Two Boys from Chicago: The Life & Times of Ernest Hemingway & Alan Winslow by Robert Craig Stone

Author:Robert Craig Stone [Stone, Robert Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Robert Craig Stone
Published: 2023-02-03T23:00:00+00:00

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On 21 January 1919, following stopovers in Spain and Gibraltar, the Giuseppe Verdi docked in New York harbor, 17 days after departing Genoa on 4 January. When Hemingway descended the gangplank, he walked with a cane, and was “draped in an officer’s cape lined with red satin and sporting a Bersaglieri hat, complete with cock feathers….” He was decorated with the Medaglia d’Argento al Valore (Silver Medal for Valor). The official Italian citation stated: “Gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated.”[342]

Two reporters were at the dock that day. The reporter from the New York Sun, who approached Hemingway for his story, wrote, “[he] was distributing cigarettes in the Piave district in the front line trenches when a shell from a trench mortar burst over his head.” Hemingway described how he had “crumpled up and two Italian stretcher bearers started over the parapet with him, knowing that he needed swift attention.” The Sun reporter wrote, “Austrian machine gunners spotted the party before they could get over to him and the stretcher bearers went down under a storm of machine gun bullets, one of which got Hemingway in the shoulder and another in the right leg.”[343]

Hemingway, however, didn’t remember much about what happened the day the explosion left him with mostly superficial wounds. Much of what he said he remembered he garnered from the story propagated by Ted Brumback, who had quoted the unnamed Italian officer. “No independent evidence confirms that Hemingway carried a wounded soldier to safety; very real machine-gun bullets in the right knee and foot and the numerous flesh wounds make the story unlikely.”[344]

The New York Sun notice reported Hemingway was looking for a job, preferably as a newspaper reporter. The notice would later appear in the Kansas City Star and the Chicago American. The former Kansas City Star news reporter made good copy. He was reported to be the first American wounded in Italy and the first to return home. After a few days enjoying the city, Hemingway departed New York for his return home to Chicago.[345]

When he arrived at the Chicago train station, and was met by his father and his sister, Marcelline, he walked on crutches. On 1 February 1919, the Oak Parker featured a story about Hemingway, accompanied by the photograph of him in his U.S. Army uniform.[346] About two weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon on 16 February, representatives from the Italian Consulate in Chicago gathered at the Hemingway home to celebrate Ernest’s return as a war hero.[347] A few days later, “some grateful members of the Italian community of Chicago gave a party in his honor at the Hemingway home.” Ernest was immediately adopted by the Italian community, and was swept suddenly into the post-war propaganda and political debate, best exemplified by the Winslow Brothers affair.

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