Before the trip, I had made contact with Rosario Caruso, the Mayor of Serrara Fontana. This is the commune (municipality) in which the crash happened in 1947. We hadn’t made specific arrangements with him, but had been referred to someone who was connected to the Mayor’s office. I contacted him by e-mail before leaving Canada, and we had made arrangements of a sort for our visit. 

There was an extremely small police car, and Mr Caruso. We shook hands quickly, he ushered us into the back seat, and off we went con brio. The driver appeared to be a non-com police officer, heavy gilt uniform collar, two pips on his shoulder. Caruso immediately got on his cell phone, and a barrage of angry Italian followed. The driver joined in – at one point, the two of them were shouting at each other, with much gesticulation. The driver took a phone call, drove with one hand on the wheel, one on the phone, shouting alternately at Caruso and at whoever was on the phone. Interestingly, no-one gave the police car any more consideration that any other car. The traffic was very heavy in Ischia Porto, but eased up afterwards.

Eventually, things settle down a bit, and Caruso and the driver contented themselves with shouting at each other. Hmm. We think we’ve started off on a very bad foot by being late. (In fact, the church ceremony we were going to was advanced by an hour by the Bishop, apparently without telling anyone, so the whole schedule was thrown off. Not our fault at all!)

We end up in the main square of Lacco Ameno, on the north side of the island. The road along the seafront is blocked off, so we stop in front of the barrier, the mayor jumps out and moves the barrier, we drive through, the barrier is replaced, and we drive on with storefront owners shouting at the car, presumably asking who the hell we think we are. However, it’s early in the morning still, so the driver boots it down the road, the few pedestrians scuttling out of the way like chickens. The driver pulls the car into an impossibly small space, we all leap out of the car, rush after the mayor and driver to the church, which is absolutely full, a service well under way. We join the standing room only crowd at the back, the mayor puts on his official sash (Italian colours), and he and the driver go right to the front. Ah, that’s why the angst, they’re part of the show!

As we enter, there is some very enthusiastic singing going on, led by a choir in a loft above our heads. This is a Catholic church, of course, so much gilt, old paintings of saints being martyred in various uncomfortable ways, candles, lights, the whole works. There are several priests conducting the service, one of whom is wearing a red skull cap – is that a bishop, archbishop, or cardinal? One of the readings was done by a woman. We were treated to not one but two sermons, one by (I presume) the local priest, and one by red skull cap. They both had wonderful, mellifluous speaking voices, and both spoke without notes. Because we couldn’t understand a word they were saying, we could focus on how they spoke. Red skull cap, in particular, was a very good orator. He started off speaking very quietly, so you had to strain to hear him, even with the loudspeakers strategically placed throughout the church. His voice rose as he warmed up, more expansive hand gestures, then he quietened down as he came to the end and pointed out the key lessons of what he’d been talking about – whatever that was! He spoke for at least 15 minutes, and the crowd listened to every word. The man directly in front of me nodded his head just a bit several times, presumably as a particularly salient point was made. 

After quite a long time, we noticed the mayor slip out with some other people, stage left, and shortly afterwards they reappeared at the main door beside us. A young woman was carrying a banner emblazoned with the Serrara Fontana name, other people carried various religious oddments, then the mayor carrying what looked like a model castle with what seemed to be a lava lamp inside. We learned later that the whole point of the ceremony was a celebration of the patron saint of the island, and that part of the ceremony was that each year, one of the communes (aka municipality) had the honour of donating the holy oil that would be used in the coming year. The lava lamp was a jar containing the holy oil, and the mayor was carrying it because it was his turn. The Church benefits financially by bestowing this honour to each community – very frugal. No wonder Mr Caruso was agitated about being late! As the procession worked its way up the church, two trumpets in the loft played appropriately processional fanfares – not badly, but not professionally. 

After the processing was done, there was a collection – so I stuck 5 Euros into the basket – and communion. Anne and I went outside to get some fresh air. Eventually, the mayor emerged, gestured to follow him, and we crossed the main square. “Coffee?” he asks, we nod yes, and we go into a small coffee shop. He boots someone out of the only table in the place so we can sit down to enjoy our cappuccino, expecting him to join us – but he stands with his buddies having an expresso. All done, we all pile into the police car again, and drive to the municipal offices of Serrara Fontana. 

