Martin Adler in 1944, northern Italy, with Bruno, Mafalda and Giuliana Naldi
But for a moment’s hesitation, he would have shot them dead with his submachine gun.
Fortunately, caution prevailed and 76 years on, an American former GI has been reunited with the three children whose lives he spared as he slogged through the mud and rain of the Italian campaign.
Martin Adler was a 20-year-old infantryman when he and a comrade burst into a house in northern Italy as their battalion advanced against fierce German resistance.
It was autumn 1944, and their unit was attacking well dug-in positions along the Gothic Line, a defensive corridor set up by the hard-pressed Germans through the Apennines.
With their fingers on the triggers of their Thompson machine guns, they heard a rustling behind a large wicker basket and were about to open fire, thinking that German soldiers were hiding in the house, when an Italian woman burst in screaming “bambini, bambini, don’t shoot!”
The soldiers raised their weapons and from the basket emerged three terrified children – a six-year-old boy named Bruno Naldi and his sisters Giuliana, five, and Mafalda, three.
Italian journalist (at the back) with Bruno, Mafalda and Giuliana Naldi
Mr Adler and his comrade, John Bronsky, managed to calm them down, offering them pieces of chocolate.
Mr Adler had his photograph taken with the three siblings – after their mother had insisted on dressing them up in their best clothes.
The memory stayed with him through the decades and a few days ago, at the age of 96, he decided to try to track down the Italians, wondering if they were still alive.
“I would like to see what they made of themselves,” he said. “I hope they did something spectacular because God was really looking after the four of us. Actually the five of us, because my buddy ‘Bronk’ was there with me and he would have shot also. These kids came out, scared, more scared than we were. We were ready to fire,” said Mr Adler, who grew up in the Bronx, New York.
Putting aside his weapon and playing with the children for a little while “was the most beautiful moment in the hell of that war.”
A second photo of Martin Adler with the Naldi children
His daughter, Rachelle, put out an appeal on social media that was picked up by the Italian media.
In a remarkably short time, two of the three siblings recognised themselves in newspaper stories and managed to contact Mr Adler through a local journalist, Matteo Incerti.
The ex-soldier and the children who hid behind the wicker basket, now in their seventies and eighties, were reunited on a video call on Monday.
“Ciao Giuliana, Bruno, Mafalda. How are you?” the former GI said from Boca Raton in Florida, where he now lives, with palm trees swaying in the background against a blue sky. Bruno Naldi, now aged 83, replied “Ciao Martin.”
The Italian siblings, who live in a town called Castel San Pietro, said they recognised Mr Adler as soon as they saw him, despite the passing of nearly 80 years since their last encounter.
“The Americans were so lovely,” said Mafalda. “They were always picking us up and cuddling us.” The siblings remembered a monkey that the 85th Division had as a mascot.
They also remembered the Wehrmacht searching their house for weapons prior to the arrival of the American liberators.
Mr Adler, whose family were Hungarian Jews who emigrated to the US after the First World War, said that once the pandemic ends, he would like to visit Italy and meet the siblings in person.
Mr Bronsky, the other soldier, was not part of the reunion, having passed away recently.
The two young men fought with the 85th Infantry Division, known as the Custer Division after the legendary 7th Cavalry commander George Custer.
The division served in French Morocco before being sent to Italy, fighting around Naples and then steadily advancing north, smashing through the Germans’ Gustav Line and entering Rome in June 1944.
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