Ever the Patriot: Recollections of Vincent J. Riccio, World War II Veteran and POW by Salem Candace R

Author:Salem, Candace R. [Salem, Candace R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

Capture

I watched another farm house later that day. One house, with nobody around. Then an old man came out and went to a chicken coop about 100 yards from the house. He was feeding the chickens and whatever other animals they had there. At this point I figured well I’d watched the house for about an hour, no other activity – which is what they tell you to look for. I finally was thinking I had to do it. So I walked out of the woods and walked towards the chicken coop.

You got to understand that I was not in uniform. I had on a heated nylon suit, with heated nylon boots that were not made for walking. I had on plain GI pants and a shirt under the heated suit. The heated suit was all nylon and it was bright green. I must have looked like a man from Mars.

When the man saw me, he started yelling and a large group of men came running out of that house. The men were armed with shot guns and they surrounded me. They were abusive, and not very nice. No one spoke English and I didn’t speak German. In the meantime a group of 6-8 women came out of the house and hollered at the men. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but the women must have won because the men stopped being abusive.

I asked for water, and one of the women sent a man into the house to get water. He came back out and threw the water in my face. He caught hell from the women. Then one of the women went in and got water, and gave me the water to drink.

They had weapons, they had guns, and after a lot of conversation they decided to bring me into the village. We walked across the mountain on a hiking trail. The going was tough in the nylon boots. On the way in, after about an hour of climbing up and down mountains we came to a fork in the road. “Walter Brennan” was waiting there with a horse and wagon. The reason I call him Walter Brennan is he was just like Walter Brennan in the movies. He was an old man, he had no teeth, and he had a horse and a wagon, a lot like an old buckboard. Old Walter Brennan had a rope tied in a hangman’s noose hung over the limb of a tree and was hollering for them to bring me over. But I think the men were afraid of the women, because they killed that idea – for which I was very thankful.

Strange thing, and I got to tell you this, I was not afraid. Because there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it anyway. Hey, do your damnedest.

So we kept walking, and poor disappointed “Walter Brennan” had to leave.

Anyhow, as we were finally entering the village, there was a fork in the road, and I could see the main road which was a black top.

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