Distinctly Montana Magazine

31 w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m U.S. declared war against Japan, Germany, and Italy, and Fort Missoula's Italians had hundreds of new, Japanese neighbors. Japanese detainees faced a different experience from the Ital- ians. Where many of the Italians were young and unmarried, the Japanese were older, with families, businesses, or farms. Unlike the Italians, most were legal American residents, plucked from their homes. During their Montana detention, they faced a level of prejudice that the Italians did not. The two groups slept in separate barracks. They ate in different mess halls. They worked different camp jobs. But historic photo- graphs reflect a modicum of cultural exchange. We see Japanese detainees offering judo and baseball lessons. The Japanese were welcome to attend Catholic mass. The same went for the Italians and Buddhist ceremonies. By 1942, the war effort needed Montana's agricultural products, timber, and other resources. Labor, though, lacked to meet de- mands. Close to 10% of all Montanans left to serve in World War II. Montana's population, moreover, had shrunk since the end of World War I. Detainees at Fort Missoula grew conspicuous as untapped labor. Authorities began clearing the camp's Italians for off-campus work. They reported for jobs with the railroad, Forest Service, logging camps, sugar beet farms in places like the Bitterroot, and others. Some worked locally, at places like St. Patrick's Hospi- tal. With both its chef and sous chef at war, Missoula's Florence Hotel gained an Italian passenger ship's kitchen workers, the then-manager Mary Bell told UM student Susan Buchel in a 1979 interview. Cipolato harvested sugar beets in Gold Creek. Bened- etti worked at the Columbus Hospital in Great Falls. After Italy surrendered in September 1943, many of the fort's Ital- ians hung around Missoula awaiting return home. Judging by lo- cal press of the time, band leader Vittorio Beccaria played piano across town in this interim. Father Alfredo Bruno assisted in reli- gious capacities. In An Alien Place, Carol Van Valkenburg notes the romances that blossomed at this time. "In May 1945," she writes, "dozens of women stood on the Northern Pacific platform and wept as a train left for New York, carrying the remaining Ital- ians from Fort Missoula who were being repatriated back to Italy." Some fought in the war for the Allies. Some received American cit- izenship. A very small fraction stuck around Montana. Benedetti gained citizenship before serving in the Korean War. On the G.I. Bill, he attended college in California. He taught high school art and languages in Miles City. Then he returned to Mis- soula in 1970, where he remained. He wrote several books across different genres. Among them: Italian Boys at Fort Missoula, Montana 1941-1943. In July 1944, Fort Missoula closed its internment camp. Some Italians returned home. Others started new lives in America. A handful stayed in Montana. Eletra Vandeberg says her father, Alfredo Cipolato, met her mother, Ann D'Orazi, while singing in St. Francis Xavier's church choir in Missoula. They married in 1943. In the 1950s, Ann and Alfredo first leased the Broadway Market from Ann's uncle. The Broadway Market became a Missoula institution. Into his nine- ties, Cipolato worked at the store and stayed active with Missou- la musical organizations. Irises they planted over eighty years ago still emerge in the springtime.

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