The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-12-10
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U. s. Mother
 Faced Horror In ItolyWor

the Sangro River, Dec. 7-(UP)- Out of the shell-torn muck of the battlefield on which the British Eighth Army broke the German winter line" a pretty young Amer ican mother struggled today with story of the almost incredible hor- TOT which she and her 16-month-old baby daughter endured to reach the British lines.
 Advanced patrols of Gen. Bernard Montgomery's tommies were startled when she ran toward them across the shell muddy fields shouting Stop, stop please stop!' She said she was Mrs. Bonita .Castel- grand Caputi, formerly of New York city and the wife for the past six years of Lieut.. Caputi of the Italian navy.
 Her husband was believed to have gone down with the battleship Roma which the Germans sank after it attempted to fe can Italian port following the Italian capitula- ton.
 Huddled in Hillside With baby Barbara she had hud- dled in hillside cave for egiht days with 40 peasants while the British and German artillery rent the air overhead.
 Hell turned over us," she said.
 I heard Bonita's amazing story while we sat in the officers mess in ruined Lanciano, with the wind whistling through the shattered windows, the guns laundering out side.
 Her family brought her d. to Italy as travellers and she fell in love with Caputi "at first sight" she said. She followed the fleet from port to port, suffering the British lombard ment of Spezia, Messina and Naples. She also experienced the first Amer ican raid on Rome which was "ab- solutely terrifying
 After the Roma sailed on Bonita went to a mountain resort but the Germans took it over and she fled with Emma Garbutt, daughter of the former British Consul at Messina. to Lanciano where Emma had rel ativeS. The villagers had just bat tied the Germans and killed many of them. The Nazis shelled the town in retaliation.
 Feeding Baby T was feeding the baby when a shell hit our pension" Bonita re- lated. That was about October 6. The Germans entered the town Oct. 16 and things began getting really tough"
 (Other sources told me that the Nazis shot 16 young men of Lanci- ano in reprisal for the revolt)
 We, with other civilians, trudged afoot four kilometers to a ridge near Achetti We dug caves
 CThe caves were right behind the German "winter line'D By this time we could hear the British guns as they roared loudly every night would pray for them to come closer.
 Each night the sky was torn with awful cannonading until one night more fearsome and awe inspiring than ever we realized it was the big attack over the Sangro. Awful Conditions We lived in the most awful con- ditions ill a cave with the terrible stench of human bodies. We had only straw to sleep on. We were terrified. I was terribly worried for the baby because at night it was icy cold with chill wind sweeping from the snow capped mountains towering above us while torrents of rain poured on the land. Baby slept on straw on the ground. A servant girl went out daily through the barrage. She managed to get milk for baby. At night the scream of shells almost drove me mad with fear.
 The British guns lit up the entire valley. The bombers were overhead night and day We were right in the middle of the battlefield and I thought we would never come out alive"
 Then the servant reported "the British are here"
 T was not able to believe we were safe," Bonita said. "It seemed too soon to be true. I rushed over the field and saw some troops and c~ssad to them in English
 Were they surprised Do you know, I could have kissed them every one of them"