THE YANKS ARE HERE

The Americans arrived to join in the war. People were generally pleased, except those men who lost their girlfriends to some handsome 'YANK' with plenty of money and access to Nylons, chocolate, and coffee.
At this time huge convoys of American trucks would be passing up or down Dunsford hill. Teresa and I would go and sit on the wall and wave to the YANKS, and shout "GOT ANY GUM CHUM"?   And `Hooray`, We would then be showered with sticks of chewing gum, or bars of chocolate which they called candy. It was lovely. Teresa and I would sit on that wall by the main road and swing our legs and watch the convoys go by. If a convoy should happen to stop for a rest by the wall, which they sometimes did.  The soldiers would get down off their lorries and make a fuss of us. Without exception they were friendly, generous and kind.

They were easy to talk to, straightforward and uncomplicated, very unlike some of our grownups, who seemed to take being grown up very seriously indeed. The G I's, as the grownups called them were mostly big men, or they seemed big, compared to the average men that we knew.

They all had suntans, even in the winter, and big white teeth. They always chewed gum, and smiled a lot, and called each other Joe or Chuck or Sam in loud voices. That is something else I remember about them, they weren't afraid of being loud and noisy.
Several times I remember identifying  soldiers of Italian descent [on my Mums orders]  telling them who we were and where we lived, and they would then scamper across the grass to our house to talk to Mum  in Italian, and often gave her some extra food, or other goodies.
I remember some of the soldiers paying us a visit when they were on leave later.  they were really nice. They came to thank us for our hospitality, and like all Americans They offered a genuine invitation to visit them at their homes in America and stay for as long as we liked.

American relatives were in the US ARMY.                                                                My records are of Morelli cousins who were in uniform.

Eduardo morelli

Frank Morelli

Some of the Morelli family became prisoners of war to the Germans.

Here Bruno is introducing his Father to the CO upon his release from the Prisoner of War camp