The Mission of Ector Bolzoni

When the Major stood up and said: "Our target today is one of great importance; Rome has never been bombed," Ector Bolzoni felt queer. It was a little hard for Lieut. Bolzoni to take in all the details of the briefing. He was thinking of the day in October 1941, when he applied to enter the Air Forces and was called before the examining board and asked: "How would you feel, and how would your family feel, if you were ordered to bomb Rome?" He had said that day: "I'm going into the Army for a reason, and I don't see any difference between the Italians or any other nation fighting us." But now that the order had actually come, he did not know exactly how he did feel about it.

As his plane climbed out over the Mediterranean, Ector Bolzoni was pretty scared. He admitted as much to TIME Correspondent John Hersey, who was aboard his B26, kneeling between Co-pilot Bolzoni's seat and the pilot's. "Usually you picture a capital defended strongly," Bolzoni said. But gradually Bolzoni's interest in what lay ahead got the better of his nervousness. Hersey saw him hunch forward and strain to see ahead when they were still a good hour away from the Italian coast.

"About halfway, there was a definite climax of anxiety over what we would meet. Bolzoni says it was exactly the same for him, though he never showed it. He tells me that he thought about his mother and father, northern Italians who went to the States in their early 20s, met and were married there. About his father's restaurant in Bristol, Conn., where he was born. When he was young, his parents used to speak Italian whenever they wanted to say something he and his sister were not supposed to understand.

"As we approached the coast most of us were thinking of flak. But Bolzoni's mind was racing back over many isolated little memories. Over Rome, Bolzoni, who had learned the map of the city by heart, thought he saw the Vatican off to the left. This conjured up a very distinct evening when he was 14 years old and his older sister came back from a trip to Italy and described Rome to the family. They were in the living room of their Bristol home. He was sitting on a footstool looking into his sister's face. She was sitting on a sofa with a ready-made album of various cities. She had liked Florence best because that was where her father came from, but one thing in Rome had excited her and her description of it inflamed the boy. That was the changing of the guard at the Vatican. And how he strained to imagine that scene! He says he had a queer sensation that night seven years ago when he had looked up at the beautiful Rome in his sister's face--and now he was looking down on it from a bomber.

"The little red light in our cockpit twinkled on & off. As the bombs toggled out, Bolzoni sharply wondered what the people down below felt. These are his words: 'I wondered whether they looked up at us with fear and hatred, or whether there was secret happiness to see our bombs come down. Maybe they think they'll be free when we take over, or maybe they'll think it's just another bad thing. That depends on us, I guess. Some of my family is in Italy, and I know if I were down there with them, I would be glad to see bombs come down, even if they might hit me.'

"After that Bolzoni was too busy watching for flak to do any more meditating."

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