Goumiers

WW2 Mass Rape Of Italian Women By French Colonial Soldiers In 1944 tells us that:
QUOTE
According to an Italian eye-witness,  "......the brutally inclined Goumiers (Moroccans) had the lowest moral values of anyone associated with war in the European theater. They raped women, they raped men, and when they got through with them, they raped animals.
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The full ugly story is at Old Town's Pizza Bella man has WWII Italy atrocity story to tell San Diego Reader. Did the Russkies settle for animals too?

Moroccan Goumier ex Wiki
The Moroccan Goumiers (French: Les Goumiers Marocains) were indigenous Moroccan soldiers who served in auxiliary units attached to the French Army of Africa, between 1908 and 1956. While nominally in the service of the Sultan of Morocco, they served under French officers, including a period as part of the Free French Forces.

Employed initially as tribal irregulars, then in regular contingents, the goumiers were employed extensively during the French occupation of Morocco from 1908 to the early 1930s. They then served in Italy and France during World War II between 1942 and 1945. During this period four Moroccan Tabors Groupments (GTM) were created, each comprising three Tabors (battalions), and each Tabor comprising three or four Goums (companies). Goumiers subsequently served in Indochina from 1946 to 1954.........

Tunisia, 1942–43

The 1st GSM (Groupe de Supplétifs Marocains) fought on the Tunisian front as part of the Moroccan March Division from December 1942, and was joined by the 2nd GSM in January 1943.

The 15th Army Group commander, British General Harold Alexander considered the French Moroccan Goumiers as "great fighters" and gave them to the allies to help them to take Bizerte and Tunis.^[10]

After the Tunisia Campaign, the French organized two additional groups and retitled the groups as Groupement de Tabors Marocains (G.T.M.) Each group contained a command Goum (company) and three Tabors (battalions) of three Goums each. A Tabor contained four 81-mm mortars and totalled 891 men. Each infantry Goum was authorized 210 men, one 60-mm mortar, two light machine guns, and seven automatic rifles.^[11]

Separate from the groups, the 14th Tabor did not participate in the fighting in Europe and remained in Morocco to keep public order for the remainder of the war.^[9]

Italy, 1943–1945
The 4th Tabor of Moroccan Goums fought in the Sicilian Campaign, landing at Licata on 14 July 1943, and was attached to the U.S. Seventh Army, commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton.^[9][12] The Goumiers of the 4th Tabor were attached to the U.S. 1st Infantry Division on 27 July 1943 and were recorded in the U.S. 26th Infantry Regiment's log files for their courage. Upon their arrival many Italian soldiers surrendered en masse, while the Germans began staging major retreats away from known Goumiers presence.^[13]

The Italian campaign of World War II is perhaps the most famous and most controversial in the history of the Goumiers. The 4th Group of Moroccan Tabors shipped out for Italy in November 1943 and was followed in January 1944 by the 3rd Group, then reinforced by the 1st Group in April 1944.^[9]

In Italy, the Allies suffered a long stalemate at the German Gustav Line. In May 1944, three Goumier groupes, under the name Corps de Montagne, were the vanguard of the French Expeditionary Corps (CEF), under General Alphonse Juin, attack through the Aurunci Mountains during Operation Diadem, the fourth and final Battle of Monte Cassino. "Here the Goums more than proved their value as light, highly mobile mountain troops who could penetrate the most vertical terrain in fighting order and with a minimum of logistical requirements. Most military analysts consider the Goumiers' manoeuvre as the critical victory that finally opened the way to the Italian capital of Rome."[1]

The U.S. Fifth Army commander, Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, also paid tribute to the Goumiers and the Moroccan regulars of the Tirailleur units:

In spite of the stiffening enemy resistance, the 2nd Moroccan Division penetrated the Gustave [sic] Line in less than two day’s fighting. The next 48 hours on the French front were decisive. The knife-wielding Goumiers swarmed over the hills, particularly at night, and General Juin’s entire force showed an aggressiveness hour after hour that the Germans could not withstand. Cerasola, San Giorgio, Mt. D’Oro, Ausonia and Esperia were seized in one of the most brilliant and daring advances of the war in Italy... For this performance, which was to be a key to the success of the entire drive on Rome, I shall always be a grateful admirer of General Juin and his magnificent FEC.

During their fighting in the Italian Campaign, the Goumiers suffered 3,000 casualties, of which 600 were killed in action.^[14]

Reported atrocities
See also: Marocchinate
The military achievements of the Goumiers in Italy were accompanied by widespread reports of war crimes: "...exceptional numbers of Moroccans were executed—many without trial—for allegedly murdering, raping, and pillaging their way across the Italian countryside. The French authorities sought to defuse the problem by importing numbers of Berber women to serve as "camp followers" in rear areas set aside exclusively for the Goumiers."[2] According to Italian sources, more than 7,000 people were raped by Goumiers. [3] Those rapes, later known in Italy as Marocchinate, were against women, children and men, including some priests. The mayor of Esperia (a comune in the Province of Frosinone), reported that in his town, 700 women out of 2,500 inhabitants were raped and that some had died as a result. In northern Latium and southern Tuscany, it is alleged that the Goumiers raped and occasionally killed women and young men after the Germans retreated, including members of partisan formations.[4] Archived 2009-09-28 at the Wayback Machine.

