The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1943-08-26
Ice House Completely Destroyed By Fire Last Night
CORP. ENAMAIT
WRITES TO PASTOR
Veteran of Sicily CAM
paign Saw Hundreds of
Troops Surrendering

Naugatuck, Aug. 26-Tech. Corp.
Richard o. Inamait, of 40 German
street writes in a letter to Rev. H.
Bartram, pastor of the st. Paul
Evangelical Lutheran church, that
he has witnessed hundreds of en-
envy troops surrendering. The COR
poral, q veter n of the Sicily cam
paign, is the son of Mr.. and Mrs.
John Enamait.
The letter, which outlines the
early days of the invasion Of Sicily,
follows:
Here is a little account of what
happened as we landed on the is
land. We reached Sicily the night Of
July 9th and under the cover of
darkness started to unload our
troops around five O'Clock Saturday
morning, July 10th we were greeted
by dive bombers which laid five
eggs (bombs) between our ship and
another. That was enough to scare
anybody. Nobody was hurt. I be-
lieve the good will of the Lord was
with every man on the two boats.
All day long we kept unloading
troops while fighting was going on
continuously on land. Once in a
while bomber would come around
and on quite few occasions We saw
them shot down as our anti-aircraft
gunners were getting the range.
can truthfully say that plenty of us
boys we're worried.
Night came and gave us { little
relief. Then morning came, which
was Sunday and we had a swell SER
mon. The enemy started right in
again trying to get us. Our gunners
were still good and the enemy paid
dearly for their venture.
Early in the afternoon a forma-
ton of enemy bombers came around,
there were about 80 of them. They
were bent on putting a stop to our
invasion. AS soon as they were spot
ted, anti-aircraft opened up, and
talk about noise. The enemy drop
ped all the bombs they could and
turned around and left leaving
many of their comrades who were
shot down. That was the last en-
envy attempt to stop us from the
air.
Shortly after we were put on land.
I can truthfully say that many of
us were happy, as we were on the
water for some time since leaving
Africa. We were beginning to think
we were in the Navy.
"Now being on land we weren't
bothered by planes, but had tough
customer before us. AS we got the
lay of the land and started forward,
the enemy began to feel our might
and power. The Italians were sur
rendering by the hundreds and the
Germans were leaving everything
behind. The Italians came out Of
the hills waving anything from a
pair of white drawers to a bed
sheet in the token of surrender.
after five days of fighting we
started our drive along the western
coast, the enemy retreating so fast
we really had a job to keep up
with them. The man who said, "Vic-
tory is Sweet wasn't kidding one
bit. AS we captured town after town
the people greeted us with open
arms and offered us everything they
had, which isn't much as the people
of the island have been starving
for three years. 1t really was nice to
see how they welcomed us.
"As yet the fighting isn't finished
but we have the good fortune to
get a little rest. l'he island is beau
tiful with plenty of fruit trees. The
civilian people are happy and proud
that we are here, as they are once
more enjoying freedom"