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Corado “Babe” Ciarlo, was only 20 years old when he died in battle. In his pockets were two rosaries, $1.61, 16 photographs of family members and one letter. An unsung hero, Babe Ciarlo’s moving story was recently featured on Ken Burns’ “The War.”
Wartime letters hold a special significance for soldiers and their families, and Ciarlo’s were no exception. As he fought in the grueling Italian campaign of 1944, Babe sent a steady flow of upbeat letters to his family back home in Connecticut.
Written on the beige colored Red Cross letterhead provided to servicemen, the letters sustained his widowed mother, Martina, as she feared for her son’s safety. Babe knew that if he wrote the truth, his family would worry, especially his mother. So, he often hid the awful realities by focusing on innocent and banal topics; not on ferocious German counterattacks but instead on the lovely weather and Army food.
After immigrating to the U.S. from Italy, Tomaso and Martina Ciarlo settled in Waterbury, Ct. Tomaso ran a thriving grocery store and butcher shop until his untimely death in 1937, which left Martina alone to raise five children. By 1941, Babe had graduated from high school and, like many other young men, wanted to join the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His mother persuaded him against it and he began working at the local steel ball factory. 
As World War II raged on, Babe was drafted into the Army in spring 1943. Like other Waterbury residents who left for war, he was given a prayer book and a carton of cigarettes, courtesy of the local Shriners, before boarding the train for Basic Training.
Assigned as a corporal to the 3rd Infantry Division of General Mark Clark’s 5th Army, Babe deployed initially to North Africa. An assault landing on Sicily in July 1943 led to the capture of Palermo and Messina, effectively ending the Sicilian campaign. Later, the division landed at Salerno, and fought its way across the Volturno River to join in the famous battle for the monastery at Cassino.
By early 1944, the Fifth Army swarmed ashore near the prewar Italian resort towns of Anzio and Nettuno. Although initial resistance was light, German defenders immediately began consolidating troops in order to eliminate what Adolf Hitler called the “Anzio abscess.” Some of the most savage fighting of the War occurred over the next five months as the Allies battled their way inland and began the bloody push for Rome. Losses mounted quickly, with Babe’s division suffering more than 3,000 casualties in only 56 days of combat while advancing less than 50 miles.
Babe’s rosy letters home, however, paint a different picture, as he describes the beautiful weather and deliciously fattening food. Years later, his brother Thomas would note, “You...read in the paper about different battles, but you don’t actually put Babe in that position. At one point…my mother had my aunt write a letter in Italian…to Babe. ‘When you get to Rome, we have relatives over there…they’ll treat you well.’ And you think, ‘Well, he’s going to Rome...to see his relatives.’ Can you imagine that? You think about it now and it’s so unreal.”
In March 1944, as fighting escalated around the Anzio beachhead, Babe’s letter focuses on Easter and the need for a plant on his late father’s grave. Two days later, another mentions the spring weather, adding that his family’s concerns for him are unnecessary: “you haven’t heard from me...but you know nothing will happen to me.”
His April letters continued in the same vein, lightheartedly noting that with all the eating and sleeping, he would soon “be like a barrel.” He closes an April 30 letter with his intent to “go swimming in the Tyrrhenian Sea — the salt water will do me good.”
In what may have been Babe’s final letter home on May 19, his cheery façade remained intact, masking the increasingly ferocious Italian campaign. He closed in his typical manner, “Mom, how are you getting along, fine I hope. I’m doing good, and always happy, because I know you’re okay.”
By summer, the letters stopped coming. His family learned on June 26 that Babe had been killed in action on May 27, near Artena approximately 50 kilometers southeast of Rome and near his mother’s relatives. He was eight days shy of his twenty-first birthday and had served in the Army for 1 year, 1 month and 1 week.
Martina Ciarlo refused to accept the devastating news, for months scanning newspapers for photos of soldiers, hoping to see her son. Babe’s sister, Olga, tried to convince Martina that he would not return alive. But it was to no avail until “…they brought his body back, and we went down to the railroad station and when they took his body off the train and we were all there, we all went to the cemetery, when they handed my mother the flag.”
Although he never received a Medal of Honor, Babe Ciarlo was a hero, who performed his duty, asked for nothing and tried to shield his family, especially his mother, from the horrors of war.
For more on Babe Ciarlo, go to the PBS website (www.pbs.org/thewar) and search for his name.
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