Memories from World War II

 Alfred de Mello

  back to WAR EXPERIENCE - Personal Memoirs 2 Alfredo de Mello 
 

Immediately they assigned me to the kitchen , as an assistant to the cook. Among other things I had to peel off potatoes, and I remember that I ate the brown peels, because the food was not plentiful, which is an understatement. I noticed that the fare of the German officers was not much different from that doled out to us prisoners, as there was a general scarcity that winter. By Christmas Day, I requested that our group of 14, (the three wounded had died in camp following our surrender), be given some more blankets and a stove, to ward off the terrible cold. I had confided with the officers that we would not attempt to escape until the war was over, and they resignedly admitted that the fighting would be over by spring..

There followed four months of captivity, during which I lost 14 kgs in weight, down to 50 kgs, until we were liberated by the American Third Army on April 18. All this time my parents in Goa were unaware of what had happened to me, as sea mail communications took almost five months, and my Airgramme, dated December 15, microfilmed and airmailed from London, wishing them a happy New Year, made it appear that I was still in Portugal, far from the horrors of war.

After a couple of days in the American field hospital, our group of ex prisoners was flown to London, where we were confined to a British hospital for a couple of weeks. I had developed a bad cough, and chest pains, and was injected a new wonder drug called “penicillin”, as they feared I had incipient TB. On V-E day (May 8) I was released, but felt too weak to participate in the festivities of Victory. The rationing of food in Great Britain was so severe, that I decided to cash my back pay, and buy an air ticket to Lisbon.. 

In Portugal I could not stay at the Cunha Gonçalves apartment, as the spare room was now occupied by their new born son Nuno. My dear friend Julinha Seabra invited me to stay at their apartment as her brother Julio Cesar was doing military service. Julinha was in her last year of Law, and coddled me with “chocolate mousse” which had plenty of eggs, chocolate and sugar. Dr. Claudio Rocha Pinto, the radiologist of the Hospìtal Santa Marta, had new X-rays made of my chest, and gave me a series of injections of calcium and Vitamin C, which were supposed to form a protective shell in the spots where my lungs were affected. I confessed to him that I had no wish to continue studying medicine, which I hated , for various motives, and he told me that, in any case, it was unwise of me to study a career which would put me in contact with hospitals, and patients. In his opinion, it would be best to choose a career, which would involve being out in the fresh air, and suggested that I take up the study of Agronomy.

Indeed, during that summer, I obtained a pass to enter the Faculdade de Agronomia, in Ajuda, in the suburbs of Lisbon. At the same time I visited the American Friendship Society,(?) headed by a lady who was a Quaker. I forget her name, but remember that kind, buxom 45 year old woman, who tried her best to get me to enter Cornell University. The smile she gave me every time I visited her office, showed that she liked me and really wanted to help me, as her brother was a professor at Cornell. Unfortunately, it was not to be, because the G.I. Bill of Rights, decreed by President Truman, gave the opportunity to 3 million American veterans, to be enrolled in American universities, and there was no vacancy for any foreigner. . 

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