TARANTO AS I KNEW IT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 76, 6 December 1940, Page 10

TARANTO AS I KNEW IT

A New Zealand Soidier Remembers

(Written for "The Listener" by

Bernard

Magee

b the hundreds of New Zealand soldiers who sailed into the Port of Taranto one bright morning in July, 1918, the sensational news of the severe handling by our Air Forces of Italy’s southern naval base will make interesting reading. But the outcome of the attack may be tinged with some regret that the vicissitudes of statecraft should have

converted our allies and warm friends of a quarter of a. century ago into enemies.

What a welcome sight was that great gulf of vivid blue at the heel of Italy to the soldiers from scattered parts of the British Empire, after the tension of days and nights on the submarineinfested Mediterranean, in the great convoy of troopships that sailed out of Alexandria (Egypt) twenty-two years ago with Taranto as its objective. Of the five transports the liner Ormonde accommodated (among hundreds of Tommies) some 1,200 New Zealanders, and it was an imposing sight as each great transport, throbbing to the motion of its engines, dropped into line with a Japanese destroyer slipping in alternately between the vessels, and headed for the open sea. Aeroplanes Toared overhead, the transports manoeuvred into. position and the nine Japanese destroyers formed a cordon round us. We who entered Taranto and saw the city spread out in languorous ease by the waters of the great gulf lapping its shores, can visualise the different aspect it must now present with its battered wharves and great battleships with decks awash lying in that great inner harbour-the Mare Piccolo, Rapturous Reception As was to be expected from allies in the Great War, our reception was a rapturous one. On the Ormonde the New Zealanders lined the decks, the band blared out "Colonel Bogey" and other popular tunes of the time, the swing gates to the inner harbour opened, crowds of Italians lined every vantage point and cheered vociferously. Italian men-o’-warsmen tumbled up on to the des of their battleships and added their quota of welcome to swell the volume of sound, and we sailed slowly into the inland harbour of Taranto little dreaming that we would read of the havoc wrought by British aircraft twenty-two years hence in that beautiful place.

Oysters and Spiders Taranto is one of the few places lapped by the Mediterranean that shows the ebb and flow of the great sea. The town proper is on an island, which formerly was connected with the land. A channel was cut through the peninsula giving access to the inner har-bour-the Mare Piccolo -and in 1887 there was an iron swivel bridge across it, 196 feet wide. This inner sea is 6325 acfes in extent and contains 93 different species of fish. The oyster industry is one of its principal claims to distinction

apart from its importance as a naval base. Another product of Taranto, though

one the old city takes no pride in, is the poisonous tarantula spider. The corrective to this menace to life was supposed to be the wild dance known as the tarantella, beside which the tango, the bunny hug, the Lambeth Walk and other so-called barbaric modern dances were childish pranks. The tarantella was invented with the object of inducing perspiration in anyone bitten by the tarantula spider, thus driving out the poison. Irish Bishop’s Cathedral The cathedral of Taranto dates from the eleventh century and, strange to say, is dedicated to an Irish bishop, San Cataldo, and the shrine to him inside is said to be "an orgy of rococo." Some forty years ago the remains of an earlier Christian church were discovered beneath the cathedral. Taranto has had its ups and downs over a course of years. The Saracens, the Normans, and other warlike people have made forays on it and have been swallowed up in oblivion while the ancient city lives on. Taranto, too, has many literary associations. Two hundred years before the Christian era its streets were alive with pagan ladies in their gorgeous and glittering apparel who came from Sicily and from Africa to escape for a while the scorching sun

and inhale the exhilarating sea breezes of the harbour.- There, too, delightful villas abounded and theatres offered diversion to visitors who flocked from afar in the dawn of history. Classical Tributes Its classical standing may be gauged from the tributes paid to it by men eminent in history and literature. Two thousand years ago the poet Leonidas, with wistful memories of the old Italian city, sighed for the town and associations of Tarentum. "I lie far from the land of Italy, my country, and that is harder for me than death," he exclaimed in a fit of home-sickness. Virgil and Homer visited it, dreamed their dreams in and departed from the historic town with fond memories of "molle Tarentum." ane On to France But New Zealand soldiers had little leisure to revel in the attractions of "molle Tarentum," for we were all cogs in a great machine-if one cog slipped the whole apparatus was thrown out of gear. Army orders were adamant and we entrained for that long and picturesque journey of nine days and nights, up the Adriatic coast, through North Italy, along the Italian and French Rivieras, through the heart of France, thence to the coast and over to England.