Videos re Combined Operations: Allied Landings at GEORGE Beach, Sicily, 1943

 Canadians in Combined Operations Served in Sicily, 1943

Photos and Videos of Exact Locations Seem Few and Far Between

'Preparing to land at HOW Beach', D-Day, Sicily, 10 July 1943

Photo - Major W. H. J. Sale, MC. National Army Museum

(HOW Beach was 1 - 2 miles south of GEORGE Beach)

Introduction:

The peaceful scene photographed above (if it was indeed taken on July 10, the first day of Allied landings along the eastern shores of Sicily) soon changed. Canadian sailors, members of RCNVR and Combined Operations who served at GEORGE and HOW Beaches aboard the 80th and 81st Canadian Flotillas of Landing Crafts (i.e., LCMs, Landing craft Mechanised) reported that the Luftwaffe (and quite possibly "Italian fighters") was soon on the scene. They returned every two hours to bomb and strafe Canadian crafts and all materials of war as it was being delivered ashore - for three straight days. 

My father, a member of the 80th Flotilla, writes the following:

July 10, 1943. We arrived off Sicily in the middle of the night and stopped about four miles out. Other ships and new LCIs (landing craft infantry), fairly large barges, were landing troops. Soldiers went off each side of the foc’sle, down steps into the water and then ashore, during which time we saw much tracer fire. This was to be our worst invasion yet. Those left aboard (in charge of LCMs and delivering to Monty's troops all material of war, set to go into action after LCAs finished delivering troops and their 'boots on the ground': Editor) had to wait until daylight so we went fishing for an hour or more, but there were no fish.

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 the vineyards. In my twenty-seven days there I did not see a glider intact.

We started unloading supplies with our LCMs 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. ("Ha! I say Ha!": Editor)

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.

Ephus 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 (William) Katanna, said Dieppe was never like this and hid under a winch. Shrapnel and bombs just rained down. (From "Dad, Well Done" page 31)

The videos assembled below - from the Imperial War Museum - do not depict the WWII bombing action but give us some idea what beachside areas were like in the 1940s. Today GEORGE Beach is a lovely town called Fontane Bianche and I would revisit the area again in a minute. In September, 2023 I visited the town and beach (with my younger son), found the cattle caves (grottazze) in which the Canadian sailors had found protection from the bombs, and then accommodation.

Photo of LIFE magazine as found in Museum of Allied Landings, in Catania

Editor added details in white lettering

Photo of GEORGE Sector or Beach, September 2023. GH

We walked north to Cape Ognina (red circle) but did not have time

to walk south to Cape Negra. Next time! Map - Catania Museum

Links to videos (located at the Imperial War Museum (IWM), UK) follow:

Film 1. Please click here: INVASION OF SICILY (LANDING)

Details available at IWM (AYY 502/1/3). 

Object description - The 17th Infantry Brigade after landing on Sicily.

Content description - Troops unloading stores and vehicles onto George Beach. Landing craft and men are directed by a man with a loudspeaker. A beach signal office. Troops making a road for vehicles to move up the beach.

Screen shot by GH:

Members of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR who were

also volunteers for Combined Operations) manned LCMs (Landing Craft

Mechanised) as part of the Canadian 80th Flotilla, at GEORGE Beach for

four weeks. Accommodation was found in cattle caves about 1 km to the 

right of this location on the beach (at modern day Fontane Bianche). GH

Film 2. Please click here: INVASION OF SICILY

Details available at IWM (AYY 500-4)
Object description: Troops landing south of Syracuse for the invasion of Sicily.

