Eleven Trips to Italy-!!!
In the past year, I was asked by my friends how many trips to Italy I took. I replied, either “Eight” or “Nine.”
Oops, I realized that I did ELEVEN (11) trips after digging out for this issue of Amerideaf’s Newsletter for you. Here is the list below:
1969 - Had a three-night stay in Rome for the post-group tour after participating in the 1969 World Summer Games of the Deaf in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
1982 - Served as USA Team Leader at the Dresse Tennis Cup for Deaf Men and Maere Tennis Cup in Palermo, Sicily.
1988 - Served as Tennis Technical Director at the European Deaf Tennis Championships in Merano.
1991 - Served as USA Team Leader at the Italian Deaf Tennis Open in Finale Ligure.
1999 - Same at the Dresse Cup and Maere Cup in Finale Ligure.
2001 - Was a spectator at the World Summer Games of the Deaf in Rome and had one week following my dad’s WWII route.
2015 - Had my first solo trip while scouting WWII sites.
2016 - Served as Tour Guide of the 337th Regiment Tour for children of my dad’s WWII soldiers.
2018 - Had another solo trip and stayed in Italy for four months.
2019 - Served as Tour Guide of the second 337th Regiment Tour and stayed in Italy for two months. After crossing the border to Croatia, I canceled a return trip to Italy due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2023 - Became a tourist (not a tour guide) of the all-deaf Hand on Travel’s Bella Italia Tour.
Future Trip? Whoa, but I will have at least one more trip. The event was supposed to be held in May 2020, but Covid canceled it. We will try May 2, 2025, for the 80th Anniversary of the German Surrender (to my dad’s 337th Regiment of the 85th Division) at La Stanga.
Top-Left: The surrender of the 76th German Corps to the 337th Infantry of the 85th Division at La Stanga, Italy (north of Belluno), on May 2, 1945. L-R: Colonel Oliver W. Hughes, commanding officer of the 337th Regiment, General Karl von Graffen, German Corps GG 76th, and Lieutenant Lamm, 337th translator.
Top-Right: German General’s granddaughter, Angela Findlay, stood at the same spot in 1979 (I think) surrounded by three ghosts. [Photo created for Tony Maddock.]
Bottom-Left: I also stood at the same spot in October 2019.
Bottom-right: Colonel’s granddaughter, Kitty Hughes Hall, finally posed with her husband at that spot three weeks ago.
All of us are Facebook friends, so we chat about the coming event.
“Forging this connection seventy-four years on was meaningful for us all, and a group of those who were able planned to meet in La Stanga and Belluno in 2020 on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the unconditional,” wrote Angela Findlay in her 2022 book, ‘In My Grandfather’s Shadow.’ “The plans were scuppered by a new scourge: the Covid-19 Pandemic. But the hope is that one day soon, the grandchildren of that American colonel and German General will stand together in harmony on the spot where their grandfathers met as adversaries in May 1945. And so the healing continues.”
When I have time, I will write a story on each Italian trip for you in later issues.