Between Rivers

The bomb that blew our mess tent to bits fell at 5 o'clock in the morning. The only man about at that time was our cook, and we were still digging his body out of the rubble when we heard the whirr of a camera motor.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" we shouted at the trim figure dressed in tight-fitting khaki pants, cowboy boots and a bunny jacket.

"LIFE photographer," she said in a ghastly, clipped accent that sandpapered raw over our sensitivities. "One goddam crater is as good as any other goddam crater." Her language was anything but ladylike as we stripped the film from her camera and frogmarched her out of the camp.

We were at Venafro, only one valley removed from Cassino, eighteen miles away, but close enough for U.S. Air Forces to misdirect yet another bomb. We were to see much more of the damage that inaccurate high-level bombing could do. Ask i Ternani, the people of Terni, a town sixty miles north of Rome, and the site of the giant steelworks, second largest in the world; it was to be our home and our mission for the next few months.

The town pre-dated the Roman era, its name derived from the Latin 'interamna' - between rivers. High in the mountains of Umbria, the area was interlaced with rivers, the Nar, the Vellino, the Nera, the Galleno, all eventually mingling south of the city before emptying into the mighty Tiber of Rome. A large hydro-electric plant harnessed this surge of waters, and fed the steelworks that covered four square miles of the town, providing employment for 11,000 people. The Germans swiftly commandeered the facility and transformed it into a major arms factory.

Until ten minutes past twelve on Thursday, August 19th, 1943.