Mount Vesuvius
For ten days in March 1944, Mount Vesuvius spewed volcanic rock and ash into the air and poured a river of molten lava down the mountainside.
It was a major eruption.
Three Italian villages and part of a fourth were destroyed.
And no volcanic activity at Vesuvius since then even comes close to the scale of this event.
The American servicemen stationed in Naples and at Pompeii Airfield, a temporary airbase built the year before, were shocked.
From the diary of Dr. Leander K. Powers, an Army Medical Corps doctor:
"While we were just finishing supper, someone called to say there were huge red streams of lava flowing down the sides of Mount Vesuvius.
“As we watched the streams, like giant fingers flowing down the sides, we could see a glow in the sky.
“All during the night and Sunday there were quakes of the earth with tremendous roars - similar to thunder - from Vesuvius.
“The windows rattled, and the entire building vibrated."
The hot volcanic rock fragments and ash destroyed about eighty B-25 bombers based at Pompeii Airfield.
Runway and taxi areas were covered in a foot of ash.
After the eruption ended, Air Force work crews removed salvageable equipment and the airfield was abandoned.
With the area then a war zone and the Italian government in disarray, the US Army evacuated civilians from the affected villages.
They set up shelters to provide disaster relief and mounted cleanup efforts.
Meanwhile, active fighting was going on in northern Italy.
Imagine being a young American soldier who had never seen a mountain before the war.
Think of his letter home to Mom and Dad!
The war would change these boys.
They’d come home different, and as men.
******************************
I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
Share this post