Content description - Troopships and motor transport ships at anchor with Assault Landing Craft passing, on "George" Beach. Men of the 2nd Battalion, Cameronians preparing to disembark from HMT Dunera. Men climbing down the ladder on the side of the ship into landing craft. Close up of men preparing to leave the deck and climb down the ladder. Men getting into a boat already half-filled with soldiers. The Assault Landing Craft moving off for the shore. View of the beach from an ALC. Men disembarking from ALCs and others already on the beach. View of the beach showing landing craft in the foreground and bigger transport in the background. Close up of men disembarking from ALCs panning to another beach scene. Italian prisoners removing their own barbed wire defences. Two Italian prisoners removing a stake, panning up to the crowd of shipping in the bay. A Priest gun and Bofor guns in the foreground and a large ship in the background at a Vehicle Assembly Park. Men of the 2nd Battalion Cameronians marching away from the beach. Men of the 13th Brigade, 2nd Inniskillings marching through the village of Cassibile. Close up of the men's faces as they pass through in single file. Sherman tanks passing men who are marching up to the front, raising up dust. A group of 125 Italian prisoners being led in by men of the Cameronians in the early hours of 11 July when taking the small town of Floridia.

Screen shots by GH:

Men climbing down the ladder on the side of the ship into landing craft. 

View of the beach showing landing craft in the foreground

and bigger transport in the background.

Same as above, slightly wider view of GEORGE Beach

A Priest gun and Bofor guns in the foreground and a large ship

in the background at a Vehicle Assembly Park.

[Please click here to view progress related to Allied troop movements inland up to July 15 - 16, 1943]

GEORGE Beach (from south toward the north), September, 2023 (GH)

Film 3. Please click here: INVASION OF SICILY (LANDING)

Details available at IWM (AYY 502/1/2)
Object description: Troops of the 17th Infantry Brigade landing on Sicily.

Content description - Troops leaving the parent ship. View of Sicily in the distance and the approaching shore. Various landing craft going ashore at George Beach. Troops disembarking from the landing craft.

Screen shots by GH:

"The parent ship." Boarded in or near Alexandria. Name unknown.

"Various landing craft going ashore at George Beach." These are Landing

Craft, Assault (LCAs) with troops aboard. Supplies come later on LCMs

"Various landing craft going ashore at George Beach." These are Landing

Craft (for) Infantry, Large (LCI(L)s). Olive groves in background*.

"Troops disembarking from the landing craft." [LCI(L)]

*Olive groves are mentioned in captions re still photographs revealing vehicles leaving GEORGE Beach after being unloaded from larger vessels (e.g. LCTs or LSTs). See below.

Please click here to view the above photo in context with GEORGE Beach.

Film 4. Please click here: INVASION OF SICILY

Details available at IWM (AYY 510/1)
Object description: The 24th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery in Syracuse, Sicily.

Content description - Troops embarking from HMS «Monarch of Bermuda» onto landing craft. Vessels arriving. Landing craft flying white ensign. Shot from interior of landing craft approaching and landing at George Beach. Troops disembarking from landing craft through the surf. Shots of the beach. Bulldozer at work rescuing vehicles.

Four screen shots of landing craft nearing George Beach, home to the 80th Flotilla of Canadian LCMs from July 10 - August 7, 1943:

Screen shot photos by GH

The first Italian prisoners taken by Commandos at Coastal Battery. Panning shot of civilian prisoners. Donkeys and horses in the street, including one with a plumed headdress. Priest and Sherman tanks being unloaded. Priest tanks landing from craft. Priest tanks firing.

Prisoners arriving in Syracuse, including officers and naval personnel. Officers standing in a doorway looking at the camera, one is smoking. Civilians looting houses and warehouses, and then being controlled by troops. The heavily bombed main street. Civilians drinking from a bomb crater in Syracuse.

Troops leaving landing craft and wading to shore. Italian prisoners being searched. Prisoners sitting on the grass. Women and children sitting under trees. Close up of children. A soldier walks past with a boy. Close up of a woman holding a toddler.

Troops running along by a wall. A soldier with a camouflaged helmet peers around the corner of the wall. A Sherman tank with an insignia and identification 'Clive'. Soldiers pass along the road followed by the tank. The tank crew wave at the camera. A Sicilian barber cuts a soldier's hair, watched by a crowd of other soldiers and civilians. Priest tanks firing in an orchard.

The infantry mopping up near Augusta. Soldiers looking out for snipers. Soldiers advancing from orchards. Troops discovering and testing water from wells in an orchard. Close up of water being stirred in a cup.

