We landed in Casablanca, French Morocco, in North Africa, on December 24, 1942. It was late in the day as we filed off the Susan B. Anthony. Our ship had sailed in a large convoy. It was a 13 day trip across the Atlantic ocean during the height of German submarine warfare. Fortunately we did not suffer any loss to our convoy by enemy action! Someone upstairs was really watching over us.
Later in the same day, we filed off the ship. After filling our canteens with water and we were issued 3 packs of "K" rations, as well as a bandolier of ammo for our rifles.
From the piers we marched until about midnight, stopping twice along the way to eat and rest our feet. We camped in a field and slept until the sun rose on Christmas Day. As the day started, local Arabs came around and just stood and watched us. Then a jeep pulled up and a chaplain jumped out. He unloaded a bale of hay for an altar, so he could hold Christmas services for all who wanted to attend.
Later the same day we were marched to a nearby hanger at Cazes Airfield. The condition of the hanger was a mess, with junk all over. We cleaned an area and went to sleep on the floor on our shelter halves with a blanket over us. At the time we had not taken a shower or removed our clothes for at least 15 days since stateside.
By New Years Eve we were still sleeping in the hanger and on midnight New Years day, the air raid
sirens went off. A German long range bomber dropped 3 bombs nearby-luckily there were no
casualties The following day, January 1, 1943 was my 23rd birthday. We learned that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill were holding a conference in Casablanca. Their motorcade with a heavy motorcycle escort passed by us as we were rolling 50 gallon drums of gas to a gas dump. We waved to Roosevelt and Churchill and they waved back!
After New Years day, we were relocated to an open air stadium, 2 men to a tent, Ben Dodds and I pooled our shelter halves to make a pup tent to call our home. Soon after we decided to expand our "living quarters." We had noticed large plywood boxes that P-40 belly tanks had been shipped in from the U.S. to nearby Cazes Airfield. Ben and I noticed some empty crates set off to one side. That night after dark, we moseyed over to the airfield without being detected and picked one up and carried it back to our tent.
We were elated. We could envision a roomier home, the box with our shelter half tents as a roof! We had a slight problem after noticing that all the screws holding the top on were in place. The box had not been opened yet and still contained a belly tank! We didn't waste any time taking the box back where we found it! The next night we tried again, this time we made sure the box was empty. How dumb could we have been!
Joseph Donato