Dominic Martello served with the Service Company [Annotator's Note: early Cannon Company, before they established them], 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division during World War 2. He was born in New Orleans, went to high school and then went into the service. New Orleans at that time was very casual and peaceful. There wasn't as much corruption and gangsterism as there is today. They could leave their doors unlocked and knew who their neighbors were. On 7 December 1941, Martello was already in the Army. He remembers everything was in a state of shock. The average person didn't think they would go to war until the draft started. That was when they started pulling civilians into service and women had to take over. Martello was with the New Orleans Fire Department when he was drafted into the service in October 1941. He served until 1945, but was captured in 1943 and spent 27 months in a POW camp. The food was nothing but rutabagas. When he was captured, he weighed 200 pounds but when he was liberated he weighed 87 pounds. When he saw himself in the mirror, he didn't recognize himself. He didn't think he was in his own body. The nurse made him wiggle a toe to prove to him that it was his body. They got to where they couldn't walk or couldn't get up off the barracks floor. In fact, when the Americans broke through into the camp, he was on the concrete floor and couldn't get up. They came into the camp and brought trucks and ambulances to evacuate Martello and some of the other POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war]. When Martello was first drafted, he went to training at Camp Shelby [Annotator's Note: in Hattiesburg, Mississippi] and after a few weeks they went to Camp Wheeler, Georgia. Then he went to New York. They departed New York and went to Scotland and Ireland. From there they went into overseas combat. They field trained in Ireland and Scotland. Whenever they stopped, they started training. He felt they needed all the training they could get. When they went into combat, they landed between Algiers and Oran. This was Operation Torch. It was a big deal. When you invaded a foreign country and they are sitting there waiting for you and are up in the mountains and you are a sitting duck, it is tough. The enemy is prepared for you.

During the invasion [Annotator's Note: the invasion of North Africa], Dominic Martello went down a rope ladder while the waves were around 35 feet high. They had to time their jump off the ladder to land in the landing craft. Otherwise, they would go right into the ocean. They had roughly 60 pounds of equipment, plus their rifle on them. It was a rough landing. Some guys fell off the ladders and not everyone made it. They collected on the beach and reconnected as units. Martello remembers being shot at, but not knowing who was shooting at them or where the fire was coming from. They took a beating there. There were airplanes, artillery, and tanks shooting at them. When they were landing, there were four guys close by him when a shell came in. Thanks to the French, it didn't explode. It dropped about eight feet in front of them. They saw it roll and roll and roll. They got away from it and it turned out to be a dud. Martello remembers the Germans were excellent soldiers. They were qualified soldiers. They had to do something to gain the advantage from them. They had all kinds of equipment that they needed. He remembered specifically the 88mm gun [Annotator's Note: German 88mm Flak antiaircraft and anti-tank gun]. Once Martello and the men collected on the beach, they had no idea where they were going. They just knew they were going on the beach somewhere. The basic soldier didn't know very much. They never did see the big picture. Martello remembered when they were captured, thinking, "is this what they call the big picture?" He remembered too that they didn't have any air support. That was a problem for them. The Germans didn't really know where the Americans were landing during Operation Torch. Neither did the regular GI. The GI's objective was to fight the Germans through the towns. He remembered the Germans having good snipers and good marksmen. He felt that they were good at everything and out maneuvered the Americans. They knew what they were doing and it cost American soldiers their lives. Martello remembered in Oran, there was some pretty heavy ground fighting in Bizerte and Gafsa. Wherever they went, they didn't know the name of the area until they got there. Nobody had a map. They just went forward and when they stopped that was the front line. No matter where they went, they were on the front line. Martello remembers snipers being the biggest problem that they had in some of the towns. They had the advantage of being in the mountain area while the GIs were on the flat ground. A lot of times the Air Force would come in and shoot at them or drop some bombs on them, but that's about it. Martello's halftrack got hit just outside of Bizerte, Tunisia. An 88mm round hit the track and knocked half the track off. He tried to run it without a track and only got a little ways.

Dominic Martello learned that when going fast in the sand, the wheel of the half-track could be turned, but the force of the vehicle would continue moving in the same direction. A lot of guys during blackout would follow one another off a cliff. Things happen during the war that aren't anticipated. Martello's job was driving head-on and shooting at an enemy position. He couldn't see in the track because the muzzle was right over his head. He would have to get out with his BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] to protect his people from the left of the area. This was to keep the Germans from making a u-turn as part of their pincer movement. At Kasserine Pass, they had two half-tracks left. After that, the heaviest stuff they had was BAR rifles. They put them out on the edge of the pass. When the Germans came with tanks, they would run and hide and the Germans would shoot in the area where they thought Martello and the others were. They did the same thing every day. There was no ammunition so they kept trying to get some. Martello remembers there was no major fighting before the fighting at Kasserine Pass. The GIs had no idea the Germans were planning a big attack. The Germans had their 88's [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multipurpose artillery piece] mounted on railroad tracks in the mountains. They would come out on the track and fire. The next thing they knew, shells would be hitting folks. Then the gun would disappear back into the mountain so they didn't know where the fire was coming from. On one particular day, they knocked out about five tanks with men in them. He also remembers being up on the mountain about 200 to 300 yards away from the German tanks that were rolling by. He also remembers the machine gun bullets and notes that a lot of people don't know how they sounded, but he remembers because he was in a cactus patch when the German tanks were shooting at him. He figured that he could pull the needles out of his behind easier than he could lead. The bullets were cutting the cactus over his head and there was nowhere that he could go. He was stuck there. An experienced soldier would get out of his half-track and first thing would grab his shovel and start digging a foxhole. Because that foxhole was the only way he could survive. That shovel was like gold. Before going to North Africa, they had no idea of where they were going. The rumor was that they were heading toward Japan. Instead, they were sent to Africa. A .30 caliber rifle can't stand up to a tank. There is no chance that a rifleman has against an armored vehicle, unless he has a bazooka or some type of grenade. With a grenade they had to get close. They couldn't throw them very far. The Germans had a potato masher hand grenade and would try to throw them into the half-tracks since they were wide open. Martello explains that a soldier only knows what is going on the area in front of him and doesn't know what is going on down the line. The officers were the ones that knew what else was going on nearby. They just had to follow the orders they received. Most of the guys were good soldiers. He thinks it is amazing how a civilian could do the things that they had to do in war, like a professional. It took them a while to get to that point, but when they did they were pretty good against the Germans.

[Annotator's Note: Dominic Martello served in the Army as a half-track driver and gunner in Cannon Company, 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division and took part in combat operations in North Africa.] A lot of times they would go out at night to capture a German and would put a bayonet to him. Then they'd take him back to headquarters and let the officers take him from there. At Kasserine Pass, they fought German infantry and German tanks. Martello got really close to a German tank. Once Martello had been captured, the German tank officer told him to "Come Here" in German. Martello started walking to the tank and the German started screaming in English "Get away you hound dog!" Martello thought he was going to shoot him. They had a weapons carrier that had several weapons on it. They picked one guy out, put him on the deck of this vehicle, and the officer told him to shoot the men but nobody fired. Then a guy named, Christianson told Martello that he had a hand-grenade. Martello told him he couldn't throw a hand grenade there because there were Americans nearby. Martello then told him that he needed to let someone know before he decided to throw it so that nobody would get hurt. Christianson made up his mind to just take it to the officer who blew his top because his German troops missed this in searching the prisoners. Martello wouldn't put it past him to throw it. But, most everybody that would have been hit would have been Americans. When Martello was captured, he remembered leaving Kasserine Pass at night. They walked and walked. Other German soldiers thought they were German soldiers marching at night. They just marched on and ended up scooping up one German guard and took him with them. They couldn't tell who was the enemy out there. When they were under stress at night time, it looked like people moving. They didn't want to fire and give up their positions. Every clip that Martello had, and others had, contained a tracer round. They had to start taking the tracer rounds out. On the night that Martello and his unit passed the Germans, they were trying to get out of Kasserine Pass and get to American lines. They were captured the next day. Nobody had any water to drink. The Arabs must have come from under the ground because as soon as they stopped, there was an Arab. They gave one all their canteens to get them water and they never came back. They went to the Germans and told them where Martello and his men were located. Martello remembered hearing that there was a truckload of GIs who were machine gunned to death. He didn't see that personally, but remembered being told. He wouldn't put it past the Germans. He felt he could never shoot an unarmed man. You still have a human side to you, even with the fighting.

