Comments on: Operation Avalanche: U.S. Navy's 4th Beach Battalion Assault on Salerno During World War II

By: Korinne

Korinne — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:14:45 +0000

My grandmother (my father's mother) was killed in the invasion of Salerno when my dad was still a baby. By a strange coincidence, my mother's uncle marched with the 36th, the famous "Texans," and was part of the invasion. He was injured twice, once on September 19th, and then again on November 23rd.

We tend to look at history in terms of how it changes the world as a whole, but I can look at this one single event and see how it literally set the course for my life.

Of course, I'm not alone in that…it is the reality of history.

By: GWEN SARRAILLE

GWEN SARRAILLE — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:31:50 +0000

My father Raymond Eugene Sarraille was in the 4th Beach Battalion at Salerno and was part of this story. Does anyone remember him? He was from San Francisco, California and was a Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. 4th Naval Beach Battalion United States Amphibious Force. The war was hard on him and people who knew him before the war said that he was never the same after the war. He committed suicide in 1969.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:40:33 +0000

Please send me an email. I would like to correspond with you about the area in which you live.

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:16:09 +0000

Hi Carol Taylor,
I have a set of letters written by Maria to Carlo in 1909. They are in Italian, on notepaper with pictures of Salerno and are obviously love letters.
There's no surname that I can decipher yet.
Would these dates fit with your Carlo and Maria?

By: Carol Taylor

Carol Taylor — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:25:07 +0000

Hello,
My relatives, Carlo and Maria DeMartino, and Ada Salerno built one of the first 'new' houses in Paestum in a corner of a tobacco field near the beach. That was around 1956.
I am now 63 and loved to spend summers with my family in Paestum.
My mother and her entire family are from Naples…Alberto an Silvia Politelli.

Have you ever heard of any of these people?

Just wondering.

Carol

By: michelangelo de leo

michelangelo de leo — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:02:30 +0000

Hi I'm Michelangelo De Leo, I'm italian and I live in Paestum. I am 32 but my grand parents told me their personal memories of the american landing of 1943. They said me that those was hard days, there was fear and misery (my grand mother to make a little bit of money sewed the wedding-dresses with the found cloths of the american parachutes). Some days ago in Salerno was found an english bomb of the 1943 and the old people told to the medias about the bombardments of June 1943. It was very interesting and touching and now they want pick up those memories to make the virtual archives for the museum of the american landing (it will be made in the future)before to lose that human patrimony.
My relatives, Michael and Beverly Dorio (that live in New York), suggested me to visit this site; it's very interesting.
Ciao, Michelangelo