On the other hand a British journalist [ Matthew Parker ] commented, “The Goums have become a legend, a joke… No account of their rapes or their other acts is too eccentric to be passed off as true.”^[15]

The CEF executed 15 soldiers by firing squad and sentenced 54 others to hard labor in military prisons for acts of rape or murder.^[14] In 2015, the Italian state recognized compensation to a victim of these events.^[16]

 

Old Towns Pizza Bella man has WWII Italy atrocity story to tell San Diego Reader
QUOTE
John Abatecola, owner of Pizza Bella in Old Town, is proud of his pizza and quick to tell you about the time he won a three-way bake-off on a morning TV show for the "best pizza in America." Abatecola believes the essence of a man is in his word and how much he puts into whatever he produces, even if it's as mundane as a pizza.

But Abatecola's latest passion isn't culinary but literary. He's written and published a historical novel that documents a dark chapter in an otherwise heroic moment in military history: the Allied conquest of the Italian peninsula in World War II. He's not shy about declaring the impact he believes his novel will have. Pico: The White Paper Act, he claims, will be "the biggest thing to hit Old Town."

In personal terms, the book is already a success and as much a love story as an exposé of abuses surrounding the Allied liberation of his wife's hometown of Pico, southeast of Rome. After hearing what her family endured during the war, stories echoed by his own family history, Abatecola says, "I had to write it. The truth of the atrocities has to be told."

Until last year, Elena ("Ma Bella" to her customers) hadn't been back to Pico since 1948. Her memories fueled her husband's desire to write. "The people in these backcountry towns were the good guys," he says, "and what happened to them shouldn't have happened to bad guys."

When stories of the Italian peninsula's Allied invasion are told, usually the bad guys are Germans. In the spring of 1944, General Mark Clark, commander of the U.S. Fifth Army, was struggling with an experienced German army in the hilly terrain south of Rome. Working alongside the Americans, the French Expeditionary Corps, led by Marshall Juin, unleashed their champion mountain fighters, the Moroccan Goumiers, on weak points in the German line. According to Abatecola, "the brutally inclined Goumiers had the lowest moral values of anyone associated with war in the European theater." Their incentive to fight, he says, was to gain free reign among the Italian civilian population. While the Goumiers were successful in breaking through German lines, Abatecola accuses them of crimes against Pico's civilian population. "They raped women, they raped men, and when they got through with them, they raped animals." To Abatecola, his wife, and their families, the Goumiers were the embodiment of evil.

Abatecola's story hinges on General Clark's awareness of the Moroccans' brutality and his willingness to use their fighting talents to achieve his own glory. Abatecola says Clark felt pressure to break through the German bottleneck before other Allied forces closed in on Rome. At that time, Abatecola says, "the Moroccan Goumiers were the best mountain fighters in the world." In his book he argues that Clark signed off on what residents of Pico called "the White Paper Act," which traded their human rights for Clark's place in history. "If you're a general," Abatecola explains, "you fight for the glory of being remembered, and taking Rome was Clark's incentive. Rome had only been conquered from the south one time before, because the terrain was so tough. Clark was worried that he wasn't going to get to Rome first, so he traded these peasants for what he wanted." Military historians who have studied the battle agree that the Moroccan troops helped secure victory by penetrating the last of the German resistance around Pico.

The Battle of Monte Cassino is remembered as one of the most difficult and costly battles the Allies faced. The decision to bomb the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino has long been regarded as unfortunate and unnecessary. Abatecola says that the only German who entered Monte Cassino before the bombing was a commander who happened to be a lay member of the Benedictine order that ran the monastery. "He'd go there for Mass, all by himself. There was never a German within 700 or 800 feet of that monastery. The Allies bombed the hell out of it." After the bombing, the Germans found the ruins a useful military position.

While Abatecola's love story goes beyond World War II history, he stands behind its veracity. "It's 80 percent true," he says. "Some of the stuff I wrote happened to me when I was in Korea. And the part about the hero, I had to have him do stuff that a normal soldier could never do, so I made him special. But the part where [the hero] has to get 500 signatures for a petition to join the army because of some trouble he got into, that's true."

The story sounds a lot like the romance of Abatecola and Elena. His fictional hero, a "wild guy" who joined the army and made good, grew up, like Abatecola, in East Providence, Rhode Island. Elena came to the U.S. from Pico in 1948. "The main character, Angelina, that's about 70 percent Elena."

Abatecola has been hearing the war's horror stories since before he met Elena; his grandmother, also from Pico, lived through the experience. When the real stories of Pico's "liberation" surfaced, it changed everyone. "My father refused to go to church anymore. He said he wasn't going because of what happened to his mother. He blamed God for it."

