Saving Italy: The Race To Rescue A Nation's Treasures From The Nazis - Plot & Excerpts
But there was still much to do. The Western Allies had no tradition of working with a formalized group of Monuments officers. Even with Ike’s new order, they numbered just fifteen men in an army of hundreds of thousands. The transfer of MFAA headquarters from Sicily to Naples in February 1944 created an immediate need for additional officers. Deane Keller, still stuck in North Africa, finally received orders to report for his new assignment. No one bothered to tell him what that new assignment was, but his Priority status enabled him to escape the doldrums of Tizi Ouzou and board a ship for the mainland. He arrived on the evening of February 6 and reported for duty the following morning to the original Monuments Man, Mason Hammond. Keller “brought with him no copies of his travel orders or of any orders assigning him to the Subcommission [as] his assignment . . . was made verbally.” After eight months in his new assignment, very little about the ways of the United States Army surprised Hammond.
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