where the plane has crashed. I see where it landed, carving a deep gash in the land, running past the edge of the field, across the river wash area and into the woods.

The trail is easy to follow. As we run past the wing that has been ripped off and we come closer to the plane, the smell of fuel is strong. But so far there haven’t been any explosions. That has me worried because if the plane does blow up there will be no place for my brother and me to hide. Not that we would even have a chance to look for a hiding place.

But my thoughts turn to the possibility I might be able to help if the pilot has survived the crash.

When we reach the plane, we see it lying on its side where the missing wing should be. The wing that’s still attached is standing straight up, reaching for the sky it flew through only minutes ago. We must climb over debris to reach the plane. When we do, we discover that more then half of the cabin is imbedded in a wall of dirt, along with sticks and rocks the plane collected as it skidded to a halt. The window glass is all gone except for some jugged pieces still hanging around the frame. There is some blood on the glass. But other than the blood, I see no trace of the pilot.

Small flames are flashing by the pilot’s seat and spreading toward the back of the plane. There’s a full load of bombs hanging from the remaining wing. I know, as well, that the cargo area must be fully loaded.

Rocco says, "Tumaa’, non c’e’ nessuno." ("No one is here.") I look at him and shrug my shoulders. We are still looking around the plane when I hear a sound I haven’t heard in a while but am very familiar with: the click of a gun hammer being pulled back. Having served in the military, I know that sound. It’s very distinctive, and in this moment it sounds like an explosion.

We turn toward the noise. At first I don’t see anyone, but my eyes quickly find something a few meters away that I know isn’t part of the landscape. Through the tall grass and small trees, I see a face covered in blood. It’s scary, but the scariest part is seeing a hand holding a gun pointed toward us.

During my childhood years, my father insisted my siblings and I learn some English words because he was an American citizen and had in mind that someday all of us would go to America. I know this plane is American. It’s time to see if what I learned is any good. I put my hands up and tell my brother to do the same.

Friend. Friend. Help you! I say.

Friend. Friend, I say again.

Meanwhile, the bombing has stopped and the anti-aircraft guns have gone quiet. I start to feel we are running out of time. By now the Germans will be reorganizing and coming to the crash site. I try again to communicate with him. Friend. Help you!

Finally, the pilot lowers the hand holding the gun, or perhaps it has just fallen. We go to him. He is bleeding from his head and face. One side of his face looks like raw meat, and his eye is barely a slit. I put my hand out to help him up. He just shakes his head. As I get closer, I see his leg twisted under him, and just above the knee a bone is jutting out.

It must have taken a great effort for him to pull himself out of the plane and then drag himself away from it. Rocco is kneeling beside his head and I am in front of him. Via. ("Go."), I say, trying to make him understand we don’t have much time before the Germans come. And then to my surprise, he nods and says, "Io capisco un poco Italiano. Mia moglie insegnato me." ("I understand some Italian. My wife taught me.")

You understand! I say with excitement. I am happy to find out there’s a chance we’ll be able to communicate. In the back of my mind, I’m trying to keep track of time so we have a chance to move on before the Germans arrive. I tell him again that we need to move him.

From the amount of blood around him, I’m surprised he is still alive. I point at his leg and tell him I’ll have to try to set it before we move him. He nods and goes into a coughing fit, starting to spit blood. I’m hoping the blood is coming from teeth that were knocked out in the crash. But by the way it sounds, he may have internal injuries. Kneeling by his leg, I’m able to see the wound a little better. I will need to straighten his leg and try to have the bone fall back in place if we hope to stop the bleeding.

During my army service I saw plenty of wounds. I’m concerned that moving him will be too painful and that trying to set his leg could do more damage. But at this moment there’s no choice. I must try to set his leg.

I remove my belt and tie it around his upper leg to make a tourniquet that will stop the flow of blood. As the loop closes around his leg, he screams in pain. I put my hand on his shoulder and gently push him back so that he’ll lie down. At that moment, I look at my brother and tell him, Mandienilo fermo. ("Hold him still.") Rocco nods.

When the pilot lies back, I can see that his leg from above the knee down is hanging to one side. I don’t know how he is able to put up with the pain. I tell Rocco to turn away so he won’t have to see what I’m about to do. He turns even before I finish speaking. I look at the pilot, and put up three fingers.

I make a pulling motion with my hand and tell the pilot that at the count of three, I will pull his leg. He acknowledges with a nod of his head. I tell Rocco to lie across the pilot’s chest with just enough pressure to hold him down. The pilot puts his hand over Rocco’s back as if hugging an old friend he hasn’t seen in a long time. I am kneeling in front of the pilot and catch his eyes. I start my count, still looking at him. When I say, One! I pull, not waiting for two. The bone on bone makes a sound like wood scraping against wood.

He doesn’t scream. Instead, a moan comes from him as his hands tighten around handfuls of my brothers shirt. With that moan, the coughing starts again. Sorry, I say to the pilot.

I tell Rocco to get off the pilot’s chest. By the rasping sound coming from him, I can tell his breathing is starting to get worse. We turn him to one side and that seems to help, but after a few moments he spits out more blood. His head is still bleeding slightly, but the bleeding on his leg seems to have stopped.

Rocco, give me your shirt, I tell my brother.

He says it’s cold and asks why I want his shirt.

You’ll be okay, I say, holding my hand out, waiting for him to pass his shirt to me. You have a sweater and your undershirt on. He doesn’t seem convinced, but finally gives up the shirt. I rip it in half, drawing a gasp from my brother. I stop his protest by just looking at him. I make strips out of the cloth, then find four sticks from nearby trees. Each stick is about a half meter long. I tell Rocco to hold them in place around the pilot’s leg as I wrap the shirt strips around the sticks and the leg.

Tumaa’, look! my brother says with alarm. He’s pointing to the plane, where the flames have grown taller and are rising toward the bomb load on the remaining attached wing. We have to move the pilot.

Rocco helps me raise the pilot to a standing