Oriskany (CV 34) - Naval Cruise Book

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..the sailors' city Pilots relax atop the Capurro, Genoa's highest building. Classic beauty marks the central Mausoleum of Cam- posanto, the Holy Field. COLOR! BCG Q X Ax., ..L LA FATRIA ,WX f Memorial lo Cl great navigator. Cemetery of Staglieno, one of the world's most grounds. The dust of generations gathers on heroic sculptures in the Camposanto galleries. The Borsa, stoclz market of the Ge Q.. v ' i MOOSE. .. .Wu Y K, 3' Z ' 2-V4 A ' i , V 'lim . , u if '- Y ew, -' VA ' 4 W'1f'ffyV3s 1--:2i'l1,14 'Y' 'M' 'c ' ,-if . T' 'iw 'i71.'L,ufr5:3- 1 lg A ' ' Emir- l l I H A J in , A' F1474 1 N 'W , ,, Vywzjyfyi eww- ,Tiff V ,V , 'Mf f ,I -15 fl , sw mf -gwsgi.g,g,h .. wait , :?',f,. l V T5 ' V A Lil'-xl 'V-lf' QW 1-1 :y.T,,1 V. , w f f - ' .V ' f- ' I V M . - A- -. e 2 -5 ,Q-,5ffp:,,. -.A 1 - Q- ' , v ' ' ,Q -9- A ' 1 x wawatewf ' .ig fx r' mff ft. . , ,. g ' ,wax -' s ' or '- ,V with -w e si' 'gf , ' 2 g , ' .,11.m.4 be v ,4 5: ' , 4 L re -A - ftjqqc i , 4' - , , .QAM Q ,.., ,fr 'g---E 3 4 ,QW , , 5 -A , , I ,, f , , . N Q I .te ,f e at , 2 f 4, .- 5 ' iffy , t 41 , ,q , jigpf I 4 ,y Mg- ? 5 f E ,ty , N x g 3 A, f ? Vi' P . We f 1 Q 72 V 1 - 1' +'- P aft' ,,t-,- M, r f '11 , 'T' 'i'rg v' 'iv , K ,Z as 4 f . 4 e A s ,Q g 1 .rf gran 5 4 I 1 ,, 4 in W ,, ' f 'rf , l X X, 'W 1 fp'-v-we -11,---s,...... ..,. '9V?ti MQ' as