***

The last video shows a rather peaceful landing in the first 30 seconds or so. At some point on the first day of landing on George Beach enemy aircraft arrived, made a stiff impression on several Canadian sailors aboard (initially) LCAs and (later ) LCMs for 72 hours. A pillbox or two had to be silenced during the first 3 days and gradually work became a routine, ship to shore was completed in relative safety, and accommodation was found in two cattle caves - with a thick limestone roof.

My father wrote the following in memoirs:

Our beach had machine gun nests carved out of the ever-present limestone, with slots cut in them to cover our beaches. A few hand grenades tossed in during the night silenced them forever.

Slowly we took control and enemy raids were only sporadic, but usually at dawn or dusk when we couldn’t see them and they could see us. At such times we had to get out of our LCMs and lay smoke screens, and travelled the ocean side or beach side depending upon which way the wind was blowing. Even then they could see the masts sticking up. During one raid I was caught on the open deck of the Pio Pico, so I laid down - right on a boiling hot water pipe. I got up quickly.

A stick of Axis bombs lands near LCTs and LCMs near Avola, Sicily.

Photo credit - St. Nazaire to Singapore, Volume 1

We were never hit but six ships were hit in a sneak attack out of the sun by German fighters carrying a bomb apiece. At night they would drop chandelier flares with their engine motors cut off. Everything would be dark and then suddenly it was like daylight. The flares were on parachutes and took forever to come down. After the flares lighted us up in came the bombers. Fortunately our gunners got so expert they could shoot out the flares.

Our LCM was fortunate enough to pick up rum destined for the officers’ mess; but it never arrived there - we stowed it in the engine room. From then on we went six or seven miles up the beach at night, had a swim, slung our hammocks and drank ourselves to sleep, to awake in the morning covered with shrapnel, but never heard a sound.

One morning as we returned to the beach after a heavy bombing we noticed an LST with its bows completely gone and smouldering a bit. We went aboard to examine it and found under the rear canopy a sailor sound asleep in his hammock. After we awakened him he said he hadn’t heard a thing. The rest of the crew was missing.

Later we moved into a limestone cave, dank and wet, but safe from bombs. We hung a barrage balloon over it, about 1,000 feet up, and one sailor got drunk and shot it down but we had 50 - 60 feet of limestone over our heads. We used a pail of sand saturated with gasoline to heat our meals on if any food was available.

I had 27 days at Sicily living on tomatoes and Bully Beef. I swore I would kick the first bull I saw in Canada - right in the posterior - if I got back. Everywhere I looked there were anti-personal hand-sized grenades that needed only to be touched to go off. They were built to maim and not kill because it takes men to look after the wounded, but if you’re dead, you’re dead. We threw tomatoes at a lot and exploded them in that manner.

"Dad, Well Done" pages 32-33

George Beach circled in yellow. A road can be seen going NE from

the beach to Cassibile. Yellow arrow points to the ridge of land that

is home to 'Grottazze' (underlined in red) or "lizardly" cattle caves

More videos (with relevant excerpts from sailors' memoirs) to follow if found, e.g., related to Canadian sailors at other locations, e.g., Sicily or Italy, in the Mediterranean Sea in 1943.

Please link to more videos related to Sicily - Videos: Operation HUSKY, Sicily, July 1943 (Part 3)

Unattributed Photos GH

Photographs: Allied Landings at GEORGE and HOW Beaches, Sicily, 1943 (2)

Canadians in Combined Operations in Sicily, Operation HUSKY

Beginning July 10, 1943 the 80th and 81st Flotillas Got to Work!

2nd Battalion, The Seaforth Highlanders (The Ross-Shire Buffs,

Duke of Albany's), embarking at Sousse (N. Africa) 5 July, 1943

Photo Credit - National Army Museum, Study collection

Introduction:

A day or two prior to the invasion of Sicily (Operation HUSKY, beginning July 10, 1943) my father and mates in RCNVR and Combined Operations boarded a troop ship in/near Alexandria, Egypt - along with their landing crafts, some on deck, some hanging from davits - and, due to tight quarters, and within minutes were likely rubbing shoulders with the Seaforth Highlanders and other members of Monty's Eighth Army, destined to land at several beaches along the east coast of Sicily. 

