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Italian POWs in California Thought They Were Being Punished When Given This Job At 9:47 on the morning of September 14th, 1943, Private Jeppe Tosselli stood in the processing yard at Fort McDow on Angel Island, San Francisco Bay, watching American guards hand out work assignments to the line of Italian prisoners. 26 years old, trained as a stone worker in Tuscanyany, captured at Bizerte 3 months earlier. Jeppe had spent the voyage from North Africa preparing himself for what came next. Hard labor, rock quaries, maybe, or digging ditches in the California heat. The other prisoners had told him Americans treated PS better than Germans did. But Jeppe knew what captivity meant. Punishment work. Manual labor designed to break your spirit before breaking your body. The guard called his name. Joseeppe stepped forward. The guard handed him a slip of paper with an address in Napa Valley and three words written in English. Vineyard work detail. Jeppe read the paper twice. He turned to the prisoner next to him, a corporal from Bolognia named Carlo Mancini. They’re sending us to work in vineyards, Jeppe said. Like farmers, like peasants. Carlo stared at his own assignment slip. His face went red…………..
At 9:47 on the morning of September 14th, 1943, Private Jeppe Tosselli stood in the processing yard at Fort McDow on Angel Island, San Francisco...
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