Dad's Navy Days: August 1943 - Sicily (6)

[Sicily and Italy: photo at en.wikipedia.org]

Seventy years ago, during the first week of August, the buzz between Canadian Navy men unloading WW2 materials on the beaches near Syracuse, Sicily likely related to when they were scheduled to leave: "I bet it's in a few days, maybe to Malta. A birdie told me Messina (in NE Sicily, opposite the toe of Italy's boot) is almost in our hands. When it is, we're gone."

After digesting that bit of news my father and many of his buddies likely started organizing their gear and taking last looks at their surroundings on the island, and specific places that had been their home for almost four weeks. I have to look at a few separate parts of my father's notes and newspaper columns to get a good picture of where he lived during that time and it appears he lived in two places, i.e., upon the beaches and at The Savoy.  

["The Savoy London. I say, great digs!":

photo at wikimedia.org]

That being said, in a newspaper interview conducted shortly after returning to Canada in December, 1943, father shared not one word about his living conditions while in Sicily, other than a few hints in this part of the report:

     The Sicilian invasion he described as plenty hot. "We had 72

     air raids in 36 hours," he said. "We were bombed for three

     or four hours at a stretch, every night and every morning

     for a month, from the time the invasion started July 10.

     We found the people of Sicily in bad condition, nearly starving.

     We practically kept them, with our own food. I saw boys 19

     years old, only as big as Canadian boys of 11 or 12. They

     were begging for food all the time."
     [The Brantford Expositor, December 1943]  

Father doesn't say where he lived but surely it had to be somewhere safe and where a few food supplies were available. But in another news interview (along with another man from Norwich), though he does say a few words about his accommodations, he doesn't reveal all:

     After the fall of Sicily the boys landed and set up house-

     keeping. They were then able to get fresh fruit... there

     was plenty of firewood and they did their cooking in biscuit

     tins. Aboard the barges they had used these tins as stoves...

     On shore they swung their hammocks between the trees and

     since there were not enough nets to go around, treated

     themselves with anti-mosquito ointment. While camping here

     they met LAC Bill Donnelly, also of Norwich...

     [London Free Press, Feb. 5, 1944]

Readers are left with the impression that the Canadian Navy men spent their month in Sicily living and sleeping upon the beaches. Not one word was shared about The Savoy until a much later date.

More to follow.

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Please click here to read Dad's Navy Days: July 1943 - Sicily (5)