LCAs leave HMS Rocksand, a landing ship (loaded with LCAs

"hanging from davits"). Photo Credit - Wikipedia

Maps, timelines, descriptions of various types of landing zones had been produced and handed to officers on an endless supply of large ships that made up a huge armada, the largest in history up to that date.

Note with photo at top of page: After embarking at Sousse in Tunisia, the 2nd Battalion landed in Sicily on 10 July as part of 152nd Infantry Brigade of the 51st (Highland) Division. Operation HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily, was one of the largest amphibious assaults of World War Two. From a collection of 650 photographs compiled by the Commando Association. National Army Museum, Study collection

The armada - filled with ships of every description - carried troops and landing crafts and guns and munitions and materials of war by the ton. 

Some would say, "They came loaded for bear!" And I am glad they did. In his Navy memoirs my father wrote that "once, with our LCM (landing craft, mechanised) loaded with high octane gas and a Lorrie, we were heading for the beach when we saw machine gun bullets stitching the water right towards us. Fortunately, an LST (landing ship tank) loaded with bofors opened up and scared off the planes, or we were gone if the bullets had hit the gas cans. I was hiding behind a truck tire, so was Joe Watson of Simcoe. What good would that have done?"

Bofors gun on the upper deck of a Landing Ship Tank (LST), Sousse

harbour, July 1943. National Army Museum, Study collection

Note with above photo: Sousse in Tunisia was used by the Allies as a port (Editor - one of many) prior to the invasion of Sicily. The Bofors 40 mm gun was the most widely used Allied anti-aircraft gun of the war. The gun was quick firing, reliable and versatile. It had sufficient punch to knock out all types of aircraft and yet was light enough to be adapted to a mobile role. From a collection of 650 photographs compiled by the Commando Association*.

(*Help Wanted: Location of 650 photos re Commando Assoc. Contact Editor at gordh7700@gmail.com)

Please click here to read a news report about Joe Watson's WWII experiences. It is entitled 'Joe Watson, RCNVR and Combined Operations, 1941 - 1945': "A German Plane... Strafed Us With Machine Gun Fire"

Landing craft of the Sicily invasion armada setting sail, July 1943

Photo Credit - National Army Museum, Study Collection

Note with above photo: The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, began on 9 July 1943, and ended on 17 August. At the time it was the largest amphibious operation of the war.

I believe this photograph was taken from a vantage point on a Landing Craft (for), Infantry (Large), aka (LCI,(L). One can see a new innovation re landing crafts, i.e., a ramp on both sides of the bow to make disembarkation of troops faster and easier. Two winches, one per ramp, can be seen inside the yellow oval that I've added to the photograph. First off the ramp in some cases would be a sailor hauling a rope toward the beach, giving the disembarking troops something to grab, to help them maintain their balance/direction while they moving toward the beach.

Next is a photo from the same time period with troops disembarking from an LCI(L) using one of the onboard ramps:

Men of 51st Highland Division wading ashore during the invasion of

Sicily, 10 July 1943. Photo - National Army Museum, Study collection

Note with above photo: The division, part of 30 Corps, landed at the south-east tip of the island near Pachino on 10 July. The landing was largely unopposed and the division soon pressed inland to secure the bridgehead. From a collection of 650 photographs compiled by the Commando Association.

Perhaps the new innovation, i.e., ramps at the bow, caught my father's eye, as one very used to the LCMs of the Canadian 80th Flotilla (with one ramp across the front of the craft. See photo below).

Troops and material of war disembarking from an LST (landing ship for

tanks), onto a rhino deck, centre. One LCM (front right) lands as well.

And about the LCI (L)s in Sicily my father writes:

July 10, 1943. We arrived off Sicily in the middle of the night and stopped about four miles out. Other ships and new LCIs (landing craft infantry), fairly large barges, were landing troops. Soldiers went off each side of the foc’sle, down steps into the water and then ashore, during which time we saw much tracer fire. This was to be our worst invasion yet. Those left aboard had to wait until daylight so we went fishing for an hour or more, but there were no fish. (Is Dad fishing for a pat on the back? From "Dad, Well Done"  page 31)

 

The vast armada gradually took positions up and down the eastern and along the southern shores of Sicily. A few photos by a Major Sales lead toward beaches where many Canadians in Combined Operations served:

'Invasion shipping off Sicily', 10 O'Clock, D-Day, 10 July, 1943

Photo Credit - Major Wilfred Herbert James Sale, MC, 3rd/4th County

of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), World War Two, Italy, 1943.

