Mt. Etna Erupting? "Say, that reminds me," Says Crimeditor: "Why, 'way back when . . ."

Recent accounts of Mt. Etna's new eruptions bring to mind the time--three years and six days ago--when Mt. Vesuvius exploded in similar fashion but was little publicized because it was responsible for the crippling of a medium bomber outfit of which I was a member.

Etna, the great hump of Sicily, was just lukewarm then, with an occasional wisp of smoke emanating from its 10,000 foot cone and only the heat still left in old lava flows to hint at its previous activity.

Historic Hot Spot

Moving in on Pompet airfield at the start of 1944, we had little but curiosity toward the smoking peak which rose up 3000 feet above us and six miles away. The fact that our field was on a cinder bed and that the ancient city of Pompet next door had once been completely in-undated seemed to have no connection with the spluttering little furnace that attracted sightseers to the top of Vesuvius.

Even when, on the evening of March 18, we turned out to watch the red hot ribbons winding down the cone, there was no inkling of violence and the next day we took time out to get a closer view of the molten streams on higher levels. Four nights later, though, ominous rumblings shook the ground under us, and a new form of rain descended on us rain which cut right through our tents.

In the long hours before dawn successive rumblings and tremors from the unseen mountain heralded increasingly violent showers of red-hot stones. Each volcanic groan made me wish I had never read the "Last Days of Pompet."

Volcano Stops Air Corps

By dawn, we discovered our tents in shreds and all the control and window surfaces of our B-29's wrecked, but the chances of dodging the larger chunks of falling lava (the biggest I saw was the size of a small watermelon) appeared good enough, and the natural rain from the clouds which formed under the great tornado of smoke overhead managed to allay the sulfuric fumes.

Italian masonry buildings, the wings of our planes and our G.I. helmets were adequate so that no one received more than a scratch from one of the minor missles.

Although the towns on Vesuvius clustered nearer the cone than those on Etna, none was seriously damaged by the several threatening flows, but the funicular railway on the slope was completely overwhelmed and ashes were reported to have fallen in Albania, 300 miles away