["Landings in Sicily and Italy, 1943", COMBINED
OPERATIONS, by Clayton Marks, London Ontario]
My father was good with dates. When he sat down in 1975 to write the story of his time in the Royal Canadian Navy (with the Volunteer Reserve, RCNVR, and the group called Combined Operations) he said, "March 1, 1941 I left my employment at the Norwich Co-op and joined the Navy..." He later mentioned the exact date of his discharge, i.e., September 5, 1945, the day before his 25th birthday.
I recently recalled that this month contains a significant date related to my father's experiences with the RCNVR. Seventy years ago, or to be precise, on July 10, 1943, my father was on a landing craft off the shores of southeastern Sicily and perhaps preparing himself for the worst thing that could happen to him during D - Day Sicily, the invasion of the German occupied island just off the toe of the boot of Italy. His memoirs contain detailed notes about some of the events pertaining to the landing (as well as events that occurred during the 27 days that followed):
"A signal came through, i.e., 'do not fire on low flying aircraft,
they are ours and towing gliders'. What, in the dark? Next
morning, as we slowly moved in, we saw gliders everywhere.
I saw them sticking out of the water, crashed on land and
in vineyards. In my twenty-seven days there I did not see
a glider intact. We started unloading supplies with our LCMs
(landing craft mechanized) about a half mile off the beach,
and then the worst began - German bombers. We were
bombed 36 times in the first 72 hours - at dusk, at night,
at dawn and all day long, and they said we had complete
command of the air."
Page 31, "DAD, WELL DONE": The Naval Memoirs of Leading
Seaman Coxswain Gordon Douglas Harrison,
by Gordon A. Harrison
This second of four Allied D - Days ultimately resulted in driving German troops from the island country, but not before they'd inflicted fatal wounds upon many soldiers, sailors and airmen belonging to British, American and Canadian forces.
["Avola, south of Syracuse, Sicily. A very hot spot"]
My father, a member of Combined Ops and the 80th Flotilla, unloaded supplies from assorted landing crafts under heavy bombing near the beach town of Avola and survived to tell a tale often filled with carnage:
"We fired at everything. I saw P38s, German and Italian fighters
and my first dogfights. Stukas blew up working parties on
the beach once when I was only about one hundred feet out.
Utter death and carnage.
Our American gun crews had nothing but coffee for three
or four days and stayed close to their guns all the time.
I give them credit.
Epus P. Murphy's pet monkey went mad and we put it in
a bag of sand meant to douse incendiary bombs and threw
him over the side. The Russian Stoker on our ship, named
Katanna, said Dieppe was never like this and hid under a
winch. Shrapnel and bombs just rained down."
Page 31, "DAD, WELL DONE"
["Stoker Katanna's hammock from S.S. Silver Walnut; it is now
stored at the Naval Museum in Esquimalt, B.C." Photo 2012, GH]
Reminiscences of a Canadian LCM Flotilla Engineer Officer fill in more details related to D - Day Sicily:
"It was in the second air attack on 'D' day that our Flotilla Officer
and his crew narrowly escaped annihilation. Jake (Koyle) had just
beached his boat and was engaged in off-loading the vehicle it
carried when a dive-bomber attacked the beach. An LCT (landing
craft for tanks) was unloading a few yards to port and an LST
(landing ship for tanks) only a few yards to starboard.
The bombs dropped so close to Jake's LCM that the blast carried
right over their heads, but completely wiped the bridge off the
LST and killed the entire personnel on the LCT, with the exception
of one Officer, who was very badly shrapnelled and burned."
Pg. 95, COMBINED OPERATIONS by Clayton Marks, London.
As Allied forces gained a foothold they pushed the Germans north and toward Italy. But much hardship was endured all along the way, seventy years ago.
Photos by GH
***
Please click here to read July 1943 - Sicily (1)
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