Note with above photo: Transported on American-built 'Landing Ships, Tank', or 'LSTs', sailing from North Africa, the 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) landed in Sicily on 10 July 1943 as part of 4th Armoured Brigade, fighting their way across the island as the Italian and German defenders retreated towards the Straits of Messina. The surviving Axis forces evacuated the island by 17 August.

From an album containing 246 photographs compiled by Major Wilfred Herbert James Sale, MC, 3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters). National Army Museum, Study collection.

Major Sale and some of his 246 photographs were introduced to readers in Part 1 of this series re GEORGE and HOW Beaches. And if I find more photos of GEORGE Beach - where my father loaded and unloaded landing crafts for about four weeks - readers here will be the first to know.

In this post I am sharing some I have found so far that focus on activities at HOW Beach. The quality is quite good and, according to WWII and modern day maps HOW Beach appears to be only about 2 miles south of where GEORGE Beach was located.

Map belonging to Bill Lindsay, RCNVR/Combined Operations, member

of the 81st Canadian Flotilla of LCMs. Found in St. Nazaire to Singapore,

The Canadian Amphibious War 1941 - 1945, Volume 1, page 179

The 'Green' section of HOW Beach is at/near modern day Gallina. 'Red' and 'Amber' sections are farther south. GEORGE Beach (incl. Green, Red and Amber sections) is found to the north, is also highlighted in black at the top, right-side of the map and was home to the 80th Flotilla of Canadian LCMs and is now known as modern day Fontane Bianche.

Below are six more photos taken by Major Wilfred Herbert James Sale, MC, 3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), World War Two, Italy, 1943:

'Preparing to land at How beach', D-Day, Sicily, 10 July 1943

National Army Museum, Study collection

'Preparing to land at Howe beach', D-Day, Sicily, 10 July 1943

National Army Museum

'Landing ship. Going ashore', D-Day, Sicily, 10 July 1943

National Army Museum

'Landing on Howe Beach', D-Day, Sicily, 10 July 1943

National Army Museum

The town of Cassibile was inland, just a few miles west of GEORGE and north-west of HOW Beach. Perhaps Sale's next set of photos will skip passed GEORGE Beach in order to follow the troops - and not the sailors!

3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) cross a Bridge

near Cassibile, Sicily, July 1943. National Army Museum

Note with the above photo: According to the unit war diary, 41 of 50 tanks were landed on 10 July 1943. Resistance on the ground and from the air was limited. Cassibile and the high ground to the west of the village were among the initial objectives of the Sharpshooters following their successful amphibious landing.

If my hunt for more photos by Major Sale at GEORGE and HOW Beach is successful, they will appear here in the (near?) future.

Please click here to view Photographs: Allied Landings at GEORGE and HOW Beaches, Sicily, 1943 (1)

Unattributed Photos GH 

Books re Combined Ops: The Far Distant Ships (2)

"The Newly Arriving Canadians..." Landed at Greenock, Scotland

"They entered upon their first training at H.M.S. Tormentor"

Original caption: "Chuck Rose, Grenock central station, Glasgow 1942"

Photo used with permission from Joe Spencer's family, Ontario

From Greenock to HMCS Niobe, then to Hayling Island

Introduction:

For me, the book entitled The Far Distant Ships by Joseph Schull is a fine Canadian Navy history book as well as a powerful flashlight. Related to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) and their significant role during WWII, this book is a prime source of information published in 1950, five years after the war's end. Also, it shines a light on many important details and activities that involved approximately 1,000 members of the RCNVR who started volunteering for a British organization called Combined Operations beginning in December, 1941, including my father, a 21-year-old sailor from the wee village of Norwich, Ontario.

