Two Ships Were Hit
Heroes Remember
Two Ships Were Hit
We sailed for Italy in I think it was October 43... September...
October. We landed in Naples in the convoy. A day and a half out
of Naples, we were dived bombed. Two ships were hit but we
weren’t. Georgie Game and I were on the USS Thurston. We
photographed it all happening. We got under the gun turret so the
shrapnel wouldn’t come down and hit us. Unfortunately we were not
allowed to keep the film – we had to turn it over to the
captain of the ship – American. We never saw it. Anyway we landed
in Naples and I can always remember I saw this figure.
There’s a big statue in Naples ... it’s some guy on a
horse or something And I saw this figure way up there you know
and I said, “Georgie that looks like a camera man up there. He
said, “Yeah it does.” And it was. It was George Cooper. He was
photographing the ship coming in, see. So we stayed over night in
Naples that night and then we went ... we got into the
vehicles. Then we went to Campobasso where the unit was at
that time. That’s where we reported it, which is just up ...
it’s part of Reggio di Calabria but it started to get a little
richer. But on the way up there I said that my big... the first
shock that I ever saw was we were driving along and I saw two
bodies on the road ... German... no heads. So, that’s kind of a
shaker you know. Shakes you up a little bit. But geez, we carried
on. We got into Campobasso.
Related Videos
Learning to Protect Yourself
Mr. Quick talks about joining the Film and Photo Unit and some of the training he got from the British Army Film and Photo Unit.
Drawing Rations
Mr. Quick describes the makeup of the Film and Photo Unit and negotiating to improve his crew’s working environment.
Lucky Break
Mr. Quick talks about a time that he was lucky to escape death. He goes on to talk about another photographer who wasn’t so lucky.
- Date modified: