Page 24 2024 Hometown HEROES Magazine LINCOLN DAILY NEWS June/July 2024 Sergeant Fricke center with General Clark food and housing to the Italian population. My father along with his band of brothers and the rations they were allotted helped save many men, women and children by sharing what rations they were allocated. One such individual child named Pamela, a recent orphan when her parents were recently killed in a bombing raid was befriended immediately. Upon returning to the stateside he named his first daughter after her. Because the German army couldn’t afford to take prisoners in their retreat they started shooting prisoners. My father, along with other medics, were issued hand weapons from captured officers. He returned home with a German Lugar and an Italian Beretta side arm. It was during this retreated that the high command of General Eisenhower and Prime Minister Winston Churchill secretly deployed a type of mustard gas on the ship the “John Harvey” anchored at the port of Bari, on the Eastern side of Italy with the anticipation of the Germans gassing the Allies in their retreat. Falsely feeling the skies were secure from any German bombing, the John Harvey was hit and exploded with the gas defusing throughout the near countryside. Armin being in that vicinity attempted to give aid to the injured, but not knowing the exact cause of their ailments could only guess on their treatments. Rubbing his eyes continuously with his sleeves he also succumbed to a temporary blindness which hospitalized him for 30 days. Many others had permanent damage. Armin’s pictures show many men in a pond bathing themselves to lessen the gas. Not until 1967, through the Freedom of Information Act, did the government acknowledge the incident. A series of books by author Rick Atkinson, “AN ARMY AT DAWN” and “THE DAY OF BATTLE” did we, as a family, realize the true cause of our fathers injuries. This was 30 years after his death. Upon returning to active duty the 34th Division was sent to the Abbey at Monte Cassino in January 1944. For three months it became the bloodiest battle in Italy with over 50,000 Allied deaths, and 20,000 Germans. It was here that Armin received his second
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