He signed up for duty in Hamilton (at Hamilton Division 1, later renamed HMCS Star) and later, in June of 1941 along with most members of the Effingham Division (out of HMCS Stadacona, Halifax NS) volunteered for Combined Operations.

They were the first draft or division of Canadian sailors to do so, and were soon shipped off to the UK for initial training about - and later aboard - landing crafts.

The Effingham Division at HMCS Stadacona, 1941. Property of

Doug Harrison (bottom 3rd left; died February 6, 2003, age 83)

and son Gord H. age 76 in London, Ontario, Canada

Joseph Schull writes:

From Chapter 7 "Operation Torch", page 145

That there were "some already in England" (see above) may be interpreted to mean 'very few.' There is a book of Canadian Navy veterans' stories entitled St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War 1941 - 1945 (edited by David Lewis, Len Birkenes, Kit Lewis, mid-1990s) that shares some (3 pages) about the early entrants to Combined Operations and I found 4 verifiable names mentioned.

On page iii of the Forward of Volume 1 above I read the following:

     Another end (i.e., re collecting and sharing veterans' stories concerning Combined Operations, WWII) was to gain an historical perspective, a task which we tried to set ourselves but which was not or incompletely accomplished. We would like to have followed up all those of the ranks and ratings who left Canada for training in the RN, many to earn commissions. Could we have learned about the Canadians in the series of pin-prick raids of ''Winston's Murder Gangs" as they were termed by (renowned author) Evelyn Waugh who was for some while tolerated by the Commandos as one of their members? 

Several Canadians (meaning four up to that date?), particularly John O'Rourke and perhaps others, were active in the dangerous but remarkably effective attack on Saint Nazaire which occurred in early 1942, an historical achievement in itself. These brave men are mentioned further on.

'Further on' could mean pages 37 - 39 in Volume I of the two book series that David Lewis helped compile and publish. John O'Rourke and 3 others - Surgeon-Lieut. W. J. Winthrop of Saskatoon (posthumous Mention in Despatches), Lt. G. McN. Baker, RCNVR from Toronto (posthumous Mention in Despaptches), and Lt. D.L Davies of Montreal (casualty and Prisoner of War) - are mentioned in an account re the St. Nazaire raid and an excerpt from a volume of Salty Dips (4).

The first paragraph of the account follows:

Please click here to link to Volume 1 of St. Nazaire to Singapore Vol. 1

and go to pages 37 - 39 to read more about the raid and Canada's role

St. Nazaire is listed on a stone memorial found on the original site of HMS Quebec (Combined Operations Number 1 Training Camp) just south of Inveraray, Scotland:

Photo by G. Harrison while visiting HMS Quebec, 2012, with Geoff Slee

and Jim Jepson and their wives during a trip overseas from Canada

(Questions or comments about the above can be sent to gordh7700@gmail.com)

I will try to find more information about the four earliest Canadian entrants to Combined Operations, names mentioned above in the Salty Dips. 

Schull mentioned "They (i.e., "the newly-arriving Canadians") entered upon their first training at HMS Tormentor, the combined operations (camp? base?) which was now established at Northney east of Southampton." In my father's memoirs and stories from another sailor HMS Tormentor (#31 on the map below) is not mentioned but they both mention HMS Northney (#29), located on Hayling Island, south of the city of Havant.

Map - found in Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks

(See details about Clayton's text here)

Another map of the location of training camps can be found here.

By way of reading memoirs of two young Canadian sailors, members of the first and second drafts to Combined Operations, we can learn a wee bit about their first lessons re landing crafts:

Please click here to view some of the details that I have compiled about training on Hayling Island. And, please click here to view Arts of War: Drawings of Landing Crafts, and D-Day 1944 which depicts the first landing crafts Canadians saw - in drawings - at HMS Northney (I - V) in early 1942.

About Northney I my father writes the following in memoirs:

We spent little time at Niobe but entrained for Havant in southern England, to H.M.S. Northney 1, a barracks (formerly a summer resort, is also again today) with a large building for eating and then cabins with four bedrooms. This was January, 1942 and there was no heat at all in the brick cabins. The toilets all froze and split. But we made out. Our eating quarters were heated.

