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This is a wonderful WWII memoir and a good year-in-the-life memoir in Southern Italy, 1944. The late Norman Lewis is especially known for his travel literature but after WWII he wrote of his experiences as an intelligence officer with the Allied invasion of Italy (very small part covers the invasion itself) and then the Allied occupation primarily in Naples. It can be enjoyed as a social and travel history as well as a life in the British military at that time.

He had enlisted as a volunteer and because he spoke several languages he was directed towards Intelligence. He found out later that the officer he interviewed with selected jobs based on eye color. Blue eyes were directed toward Intelligence because he thought they were more trustworthy. Brown eyes—Military Police. Lewis was blue eyed. This was one of the ways Lewis shows the utter whimsy of life in the military. People speaking Spanish were often placed in jobs in Italy because the uppers thought the two languages looked similar. This was “Intelligence.�

In any case Lewis has great stories from landing in the lower “boot� through chasing the retreating German army northwards. When not dealing with the ridiculousness of military life he gets to know the population. That’s where it gets really interesting. He obviously liked the people wherever he was stationed and managed to find humor in all the situations.

He is put to vetting citizens for jobs working for the military. It wasn’t that easy to filter out the recent Fascists and the mafia. Then there were the denunciations by neighbors and the self serving. Tedious work. He was normally the only Italian speaker among his military section. The population was starving and anxious for work or a handout for spying on their neighbors. Lewis tended to look the other way unless the crimes were too egregious and often passed out a can of whatever military food that they had on hand to the very miserable people he came in contact with. He tells the reader that the Warfare Bureau figured that 65% of the net per capita income of Neapolitans came from stolen army supplies. Dresses crafted from British coats were everywhere. British long johns were commonly dyed red and sold as track suits.

One of the Italian friends he made was an impoverished unemployed attorney whose sideline was renting himself out as a well-off uncle from Rome at local funerals. He’d catch the train one station north of Naples and appear at the funeral looking dignified in a tattered old dress suit speaking with a Roman accent. Any proper funeral had to have such an uncle. The poor man was cadaverously thin and lived in a bare ancestral palazzo.

Lewis� 1944 memoir is full of such fascinating stories. He does not make fun of the people and in fact really enjoys their pluck and creativity.

Highly recommended.