Lisa W. Drew
Last year, two Italian history buffs took me on a tour “in the footsteps” of my father, as they put it, in a region of central Italy defined by two adjacent mounds of mountains, the Ausoni and Aurunci massifs. My guides, Alessandro Campagna and Giacinto Mastrogiovanni, authored a 2014 book (Quan’ è venuta la guerra) about the Gulf of Gaeta and environs in 1943 – 1944. Their invitation came out of enthusiasm for the story of how my father, Robert (Bob) Drew, survived in German-held territory for three and a half months in the winter of 1944. An American A-36 fighter bomber pilot, he was shot down over Fondi, between Rome and Naples, on his 31st mission.
I expected the trip to be something of a lark, but before I even left for Italy, it became far more than that. Although Bob had told us about his war experiences, and I had seen the personal documentary he made late in life about them (“Two Men and a War” is not currently available for distribution), I clearly had much to learn. My deepening interest has taken me into Bob’s archives, into books and museums, to Italy, to Florida to meet descendants of a family that helped Bob — and recently into resources of the Monte San Martino Trust.
Before the Italy trip, I dug into records of Bob’s war years, including journals, letters, and pages of an unfinished memoir. One letter struck me in the solar plexus, as Bob might have put it — and as he surely felt when he read it. The letter was to Bob from Salvatore Di Cuffa, a contadino, who took dazed and wounded Bob into his family’s one-room mountain dwelling in the Ausonis. For five weeks, Salvatore and his wife, Maria, shared food with Bob from scarce supplies while he recovered, and Salvatore taught him how to evade German patrols.
In the letter, dated January 20, 1946, Salvatore wrote in Italian that a month after Bob left the Di Cuffas for the Auruncis, intending to cross the Gustav battle line, German soldiers ransacked the dwelling and found evidence that Bob had been there. They burned the home and took Salvatore prisoner for 19 months. Bob never mentioned the price Salvatore paid for helping him. Salvatore’s family told me he did not talk about it. Perhaps he asked Bob not to mention it.
“Only I can understand what they did to me,” Salvatore wrote in the letter.
By the time I left for Italy, I was well primed to appreciate the generosity and courage of the civilians who helped Bob and others. Thanks to Alessandro and Giacinto, I did indeed walk in Bob’s footsteps, even on the very paths that he and Salvatore (and German patrols) used on a high plateau above Terracina. Through Alessandro, I met more Italians interested in Bob’s story and the war in their region, including an engineer who took us to an anti-aircraft site in Fondi; a father and son who showed us A-36 plane parts they found using a metal detector; and mountain guides who traced on a map routes Bob would have taken through areas high above Esperia.
For most of the visit, we were joined by Cordelia Monsey, daughter of Derek Monsey, a British escaped PoW who met up with Bob in the Auruncis. (Based on his experience, Derek wrote a novel, The Hero, published in the UK as The Hero Observed.) Cordelia and I discovered an instant bond that must be familiar to readers of this newsletter. In honour of us both, Giacinto and Alessandro gave a presentation to an audience of about 50 attendees, organised by the senior centre of Maranola, about evadees of all sorts who washed up in the Auruncis, which comprised the last safe spot for anyone approaching the southernmost edge of the Gustav battle line from the north. All were dependent on the generosity of Italians. “It was a time when most Italians really were starving, and every piece of nourishment they gave me came out of the mouths of themselves and their children,” Bob once said.
Bob teamed up with three more soldiers, probably all British, who joined him in attempts to cross the battle lines. I wonder if readers of this newsletter might have ideas about how to find their relatives. Their names, which I gleaned from Bob’s archives, may be misspelled. One, Jim Lawson, died stepping on a land mine. I wonder if his family knew what happened to him. The other two were Eddie Gator and Flight Sergeant James (Jim) S. Spencer, who was from Cardiff.
Last winter, I travelled to Florida to visit Salvatore Di Cuffa’s son Delio DiCuffa (which is how the family now spells its name) and two of Salvatore’s grandchildren. We formed instant, warm bonds. Delio, who was three years old in 1944, vaguely remembers a tall man in his home. He remembers hiding at the sound of bombs. And he remembers being hungry.
Lisa W. Drew is a writer and editor. She is working on a book based on Robert Drew’s wartime experiences. For information about Robert’s later career as a renowned documentary filmmaker, go to:
nytimes.com/2014/08/01/movies/robert-l-drew-pioneer-in-filmmaking-dies-at-90 or theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/07/robert-drew