I had the misfortune to break the toe next to my big toe on my left foot. I went to sick bay and someone applied mercurochrome, told me to carry out my usual duties and sent me away. Running, guard duty, anything, I toughed it out and was told many months later by a Scottish doctor it had healed perfectly - and so it had.

Doug on guard duty at Northney with “a rifle with no ammunition”

We were issued brooms for guard duty in some cases at Northney, sometimes a rifle with no ammunition, and they were expecting a German invasion. Rounds were made every night outside by officers to see if we were alert and we would holler like Hell, “Who goes there? Advance and be recognized.” When you hollered loud enough you woke everyone in camp, so sentry duty was not so lonesome for a few minutes.

There was no training here (at Northney), so, as the navy goes, we went back to Niobe on March 21, 1942. I recall just now we were welcomed to Niobe by Lord Hee Haw (a turncoat) from Germany via the wireless radio.

Thence to H.M.S. Quebec barracks in Ayrshire, Scotland on Loch Fyne. ("Dad, Well Done", pages 11 - 12)

About H.M.S. Northney another Canadian sailor writes:

After a few days at the Greenock base, we were posted to HMS Northney III on Hayling Island near Portsmouth on the south coast of England. The purpose was training and it was there that we discovered we had 'volunteered' to operate Landing Craft for future raids and landings under the auspices of Combined Operations. While there, Portsmouth and Southampton came under heavy bombing raids, courtesy of the Luftwaffe. What an unforgettable sight it was with ack ack fire arcing upwards and bombs dropping. Large piles of timber, located in uninhabited places around the cities, were set alight during bombing raids. This was to confuse German bombers into thinking that the fires were part of the cities marked by their Pathfinders and to have them release their bombs where they would do little or no damage.

Some nights I stood guard duty at the end of a long pier, as lookout for German raiding parties. In the lonely darkness of the night, this inexperienced 18 year old discovered the power of the imagination! It seemed that the end of the watch would never come.... I was gaining a sense of the terrible nature of modern warfare, as I realised in my imaginings how easily they could be turned into brutal and bloody reality.

At the end of the training period, around February or March 1942, we returned to HMCS Niobe for a few weeks until our next training base was ready for us. In peacetime the building was an old insane asylum and a hospital. While there, I worked in the pantry, so I was able to 'procure' the odd half-pound of butter for my friends in Renfrew. Glasgow was a popular hangout for the Canadian Navy. It was then a big dirty seaport but we always felt quite welcome. The Lacarno Dance Hall was a favourite haunt, where we were sure to find out what Canadian ships were in port. Surprisingly, the Lacarno was a 'dry' dance hall but one of the best for dancing, the main part of the floor being built on springs. The 'no alcohol' rule was enforced at the door too. A hostess, in a fancy tux, stood guard with a cane, which she used to tap pockets for concealed bottles. One night she tapped my jacket as usual and thought she had found a bottle. When she discovered it was a .45 Smith & Wesson, she immediately checked it for me until I left.

Lloyd Evans at home in Ottawa (before or after 1942?)

Atop their landing craft (in England?), Canadians in Combined Ops

Lloyd Evans (back row, 2nd from right), Doug Harrison (front right)

Lloyd auditions for the house band at Lacarno Dance Hall?

Photos from the Lloyd Evan's Collection, with permission

In April '42, we returned to the familiar surroundings of Hayling Island, only this time to HMS Northney I a few miles from the first base we'd used. This one had previously been a summer holiday camp of chalets with two bedrooms, a small sink in each room and no heating. In the winter months, there was usually an icicle hanging from the tap when we arose in the mornings! I used my navy mattress at night in an often vain attempt to keep warm. Meals were served in a large central dining room, which was a welcome relief from the cold. The RN types couldn’t imagine why we complained about the cold, since we came from the land of ice and snow - not appreciating that our Canadian homes were, out of absolute necessity, well insulated and properly heated.