There are actually two distinct towns on the mountain – Fontana, somewhat higher up, and Serrara, which are both part of the Commune of Serrara Fontana. We go up to the mayor’s office, and he introduces us to Rosa and Teresa, who are both in a large administrative office. Teresa is very young, and speaks excellent English – hooray! It turns out there’s a good reason – her father is a retired US Army dentist, who met and married her mother when he was stationed in Naples. I take the opportunity to apologize for being a bit late at the Villa, and the mayor brushes this aside – it was not our fault, it was the church people who brought the whole thing forward by an hour, thereby throwing out his whole schedule. We reflect that it was interesting that they didn’t see fit to give proper warning to one of the main actors in the event. The mayor is now much more relaxed and friendly, so things are looking up. 

Eventually it’s time to go to the mountain. The mayor goes off in this tiny police car with his policeman sidekick, Anne and I go with Rosa and Teresa in a 4-wheel drive vehicle of some kind. Rosa drives the jeep out of town and up a tarmac road up to a restaurant, where it switches to a farm track. We go up and up, the road gets worse and worse and steeper and steeper, Rosa is struggling to get the car up this dreadful track, gets to a Y-junction and doesn’t know which way to go. A quick phone call to the Mayor says “Go right”, and just around the next corner is the police car waiting for us, practically bouncing up and down with impatience. Up and up we go, the track getting narrower and narrower, more and more pitted, the corners sharper and sharper. “Mama mia,” cries Rosa as she gets around yet another difficult bit. We squeeze between two trees, with maybe 2 inches to spare on either side. Eventually we get to a place to park. We all get out, and I notice that the mayor is carrying a very large and marvelous bouquet of flowers. 

We’ve parked very close to the crash site, so we only need walk for 10 minutes to get there. The vegetation beside the track appears to have been trimmed back recently. The mayor is in the same suit he wore to the church service, the policeman is clearly very hot in his heavy formal uniform, the rest of us dressed more informally. 

It’s a beautiful day, bright and sunny, with a cooling wind. We get to the site, and spent about half an hour there, taking photographs and looking around. I went down the hill on the west side to take some photographs looking up (one of those photographs is now on the cover of the book).

The hillside west of the cross is extremely steep, difficult to navigate. I can’t believe that the plane hit this side – it’s so rugged and steep that recovering wreckage and bodies would have been exceptionally difficult, and none of the accounts mention that. It’s more likely that it came in from the south-west, to the right of the scene shown in the picture, where the ground is less steep.

We looked at the plaque at the foot of the cross, holding the names of all the people killed in the crash. This was installed at the 60th commemoration service in 2007. There are three errors on this that I can see: The date is wrong (should be March 8, not 9), “Gorge” Lewis should be “George”, and Lieutenant-Commander Scotchbrook’s rank is given (in Italian) as Lieutenant-Colonel. I pointed out Bill Miles’ entry, explained who he was; many photographs taken. The mayor and I placed the bouquet beside the plaque, him wearing his official sash. Taking a photograph of the plaque is hard. The rock is very steep, the footing is tough, and there’s no way to photograph the whole thing. So I take several pictures of the top and bottom parts, holding the camera as high as I can, hoping I can stitch something together later on. This is just one aspect of the difficult terrain.

 

We tried to figure out exactly where the plane hit and what path it was on, and so forth. We were there for a good 15-20 minutes, and it felt very good to be there. Having the mayor and the others there, seeing the respect that they were showing, all felt as it should. At one point, the mayor put his hand on his heart, looked at me, and said, “A beautiful place, and very sad.” I could only agree.

The cross stands high. It was originally placed there soon after the crash, but blew down in a storm; so they moved it four feet over and reset it more securely. There’s a small stone plaque at its foot, presumably installed with the cross.

 

We tried to figure out the path the plane was on when it hit. It’s very hard to tell, but the most likely scenario is that it approached from Capri, to the south-east of Ischia. The last radio contact anyone had with the plane was over Capri, when the pilot said that he didn’t know where they were. If the plane had come in from the west, it’s hard to see how the wreckage and bodies would not have fallen several hundred metres down an almost vertical drop. It would then have been so difficult to recover bodies and wreckage that this would have become part of the narrative. I can see why it was so difficult to get up there in the dark, but nothing was said in anything I’ve heard about recovery difficulties. The plane could not have come from the east, because the ground there is higher, and it probably didn’t come from the north because recovery would have been exceptionally difficult. Our best hunch is that it hit the mountain from the south-east. The Bay and island were covered in fog at the end of the afternoon, and our best guess is that the pilot came down to find some lights - and had the bad luck to fly straight into the mountain.

