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42. The following vivid description of the country in which the Canadians found themselves is taken from the diary of the Commander, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps: ...PACHINO with its airfield, slightly nordhest from our landing point,is of fair size,covering an area of 1 1/2 kilometres (E to W) by 3/4 kilometres (N to S) , There are no slum in Britain to compare with the squalor found here. Wether this has existed for all times or not, is not at presente known by us, but one could readly believe that they are living in the times of Abraham from the layout of the streets and byways, and from the facades of the buildings, the mode of life the people and animals. There is a biblical beauty and setting of the whole place. Roads are very poor, the main street only being second class and in very poor condition. This road extends from the main sqare, westward past the airfield on toward BURGIO. This area is slightly less under cultivation of vines, but crops and olive grover occupy most of the surface in long open sweeping valleys. The sun has full play over the surface all day. On the south side of the road, in a field of crops, half way from PACHINO to BURGIO, had been stationed a horse battery of Italian Artillery wich had come into pin-point range of our guns. The remains of the battery, aninals and personnel had not been fully cleared and gives one an impression of the deadliness of our artillery fire. This is not an isolated instance. This was later cleared by this fmn HQ personnel aidedd by Italian Prisoner of war. At BURGIO was noticed the first modern farm building. It was a winery of considerable size with the overseer’s quarter, large courtyards and storage spaces all in excellent condition. This is in the centre of vast healthy olivee groves abd on the fringe of the orange country. Very few returning from further inland by foot and donkey wagon which added very considerabbly to the already heavy road congestion. It was noticed however, that in all cases, they most willingly gave way to military traffic, graet clouds of dust not appearing to bother them. One noticeable point,was that infanns in arms had their faces covered to prevent dust settling on them. The weather remains hot and sunny, the grod being very dry. (W.D., H.Q., Comd 1 Cdn R.C.A.S..C, 12 Jul 43) |