For those who served at Allied Joint Force In Naples Italy on the Bagnoli/Agnano base. You may not have been stationed at Afsouth but at one of the other commands on the Bagnoli/Agnano base. If so, tell us what command and Years you served there.
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A buddy bought a Fiat 850 with Naples plates on it. We took leave and traveled all over Europe in it. Funny thing, in Paris other cars got out of our way with the Naples plates! I see the cinquecento's (Fiat 500's) are now being sold in the US...but have yet to see one on the road. Driving on backroads around between Naples and Cassino we found a marble bridge built for Cleopatra, German pill boxes, all kinds of interesting finds. I went in an SA and made RM2 in the 4. Like almost all of us, I had no connections at all and just took the job they offered me and went where they sent me. No one could believe I got Italy out of RM school. On the dream sheet I had put any DD in westpac, then atlantic, them med....and got shore duty! After Italy I went to the Mekong Delta and while I did some traveling around on a PBR I was never assigned to a ship. I never would have thought of electronics as being something I could do but after the service I thought if that was my ability why not go for it and went to school and became an electrical engineer which served me well.
I agree with you about staying there for 20 then retiring. I felt the same but when I was ready to ship-over for the first time and I asked for another tour there, they just laughed in my face and told me that as a Machinists Mate it was time for me to go to sea. So I opted to go to a "C" School which put me on carriers until I was able to get the NEC removed.
I remember a friend driving down the mountain side in Bagnoli who hit the stone wall and knocked a bunch of the wall down the slope. He banged up both front and rear fenders, knocked out his headlight and lost the trim around his tail light. It was a '56 Ford Victoria. He and some friends took the fenders off, hammered them out with a ball peen hammer and put them back on. We went to Rome that weekend with no head light on the drivers side. We were driving at night, but affixed a flashlight to the front fender. We used the back roads and stayed away from the Autostrada. We did get pulled over once, but a couple of packs of cigarettes and new batteries in the flashlight and the cops let us go. That and the fact that we were friends with a couple of the Cararbineri didn't hurt.
source within the Navy that the place is no longer used and was declassified etc. Photos on the web showing the entrances sealed etc help substantiate this. I got to remembering the bus trips taking longer on occasions where herds of sheep were sharing the same road as us. I loved it there and would have signed up for 20 in Italy if it were an option. I was very fortunate in getting to see as much of the world as I did during my 4 years.
Finding information about it being hard to find is probably due to its classification. Unless you had something to do with the site, you really never heard too much about it. I'm surprised to hear that it is closed down now. If that is true than that means that the usual things that went on down there can now be done somewhere else. I didn't get out there much, and when I did I usually stayed outside of the tunnel.
Thanks for the jousting of my memory. It is hard to believe that it was over 50 years ago that I was there. Some day I'd like to go back and take a gander at all the changes that must have taken place since then.
I had forgotten all about that curve. Usually the backing up at that curve is what woke me up on the trip in. I've noticed that even though the site is no longer used it is difficult to find anything about it online. Others have mentioned this in various places on the web. I found the entrance we used once on google earth and saw that it was concreted closed etc. It was my understanding that Hitler's man Kesslering was in charge of building it and NATO took it over after the war.
Any info? Thanks!
I remember the remote site "Proto" and made many a trip there, I even got to drive Admiral Kidd down into the mountain tunnel. During my time there we lost a bus that went off the side of the mountain. Luckily there were no passengers on it, only the driver. After that, on the turn he lost his bus, it became mandatory that the bus drivers MUST make at least on backup to get a better angle at taking the curve. It could be done without taking the one back up, but the powers that be didn't want to take the chance of another bus going over the side.
Attached to the Afsouth Base in Bagnoli and worked at the remote site "Proto"while living in Licola in a group house on the beach! 1969-1971 Worked in system control.
I was a driver at the International Motor Pool located at the top of the hill to the right of the Club from '66 to '68. It was a great place to be for an 18 -21 year old. Went as a Fireman and left as a MM2. I just loved it.
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