After we had placed the bouquet beside the plaque, there was nothing left to do, so we headed back. The mayor and driver took off quickly – apparently he had some papers to sign before lunch. The rest of us climbed back into Rosa’s 4-wheel drive, and off we went. 

To fully appreciate what happened next, it helps to know that Rosa grew up on the mountain and has a house there. Despite that, she got lost on the way down. We successfully navigated the narrow space between the two trees (by pulling in the wing mirrors, we increased the clearance to 6 inches on each side), and that was the last landmark we recognized. The track kept getting narrower and narrower, until we reached a fork – one side went into a field, the other turned into a track that was just wide enough for a man and a mule, but nowhere near wide enough for anything with an engine. So we turned around (an 18-point turn), and headed back, and hit another dead end. Another 180 turnaround defying the rules of how much space you need to turn around a vehicle of that size, and we try another route. The cries of “Mama mia” became more frequent and ever more fervent – on one very narrow and sharp bend, even that wasn’t enough, and we heard a heartfelt “Madonna!” from the driver’s seat. And then, magically, we got to a track that she recognized, and off we went with renewed confidence. It turned out that we were now very close to her house. She had to show it off (“Casa mia” sounds much better than “Mamma mia”!), so we drove past it, turned around, and went barrelling down the mountain. 

We got down to the main road, drove back to Fontana, and then back up the road that we had started out on earlier, all the way to where the tarmac ran out – and where there is a restaurant, our destination for lunch. It was a spectacular location – quite high on the mountain, looking south, with a huge view across the town of Fontana, down to the coast, and across the water to Capri.

I still can’t re-create the route that we took coming down. But it seems that we drove halfway around the mountain, and we certainly went in a big circle. The fact that someone who grew up and lives on the mountain could get lost so easily says a lot about how wild and difficult the terrain is. Above Fontana, the highest town on the mountain, there are only very small landholdings, and a few sorry-looking fields – and they peter out not far from the town. Before the road around the perimeter of the island was built after the war, people on one side of the island would get to the other by following age-old mule tracks across the mountain. These tracks are still marked on the map, and are still there – in fact, most of our walking was on them. 

Back to lunch.

Rosa, Teresa, Anne and I arrived at the restaurant before the mayor, so that gave us a chance to start a conversation about what happened in the mountain after the crash. I had warned Teresa that I wanted to do this, and she and Rosa started the conversation on the way down – but, for obvious reasons, this didn’t get very far, so we resumed when we were seated at the table. (See 'The crash' for an account of what happened in 1947.) The mayor arrived mid-way through, but, although he listened intently to what Rosa was saying, he had little to add to the account. 

Once the story-telling was done, however, he clearly had things he wanted to say. First and foremost, he readily acknowledged that bad things happened on the mountain. He emphasised that life on Ischia was very different and difficult then, especially in Fontana and for the people who lived on the mountain. But, he said, we cannot undo what was done. All we can do is atone for it. And that is why the community held the commemoration services, why they continue to take care of the cross, and look after people like us who come to see the place where members of their family died.

My turn for the formalities. I said that I agreed that what was done could not be undone, and that I understood that people who lived in very difficult circumstances may not always behave well. I’m not sure what words I used here, but I tried to indicate that I was not interested in visiting the sins of one generation on the next. Instead, I said that I was most grateful for and impressed by the respect that the mayor had shown to us and to the crash victims, by hosting us on the mountain, by the bouquet that he provided, and that one benefit of our trip was that we now had new friends on the island. We toasted each other, and agreed that it was time to move on.