Dominic Martello had to carry a wounded German soldier after he was captured. He had been shot. Martello fell down three times before a German lieutenant told him to leave the wounded man there. He had blood running down the back of his shirt. They never knew how many were being wounded during the fighting at Kasserine. Martello knew for certain one guy near him was hit and killed and another was hit by shrapnel in the hand. When he was at the edge of Kasserine Pass, he would try to keep the Germans from coming in by firing on them with the BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle]. The problem was when they came in with the tanks, Martello had no way to fight them. He would have to run and hide then. Yet the Germans still wouldn't move troops into the pass at that point. It was hell. They didn't know where the enemy was but would be receiving fire from them. At one point, a German had Martello in his sights. Martello had a buddy in the foxhole next to his and the German was putting rounds right around where Martello was. He had to go head first in the foxhole to dodge the bullets. He had to yell to his friend that he was stuck in a hole and to help him get out. His friend replied that he didn't want to get shot in the head either. It was hard to watch the Germans capture ground that Martello and his friends had bled for. They still had the fight in them but they didn't have anything to fight with, especially against tanks. [Annotator's Note: Martello has a flashback at this point. His breathing increases, and his body appears to be lifeless while his mind is somewhere else.] After a few seconds, the interviewer asks him what he is thinking about. Martello comes out of the daze and says he was back there. He said he can be driving his car and have a flashback or eating supper and flash back there. He has had flashbacks his entire life. It is terrible. There is no cure for them. Anybody who has been in combat has the same problem he has. He belonged to an organization of Ex-Prisoners of War and heard all kinds of stories. Some are so bad they couldn't be made up. They just come out natural. Each time it is a different flashback. Sometimes he sees his friend losing his hand in the half-track. Sometimes it is his friend being killed and having to bury him in the mountain. There are things that a lot of people can't understand about a veteran and why they go off their knocker. He's been treated since the day he got out of the service for PTSD [Annotator's Note: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] and he feels it hasn't really helped him. He can't help it if he's driving his car and thinking about Pap or some other guy. He is controlled by his memories, that is the problem. Even if he talks to a veteran that isn't a combat vet, he has no idea what it is like unless he goes through it. Martello thought the Germans were the most professional enemy that they had to fight. They were wonderful marksmen. He felt Rommel was one of the best German generals and he wished that he would have been on the Allied side. All enemies of Rommel admired him, so you have to say a lot for a man like that.

While he was a prisoner, Dominic Martello was leaning over getting a head of cabbage when a German soldier came along, kicked him in the head, and knocked him out. The next day he woke up and was getting shot with needles by a Frenchman. The Frenchman asked what he did wrong and Martello said he was just getting his food. The Frenchman guessed that maybe the German thought Martello shot his buddy. The German took it out on Martello. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Once he was captured, Martello was taken to Bizerte. Eventually he was placed in a prison camp. It was winter and cold. He wasn't given any extra clothing. He got half a canteen of soup, cabbage, or whatever they had for the day. At night they got a spoon of jam and a piece of bread that was made out of sawdust. This camp was in Moosburg, Germany. First he was at Furstenburg, Germany and then to Stalag III-B. Martello and the other prisoners were taken out of Bizerte and shipped across the Straits of Giberaltor to Stalag VII-A, the collection point. From there they were sent to different camps. Life in the camp was terrible. They had bunk beds with straw on them. All the straw had lice on it. They could never get away from the lice. Even if they shook it up a million times, it still had lice. He would get ersatz coffee and those that had a razor could use the coffee to shave with. They didn't shave often. They made blowers where they could turn a handle and blow air into a tin can and heat the coffee or whatever they had to boil. Martello was a non-commissioned officer, NCO, and didn't get bothered much for work. The low ranking enlisted men had to go out and work the farms and do more labor. The Germans had young men working at the German farms, but they were needed in the war. Then they had old men working the farms, but they about died. Martello remembers one guy trying to escape. They had rutabagas and the cooks would peel them and put them in their soup. This GI was from Shreveport, Louisiana. He came up with the idea to have the cooks peel the rutabagas and let him get in the wagon and cover them over him. They did, but the problem came when the wagon was moving around, the rutabagas packed down on him and almost smothered him. He had to come up before he got out of the gate. Martello was told that somehow two Englishmen got a measuring tape and started measuring the camp so many feet at a time. They ended up measuring their way to the front gate and the guard let them through to keep measuring. They got a little ways out of the gate when the guard realized what was happening. They didn't get away. At one point, guys went up to the gate when the guards weren't looking and hid in the air raid shelter.

Dominic Martello was in the barracks laying on the floor, unable to walk or get up [Annotator's Note: during liberation of the prisoner of war camp]. All of a sudden he felt a guy checking his pulse. It was a medical officer. He asked if Martello was ok. He told him that he couldn't get up. Soon after, trucks and an ambulance came busting into the camp. Martello was loaded into an ambulance and someone squeezed an orange over his mouth to get some vitamins into him. Martello felt it was a blessing to see the American uniform again and be out of that camp. From there he was taken to France and was put in a hospital there. He had access to good food but was warned not to eat too much. The prisoners all ate too much and ended up throwing up what they ate. Hungry men are hard to control if there is food around. To bulk back up, they gave him egg nog for months and months. His stomach was messed up. He went through hell physically. He doesn't know how, but he managed to survive. Martello says that when you make up your mind to live, you are going to fight. His will to live was the only thing keeping him going. A prisoner of war is a responsibility that the enemy doesn't want. They are nothing but trouble. The aftereffects started taking over as he got older. Martello is just one of the lucky survivors from the war. He keeps in touch with local POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war]. He was not able to get up off his knees for a long while. He was in the hospital in France for several months. From there, he can't remember where he went. He recalled that when he left Bizerte to head to the camps, they were transported in a Ju-88 [Annotator's Note: Junkers Ju-88]. They had to watch out for P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightening fighter aircraft]. At one point, a guy flying a P-38 encountered four Ju-88s. He came in and in one swoop took them out. They were gone and crashed right into the mountains. One of the guys that Martello was in the group with went and got a scalp off of one of them.