Fortunately not all the stories were disheartening. "There's a part in the book where a girl talked the commandant out of shooting 20 people in the square for killing a couple of Germans. That really happened -- my wife saw it happen. My aunt told me that my uncle, her brother, led a whole bunch of town people up to the caves to hide. She told me when I was [in Pico] that she carried a baby on her back for hours but the baby was already dead from starvation. She couldn't give it milk; she didn't have any."

These stories have haunted Abatecola for years. When a Navy friend gave him a book about the military history of that campaign, Abatecola knew he must tell the other side. After finishing the book, he and Elena traveled to Pico -- she after an absence of 49 years; he for the first time. The trip secured his opinion about what took place in May 1944.

In the hills outside the small town, Abatecola walked the trails, envisioning the wartime struggle for control. While he was out prospecting one day, two old patriarchs from the village approached him, asking what he was doing. Gesturing toward a nearby hilltop, he spoke in Italian, surprising them with his knowledge of their town's history. "The Germans were over there." He told the old men how the Germans "had mowed the Allied troops down like grain." The locals, he says, were stunned. They wanted to know how he knew such intimate details about the battle.

Abatecola's insight encouraged them to recall their memories. After the battle, the old men remembered, the Goumiers and their Allied commanders were encamped in the valley. "They told me there was this American spotter plane going around and around, and then the shelling started. They killed them all with artillery launched from ships off the coast."

Whether or not the Allies turned their own cannon on the Moroccan troops and their Allied commanders, Abatecola believes Elena and her family witnessed horrors firsthand that haunted them for a lifetime. Neil Heyman, a professor of history at San Diego State, suggests that claims linking these events to the motivations of leaders like Clark "have to be approached with caution and skepticism. I never heard or read of anything like this before."

But Heyman would agree, along with Abatecola, that General Mark Clark's performance during the war was controversial. "He ended up being a hero, but he came out of the war with a cloud over his reputation." As for the Italian peasants, "they may not have had it quite as bad as some of the civilians in Eastern Europe," confirms Heyman, "but it was very rough. The history of the war in the Italian peninsula is full of stories of hardships and tragedy."

At Pizza Bella, Abatecola is happy to discuss his novel or tell you the bookstores that carry it. But the conversation will likely drift away from wartime atrocity and toward pizza-making. He wants you to know he is not a man consumed by vengeance; his passion is for life. As the hero in his novel says to his beloved Angelina, "Love is so powerful that it cannot be subdued."
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Does it have the ring of truth? For me, Yes. Albeit blaming Mark Clark for using them is a stretch.

 

Matthew Parker ex Wiki
Matthew Parker (born 1970)^[1] is an English author of historical non-fiction books whose work has covered topics including European colonialism, World War II, and the construction of the Panama Canal.

Early life and education
Parker was born in El Salvador to British parents and spent parts of his childhood in Great Britain, Norway and Barbados.^[1] He earned a degree in English from Balliol College, Oxford.^[1]

Writing career
Parker's first two books were about World War II. The Battle of Britain, July–October 1940: An Oral History of Britain's Finest Hour was published in 2000,^[2] and Monte Cassino: The Story of the Hardest-Fought Battle in World War II came out in 2004. Of the latter, Publishers Weekly said "Parker details, with the aid of hundreds of survivor interviews and war diaries, the Allied siege of the monastery at Monte Cassino, a mountainous fiefdom massively fortified...With command and ground-level detail that buffs will savor, Parker goes over what seems like every inch of the multinational force's campaign."^[3]

His book Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time-- the Building of the Panama Canal (retitled Hell's Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal for the UK paperback edition) came out in 2007. Allan Massie reviewed it for The Telegraph: "His narrative is compelling, his ability to weave a pattern from the topics he has to cover quite remarkable...There isn’t a dull page, and if this book isn’t a candidate for all the non-fiction prizes going, I shall be disappointed."^[4]

In 2011, he published The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire and War in the West Indies. It was named a Book of the Year by The Economist ^[5] and John Gimlette of The Spectator called it "compelling, wonderful history. The Sugar Barons is an exemplary book; history as it should be written."^[6]

Parker next turned to biography, with an account of the life of James Bond author Ian Fleming during his years living in Jamaica, titled Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born-- Ian Fleming's Jamaica (2014). It was nominated for an Edgar Award in 2016.^[7]

In 2015, his first look at a period of history before the modern era was published. Willoughbyland: England's Lost Colony is the story of Lord Willoughby's short-lived 17th-century colony in what is now Suriname. John Gimlette reviewed it for The Spectator: "A miniature masterpiece...this is a truly extraordinary tale and, in Parker’s hands, it’s beautifully told. With great wit and scholarship he reveals — just for a moment — a cruel and curious world, before it vanishes again beneath the trees."^[8]

Personal life
Parker lives in London with his wife and three children.^[9]

He is a bowler on the Authors XI amateur cricket team, which is composed of British writers, and he contributed a chapter to the team's book about their first season playing together, The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon (Bloomsbury, 2013).^[10]

 

Monte Cassino: The story of the hardest-fought battle of World War Two at page 269 by Matthew Parker