The lunch was huge. We started with a plate of small bits of toast with various things on them (for example, one had a kind of marmalade with shredded cheese on top). Then a plate of parma ham, salami and cheese, followed quickly by a plate of antipasti – small beans, fava beans, roasted peppers, spinach, etc. Then a plate of two kinds of cakey-quichey things. Then two large, round loaves of bread were placed on the table, with their heads cut off and acting as a lid. Open the lid, and inside was pasta and potatoes in a rich broth. Finally, the dishes that we’d actually ordered arrived. Mine was pasta (thick spaghetti) with a sauce made from rabbit, an Ischian speciality. (I saw plenty of shotgun shells on the mountain, where apparently people go to hunt rabbit.) Anne had pasta (rigatoni) with a mushroom sauce. Both were delicious. By the time we got to the end of this, we were thinking that we’d had a large, memorable lunch, and were wondering what was next. Well, another bottle of wine and another of sparkling water were next. OK, we think, we’re going to relax and let the wine aid our digestion. Then a huge plate of salad arrived, together with a bowl of rabbit pieces, about the size of chicken wings. And, like wings, it’s expected that you eat these in your fingers.

At the end of all this, we conceded defeat. We had been eaten into the ground. We were told that this was a busy day for the mayor, but he spent three hours over this lunch, and ate more than either of us. 

At the end of the lunch, he invited us to join us for the evening’s ceremony. As part of the annual celebration of the island’s patron saint (Santa Restituta, who was from Africa, apparently, not that you’d know it from her lily-white statue), they take the saint by water from one town to the next. That evening, the saint was to be taken from Lacco Ameno (where we were that morning) to Casamicciola, the next town to the east on the north coast. If we liked, we could go with him on the boat as his guest. Of course, we accepted, and agreed to meet him in front of the church where we were earlier.

Rosa drove us back to Ischa Ponte, and we relaxed for an hour or so. Then we took a cab back to Lacco Ameno, waited by the church, and met Caruso at 6:30 as arranged. The local band marched up to the church playing Sousa, of all things – not the Monty Python theme, unfortunately! In a marvellously Italian way, a procession gradually formed in an unplanned, organic, self-organizing muddle. The band at the front, the clerics (including a Benedictine monk in a brown robe, sandals, and an expensive-looking watch), then Santa Restituta herself, carried on the shoulders of ten or twelve strong men, some banners, then the mayors and a collection of senior police officers. We were told to walk right behind the mayor – this was reasonably straightforward, except for the people who kept inserting themselves into the parade. We just got used to easing our way past them to get to our proper place. 

The parade moved in fits and starts, with no apparent reason for either. Before we got too far, there was a long pause beside a bandstand with a choir, who sang what I think was a Verdi chorus – every single verse. Once that was done, we got under way again in fits and starts, with heavy crowds on either side and people joining and leaving the procession at will. Every now and again, there’d be a huge bang as someone let off a large firework. We went along the sea-front road, which was decorated within an inch of its life, then turned left at the marina/port and headed towards a car ferry. Naturally, the moment Santa Restituta was in sight, the ferry began sounding off its horn, which really was very loud.

There was a rather nice multi-masted sailboat beside the dock, and I assumed that’s where we were going. But no, the car ferry was indeed the destination. The whole parade marched right up the ramp and into the bowels of the ship, which was fortunately bare of cars. The saint was lifted down from the shoulders of the men – a precarious operation, even for a saint, and I was relieved when she was safely on deck. All the while, the ferry was sounding off its horn – it reminded me of Italian weddings in Toronto, when everyone drives with one hand on the horn.

 

Eventually we were all on board, and the ferry pulled away from the dock, followed by a veritable flotilla of marine hangers-on. We moved about half a mile off shore, horn still blaring – the little girls in white dresses and angel wings all covering their ears in (mock?) discomfort. Once offshore, the ferry stopped, and an amazing fireworks display started. It was about 7:00 by now, still light, and perhaps not the best time for a fireworks show. But it went on for a good 15-20 minutes, with many deeply satisfying explosions, much smoke, both red and white, things that sparkled across the sky, things that carved out pretty patterns – all in all, just the kind of send-off a saint might enjoy.