One of the guys in the group with Dominic Martello went and got a scalp from one of the Germans that crashed in the mountains. When they were getting captured in North Africa, the same man, Pete, was standing right next to Martello. Martello suggested he dig a hole and bury the scalp before the Germans found it and killed him. Martello finally returned to the states in 1945 after the war was over. It was like a second heaven for him to return. When he saw his family at the railroad depot, it was an emotional moment because they never thought they'd see him again. When they got the Missing in Action notice, they knew that wasn't good news. The Germans gave Martello and the other prisoners a card for them to write their names on and a little note to send home so that people could know they were captured. Martello feels that the Army didn't back the troops up at Kasserine Pass and didn't have any plans or know what they were going to do. He saw it as a sacrifice with no gain. He said about 99 percent of the guys he knew didn't have faith in their officers from there. He had one guy, MacNamera, claim he was going to shoot one of their officers. He wanted to shoot because they were stuck in Kasserine because of him. Martello convinced him not to because they were all stuck there together. Martello was afraid during the fighting at Kasserine Pass. He was at the edge of the pass with his BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle]. When they came in with the tanks, he would retreat and they would machine gun the area. Luckily, Martello could get behind a piece of the mountain. Then the tank would pull back and Martello would move back up. He was sent out by the captain to keep the Germans out of the pass. Martello had no idea why the captain thought he could do it with very little ammo. He just had to do it because it was an order. He can't say it was a good order, but it is what the Captain wanted. It was back and forth with the tank and a stalemate of sorts. Martello was scared at the beginning, but he got so tired of running from one area of the pass to another to avoid fire that he just started feeling like, "To Hell with it." He was just lucky to survive. He has seen one war movie since the war. But, it upsets him to see the movies. His psychiatrist told him that prisoners of war don't need to see Schindler's List. There are no pleasant memories about being a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war], but he is going to take it to the grave with him because he can't forget it.

Dominic Martello thinks Kasserine Pass should be remembered as a screw-up. It was a mess. Generals got captured. In an area where he was located, everybody was a prisoner. The only artillery support they had was the gun on their own half-track. They had a 75mm pack howitzer on the half-track that they fired. It was knocked out at Kasserine Pass. When Martello parked the half-track, he had to get out of it because the muzzle was pointed in his direction. Typically, he would get out to the side of the half-track about 50 yards or so to keep the enemy from getting to it. They kept feeding 75mm rounds to the Germans. He guesses they shot 85 to 100 rounds. They couldn't even close the door on the half-track. Martello had to get a rope to keep the door closed. Tanks could traverse 360 degrees, but the American half-tracks had to fire direct fire and could only traverse about 3 degrees one way or another. The Germans would make an arc or a U around them and then close in the line and box them in. Martello read an article where they did that in the 1300s. Martello feels that even with what happened, he would go back and fight in the war again. He doesn't want people having to speak German. He had a German lieutenant in the POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp that stood up on a table and said Von Rundstedt [Annotator's Note: German Army Field Marshall Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt] made a big push against the United States. He said that they would have slave labor from seven to 70. He meant it. The Germans had all kinds of information on them when they were captured. He also remembered the Germans used Jeeps, tanks, and weapons carriers that they captured in battle around Kasserine. They captured a lot of American and Allied equipment there. Martello recalled it was a hell of a thing to see the 88mm guns fire on American tanks. He remembered seeing about five of them blown up at one time. He had friends in there too. American tanks didn't have armor like the German tanks. Martello felt that the war changed him by making him angry at first. Then, he started looking at it from the other side and realizing that if people were bombing his house, he would be mad too. He started putting himself in other people's shoes. When they captured Germans, they didn't harm any of them. They would give them cigarettes and he wouldn't ever strike them. Germans were fighting for what they thought was right and Martello was fighting for what he thought was right. He had no regrets for his service and it was something he had to do. He even did the best he could after he was captured. Martello feels people should study World War 2 in the future and should go back further in time to learn from history. Other enemies study it too. He feels the people that teach history should emphasize World War 2 history and teach them everything they know. He also feels it is important to keep studying World War 2 for the higher ups to learn from for today's military. Martello also feels it is important to have The National WWII Museum so that people can understand what happened during the war. And so that people can understand what war is really about.