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ff-if . ..f 'Mr ..f V El-IE Italians, too, have their Riviera, stretching east and west from Genoa l where the Oriskany anchored late in August. In addition to good swimming, A this most active seaport in Italy provided a lively nightlife made particularly for sailors, as well as museums and palaces for daylight visiting. On foot or aboard tourist busses, Oriskany sailors spread out over the city from early in the morning until after midnight. Everyone saw the protected inner harbor, the Porto Vecchio, where transatlantic liners flew the British, French, Panamanian, Italian and American Hags alongside dock. Towering over the warehouses, silos, piers and other waterfront structures shone the Genoa lighthouse, tallest in all Europe. From Fleet Landing, it was every man for himself. Some few never got past the first few bars and restaurants on the waterfront. MI might as well have stood in Brooklyn, said one P.O., returning to the ship at the stroke of 2400. The city was simple to get around. Narrow trolley cars and modern busses crowded the 668,000 people of the city on their way to shopping, the movies, and home again for the Italian equivalent of three cents. What made Genoa easy to figure was that the farther away from the waterfront, the higher one had to climb. The city was a huge natural amphitheater. If a sailor refused to walk uphill on liberty he was confined to the first few blocks from the bay. In the old days before taxis and trolleys, even the Genoese thought twice about walking uphill. This led them to crowd the ancient walled city into a few thousand yards, with narrow winding streets, suitable for defense with lance, sword and arquebus. X I ff!!! Tours entrained from this station for Milan, the Alps, Rome and Venice. A bewhiskered newsboy sells papers and Iot- tery numbers. Everyone stops to admire u new accordion, one ol Ifuly's best buy5. In such vias and piazzas Cstreets and squaresl, some famous men were hom, worked, married and died. The house of Christopher Columbus stands, IVY' covered, in an open piazza. Another open space gives access to the birthplaQC of the patriot Giuseppe Mazzini. On a wider via, the Town Hall keeps the y10l1U of Paganini and the ashes of Columbus. As usual with relics and memories Of famous men, Genoa is not alone in claiming to possess the ashes of the great navigator. On the edges of the city, too, the city showed concern with the PHST, the illustrious and the unknown dead. Genoese call the Staglieno the most beau' tiful and artistic cemetery on earth. One of the Oriskany sailors commentcdi HA family must go into debt for life just to pay for such monuments to parents and relatives. But the city has not forgotten the living, the houses and the Commerce, for war and for peace. Reconstruction of bombed-out homes and churches is neiifll' complete. The tallest skyscraper in Europe. a grattacielo, keeps many Clerks and lawyers in modern office space. A niffht club on the roof entertains them C' ' 7 after hours. A huge electric sign over it all reminds visitors of New lofk' Qnfiglef night club, The Golden Spider, is loeatediin ithe iStock Exchange ul mg. For another war and more bombing, the city has prepared. Most first-class movle houses are UUfl9Yg1'ou11cl, easily converted to shelters. The last war an defeat have been forgotten. The insignia and monuments of Fascism have been TCITIOVCCL and only il few war ruins remain. The Arch of Victory COH1H1Cm0rates the dead of the H1915-18 War. With all its human CllHT30ll'T, Geona was rated No 1 port in the Med by many glrisgcanyl sailors.l Some of them, going along with fradition, tossed a coin into e Ollfl 21111 Ht tie Piazza de Ferrari to insure a return visit another Year'

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T,S EASY to get around Italy by railroad but officers and men learned more when traveling by bus. The 4'Milan Tour tipped the men off on that. They stopped at the village of Serravalle Scrivia for a beer and a ham sandwichg at Pavia for a quick walk through the famous 14-th-Century Certosa, a Carthusian cathedral of black and white marbleg in Milan overnightg then to Lake Como in the ltalian Alpsg and, a feather in every man's cap, across the border into Switzerland. The village was a country crossroads, with farmers stalling their oxen in back- street barns and with two or three clean grocery stores. Centuries before, life had been the same: the main via paved with cobblestone and the side streets bare earthg doors opening directly on the highway without steps or sidewalksg children barefoot for summerg old ladies leaning out of windows and old men smoking in the sung a Padre vigorously making his parish callsg the church dominating the landscape. The two-lane highway itself fascinated sailors. Called an Autostrade and charg- ing tolls, the road first wound up and over the Apennines. Retaining walls pre- vented rock slides. Most of the walls carried rows of big black-painted squares. If the paint had been weathered, letters were visible under the black. These had been slogans of the Mussolini regime, now out of fashion. Sailors could make out some words: uDuce! Duce! and, translated, 'lYouth, Iron and Work for the Fatherlandfl Beyond the Apennines, the Autostrade straightened out in the valley of the Po River. Kilometers clipped past, much faster than miles. Then the Po itself, a shallow muddy stream unfit for navigation. At Pavia, New Englanders remembered the covered wooden bridges of Vermont and New Hampshire. Paviais covered bridge was brick and stone. The Carthusian cathedral outside Pavia had been practically taken over by the government as a national monument but religious services were still held inside. The church contained world-famous paintings on canvas and on plaster. ln a shop on the grounds, world-famous liqueurs produced by the Carthusian monks were on sale. The Arcade at Milan, roofed by a fretwork of glass and steel, houses shops and sidewalk cafes. Sailors waited two hours to cross the halo-Swiss border. At Como, sailors might have saved 200 Iire by walking up 2350 -H. My Brunafe. .