Like the proverbial yo-yo, we returned to Scotland but this time to HMS Quebec situated on the shores of Loch Fyne near Inveraray. (My Naval Chronicle by Lloyd Evans, page 9, with a big assist from Geoff Slee, Scotland)

My father does not write about holding over as did Lloyd at HMCS Niobe, a Canadian land establishment (likely a transit depot) in Scotland, or the return trip to Northney for a second round of training. Later, when in Scotland, my father writes extensively about training aboard landing crafts in Irvine - and Lloyd does not. Where they assigned to different flotillas with a different schedule at times? I can only guess. Questions or comments are welcome here - gordh7700@gmail.com 

Schull writes that the small first draft of Canadian officers and ratings next went on to HMS Quebec for more advanced training "at Inveraray in Scotland." Many accounts have been written and many photographs have been taken to inform us about the Number 1 Training Camp for Combined Operations.

 

SS Ettrick, used for Combined Ops. training, at Inveraray, Scotland

Link to Geoff Slee's website about Combined Ops training there.

After his time at HMS Northney (perhaps even HMS Tormentor both relatively close together on England's south coast) my father moved north to at least 5 camps related to Combined Operations in north-west Scotland. (He recalls time at HMS Quebec (near Inveraray), Camp Auchengate (near Irvine), Chamois (just south of HMS Quebec), Roseneath and another camp on Loch Long, possibly related to training with commandos.

He was moved about so often he had trouble with setting clear timelines for where he was and when. I do know that he  did not complain about the hard work related to the training he went through aboard landing crafts. 

He writes about leaving HMS Northney (south) to go north:

Thence to H.M.S. Quebec barracks in Ayrshire, Scotland on Loch Fyne. We were all in good shape and this was to be one of the more memorable camps, with our first actual work and introduction to landing barges. We trained on ALCs (assault landing crafts) which carried approximately 37 soldiers and a crew of four, i.e., Coxswain, two seamen and stoker. Some carried an officer.

Troops train on landing craft at Loch Fyne, south of Inveraray

Scotland, 1942. Photo credit - Imperial War Museum (IWM)

Boy, but was it dark up there amongst the heather and the hills. As well, gambling in any form was not allowed in the navy for fear the losers might steal, but a friendly game of craps with pennies was going on one night when rounds were being made. O/S Bradfield of Simcoe, the winner, couldn’t sweep the pennies under his hat fast enough and was caught and severely punished.

We did much running up on beaches so soldiers could disembark and re-embark, always watching the tide if it was flowing in or going out. You could be easily left high and dry, or broach too, if you weren’t constantly alert. We took long trips at night in close single formation, like ducks closed up close, because all you could see was the florescent waters churned up by propellors of an ALC or LCM (landing craft mechanized) ahead.

ALCs carried soldiers and LCMs carried soldiers or a truck, a Bren gun carrier, supplies, land mines, gasoline, etc. ALCs were made of 3/16th inch plating, thick enough to stop a .303. LCMs wouldn’t stop a bullet. ALCs sat three rows of soldiers including two outside rows under 3/16th inch cowling, but the center row was completely exposed.

We clambered up scrambling nets and Jacob’s ladders and became very proficient because we learned to just use our hands. We did this training on a liner called the Ettrick, which we will hear more about later on. Her free board was high, i.e., the distance between the water line and hand rails, and we got so it took about three seconds to drop 25 - 30 feet on scrambling nets. ("Dad, Well Done", pages 12 - 13)

Please click on the following links to read more details concerning Doug Harrison's training (and other activities, e.g., while on leave) connected to Inveraray, Irvine, etc.

 
Memoirs re Combined Operations "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (3)

Memoirs re Combined Operations "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (4)

Memoirs re Combined Operations: "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (6)

While on leave Doug Harrison would travel to 'Dragon' (his spelling) with the son of the Cricksmere family (see above links) for "last call." In my opinion, after checking with a friendly gent at my favourite pub in Irvine (when on my trip to Scotland in 2012) - about the Scottish pronunciation of the village near Irvine seen in the postcard below - my father did not travel to 'Dragon' at all!

"So, how do you pronounce the name of this village down the road?" I asked.

"Drraaygun!" he says.

More information and WWII Combined Ops History will follow from The Far Distant Ships by J. Schull, as time permits : )

Please click here to view Books re Combined Operations: The Far Distant Ships (1)

Unattributed Photos GH