 

Once it was over, the ferry celebrated with another ear-piercing hoot in the horn (“hoot” is a pathetic word for the sound, which I’m sure could be heard on the other side of the mountain). And then we were off. But instead of heading east to Casamicciola, we went west, around the headlands at the north-west corner of the island, all the way to Forio, half-way down the west side. That’s not what we were expecting! We hove to off Forio, which greeted us with another fireworks display. Compared to the one we’d just enjoyed at Lacco Ameno, this one was positively subdued. However, it was apparently satisfactory, because the ferry gave an approving hoot when it was over, and we turned around and went heading back the way we’d just come. At much higher speed, so the return journey seemed to take half the time we took on the way out. The sun was setting behind us. We went past Lacco Ameno, and on to Casamicciola, where we arrived just as dusk was falling.

The procession re-formed, and we all trooped off the ship into the welcoming arms of another crowd. This parade was not as long as the first one, and we soon ended up in a park beside the church. All the dignitaries were up on what looked like band stand, the saint was put down again facing the crowd (oh, the relief when she’s safely down!). She had lights illuminating her face, and small lights in her head-dress, and she looked every inch the perfect Roman Catholic patron saint. More readings – all but one done by women, which I thought was interesting – and a sermon by the priest. I couldn’t understand him, of course, but at one point he was definitely talking about the sea being “peaceful and tranquil”, which I assume he was ascribing to the peaceful and tranquil Santa Restituta. I think she was just happy to be on dry land again.

All good things must come to an end, and eventually the service ended. The parade re-formed yet again, this time to take the saint to a well-earned rest in the church.

We managed to catch the mayor, and said we were heading back home. Much shaking of hands, and we both got pulled into the kind of scratchy cheek-to-cheek kiss that Italians enjoy. We thanked him for being such a wonderful host, found a cab, and headed back to Ischia Ponte for our well-earned rest.

Fortunately, we had bought a bottle of wine the day before. So we did the only thing possible after a day like that. We went up to the roof-top patio where we had started the day with an interrupted breakfast, and enjoyed the wine. The stars were out, we could see the lights illuminating the castle to our right, the lights along the sea-front to our left, lights along the shore beside Naples in the far distance in front of us, and a gentle Mediterranean breeze cooling us down.

What a day!

After the excitement of Ischia, we were more than ready for a break. We enjoyed a quiet week in a villa in Praiano, on the Amalfi coast, doing a lot of walking and sightseeing, and enjoying the villa just above the water, beside a small harbour, and a short walk from a ocean-front restaurant with the best seafood risotto known to man.

On the way back to Naples, we went to Pompeii, a truly remarkable place and well worth the time we spent there.

Then we went to the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Naples. This is located not far from the airport, so – in theory – all we had to do was follow the Autostrada to the airport, come off, make a few simple turns and we’d be there. I’d taken the precaution of loading the Naples map onto my tablet, so we thought this would be relatively straightforward.

Fat chance! We got off the Autostrada all right, and then immediately found ourselves going in the wrong direction on a fairly major road, with no apparent way of turning around for quite a way. Eventually we started retracing our steps, found the road we wanted, only to discover that what looked like a single road on the map was actually two – an elevated road immediately above one at ground-level. We were on the elevated road, and could only look helplessly as we crossed over the intersection we wanted, which was – of course – only accessible from the road below us. Eventually we found the road we were looking for, which took us to the road running to the cemetery. Driving in Naples is not for the faint-hearted! The first rule is not to look at the car you’re pushing in front of...

It took twice as long to find the road with the cemetery as we’d expected, but we got there in the end. And then had a huge stroke of luck – just after we turned onto the road, I saw a florist, with, of all things, an empty parking space on the other side of the road. We’d wanted to find flowers for the grave, but had quite enough on our plate without trying to find a florist as well, so this was a gift from the gods. I rushed in, and bought three yellow and three red roses, all for 5 Euros.

The cemetery was a few hundred metres down the road. We parked, and went in.

The first impression was how well the whole place was maintained. The grass was freshly cut, and there were flowers growing between the headstones. The cemetery was quiet, surrounded by trees, and very peaceful. This was a major change from the rest of Naples, which has entirely opposite characteristics.

We had a schematic of the cemetery, and knew exactly where to look in the far right corner of the cemetery as you enter. So we went straight there, put the flowers in from of the headstone, and spent some time just absorbing the atmosphere. 

And that was that. After a lot of research and effort, we’d succeeded in seeing where my grandfather was killed, and where he is buried.

We enjoyed the moment, walked back to the car, and went to our hotel.

And so our quest was complete.