Young Officer Knocked Out in Jump, Recovers, Finds Men and Begins First Job on Continent
 

This is the second in a series of articles revealing the amazing experiences of Lt. Justin T. McCarthy, of East Orange, N. J., a paratrooper who played an important part in the American airborne mission to Avellino --- an attack which disrupted German communications and transport and contributed to the rapid push of the Allied main force into Naples. McCarthy's first article told of the approach to his objective in Italy and the jump after which the young officer landed in a stony river bed with an impact that knocked him "cold as a mackerel."

By LT. JUSTIN T. McCARTHY (As told to Richard Tregaskls)
 (Written exclusively for International News Services)

ON THE ITALIAN FRONT. Oct. 31 (INS) --- When I came to, in that dry river bed, the place was as quiet as a stone. There were no planes in the sky, and no chutes that I could see on the ground. The first thing I did was to reach back, pull out my pistol, and cock it. That was one thing we'd been drilled on, because parachutists have been shot while they're getting out of their harness.
   But there was no firing, and still no sound of motion, while I got rid of my reserve chute, the small chest pack, and unbuckled my harness.
   It had been a kidney punch from a rock that had knocked me cold when I hit. I'd come in backwards and fallen hard. I'd been carrying clips for my carbine on the back of my belt, and they were bent from the impact so I couldn't use them. But outside of being a little bruised, I wasn't hurt.

Found Chute
   After a little looking around, I spotted a chute lying at the top of a hill. I worked my way up to it and found it was the parabundle chute. It had malfunctioned and bundle and everything in it was broken all to hell.  I starte4d walking up the valley looking for my men, just guessing which way to go.  Usually you line up your men by following the direction the planes are flying. But this time when I came to --- it must have been four or five minutes after I hit --- all the planes had gone.
    I was pretty nerved up, -being all alone, and expected to hear a shot any minute. All of a sudden I heard a click, like metal against metal, and saw a man moving in the bushes. I dropped to one knee. and he jumped behind a stump and leveled his rifle at me. He challenged and I gave him the countersign. He was one of my men. A few minutes later we found the whole stick of men from the ship. We started working west, because I figured we had landed to the east of our "dropping zone." After we'd gone about a mile, we ran into Major Dudley (Maj. William R. Dudley, Vancouver, Wash.) with a plane-load of men, and we joined forces.

Move Carefully
   We could hear firing going on to the west, but we had no idea what it was. There was no firing near us. We moved on very carefully. It was pretty heavily wooded terrain, as well as being hilly. We looked at every bush, expecting a battalion or at least a company of Germans to come out. Then I saw something move .in the bushes. I put up my hand and stopped the column, and we got into position, spread out in a fan shape. I took out a hand grenade and started for the bushes, figuring there must be about 888 Jerries in there.
   I got up to the bushes and saw some eyes looking out at me. I pointed my carbine at them and motioned the people to come out. They were Italian men, women and children, refugees, and they came out with their hands up. Some of the women got down and kneeled and cried, and I guess they were asking us for mercy. They thought we were Germans.

Showed Flag
I showed them the American flag on my sleeve, and they said "Americano," and jumped up and threw their arms around Us and started kissing our hands and faces and our clothes.
   One big Italian got a bear hug on me and hung on and started kissing my cheeks. I couldn't get him off and I didn't want to hit him. But the people were making so much noise they thought we were part of a large American force and got pretty excited that we had to quiet them down.
   Finally we got them quiet enough so I could ask them how far it was to Avellino. I knew how to say that much in Italian: "Quanti kllo-metri Avellino." Some of them said 25 kilometers. And some said 30 or 32 or 40. And then, as they usually do, they started arguing about who was right. But they indicated the general direction, at least, and Maj. Dudley told us to head that way.

Chutes Picked Up
   We noticed that some of the Italians had picked up our chutes and were trying to hide them. 'They figured this was stealing and wanted to cover it up, but it was just what we wanted; to get the chutes off the ground and hidden so there would be no trace of our having landed. I told the Italian to get all the chutes they could find and take them to their houses or bury them, but to give them back later on because we would need them for "la guerra." (The war.)
   After that there was a general stampede to get the chutes. And Italians were running all over the place, in "the woods and valleys, holding chutes in their arms. It was pretty funny, to see them as busy as that, at 3 o'clock in the morning as if they'd struck gold In the hills.
   We moved on In the direction of Avellino, and had one more false alarm. I was at the point, then, with the leading element as I had been before, and we saw bushes moving in the moonlight. We set up a line and moved In on them. But it turned out that' six cows were making all the trouble. "Army" Increases We headed down a road and after what seemed a long while we came to a bunch of buildings. It was the edge of a town, but it. was Cassano, not Avellino. There we met Captain Tomasik (Capt. Edmund J. Tomasik or New Bedford. Ma.) the supply officer, with some men. That brought the total of our little army to about 50. All of a sudden a machine gun opened up from the left near the rear of the column. It was a Jerry; you can always spot them by the rapid rate of fire. I saw the red line of tracer bullets from this fellow and it looked as if he were firing solid tracer.
   There was a wall at the edge of the road and I had my men take cover there. Then the major told us to get off the road and down into a field, where it would be safer; and we did. But the firing stopped, and we moved on, thinking that probably somebody at the rear of the column had taken care of the sniper
  . We went on Into the town, and the natives started coming out of their houses, laughing and weeping for joy, and bringing us bread and water and fruit. They figured a big bunch of American troops had come and the war was over. They didn't know we were paratroopers.
   One of the Italians said he would guide us to some high ground where we'd be able to set up a position. Private Alongi (Pfc. Jack Alongi of Detroit, Mich.) did the parleying, and we started up the. hill.

Some Drop Off
   Some of the men dropped off and stayed behind in the town about eight or 10 of them. Some of them had sprained ankles from the jump and some were just tired from the long hike and wanted to stay where the food was good. But most of us ploughed on up that hill, although it was terrifically steep and we were worn out. We knew If we stayed In the town, Jerry might catch us there in the morning with an artillery concentration, and it would be a death trap.
   So we got up to the top of the hill, somewhere around 4 o'clock, and began digging In. We got a little sleep, in our foxholes, and then It was daylight, and we could hear firing down In the town machine guns and rifles, and a BAR (Browning automatic rifle).
   Looking down, we could see that the Jerries had an armored car moving up and down .the main street, and a party of men were going Into the houses, searching. They were looking for us; and there were little shooting scrapes as they found some of our men hiding In the houses. We knew then that our job had begun.