Operation Baytown and Operation Avalanche in The Med
Operation Baytown (e.g., at Reggio, on Italy's toe) began on Sept. 3, 1943
Operation Avalanche (at Salerno, Italy's shin) began on September 9th.
Drawing is found in Eclipse by Alan Moorehead, page 32
Introduction:
Allied forces (mainly British, Canadian, American) invaded Italy at several landing sites, beginning on September 3rd at Reggio di Calabria and shortly thereafter at Taranto (Italy's heel) and Salerno (Italy's shin), over 200 miles north of Reggio (see the drawing above).
British General Montgomery had the easier time of it, as his British and Canadian troops (led by Gen. Simonds) landed on beaches from Scilla (north of Reggio) to Melito (south) without facing much opposition. Six days later, American General Clark and US and UK troops had their hands full as some of the passages from Lionel Shapiro's book will reveal (i.e., They Left the Back Door Open).
community prostrate." A view of a Leonforte street (Sicily) where house
fighting raged bitterly. circa August, 1943. Photo - L. Shapiro, pg. 63
Shortly after Sicily was in Allied hands in late August, 1943, up and down the north-eastern coast from Messina to Catania could be seen landing crafts and other ships in many coves and inlets as preparations were made to invade Italy's mainland.
War's negative effects were seen and felt throughout 'shattered and prostrate communities' in Sicily and Shapiro writes tellingly about it. [Eighty years later, in 2020, film director and writer Fabrizio Sergi of Santa Teresa di Riva (on Sicily's coast south of Taormina, where Shapiro was housed for a time) published a book entitled Charlie Beach that reveals the long-lasting impact of war in that region.]
Fabrizio Sergi, Santa Teresa and Charlie Beach, in May, 2020
I was privileged to write the book's preface. Photo - F. Sergi
Passages from They Left the Back Door Open take us back to mid-late August:
Fascism is Defeated But Sicily Still Suffers
The period of relaxation for our troops
was a period of partial recovery for some Sicilian people.
Their relief in discovering that the Anglo-American monsters
of Fascist propaganda were in reality good-natured souls
was followed by a wave of profiteering.
Merchants in Catania increased prices 300 per cent
in two weeks and were waxing rich.
Housewives did a roaring laundry business.
My own laundry, done by a farmer's wife in a little house
on the Catania plain, cost more than I paid at London's Savoy.
No one thought of protesting.
Along the seashore between Catania and Taormina,
it was bank holiday with wartime overtones.
Our troops strolled arm in arm with local girls.
Our jeeps and trucks were filled with refugees being returned
to their homes. Thousands of Italian troops, unofficially released by
our forces, wandered around morosely in their bedraggled uniforms...
...It is not my intention to give the impression
that the end of fighting and the behaviour of our troops
transformed Sicily into a rich and happy island.
Merchants who made money in the Catania and Palermo areas
were an infinitesimal percentage of a ruined and scattered population.
Amgot officials (Allied military government...) in small hinterland towns
found their offices besieged by men begging food, a place for
their families to live, and the merest hope for the future.
We had smashed Fascism and the system of economic slavery...
After 21 years of Fascist discipline, these people were lost
in the halls of their liberty. It was not an easy problem.
There was much suffering in Sicily...
...One faultless morning late in August
the placid air was rent by a woman's scream, horrendous and chilling.
A few of us dashed out of the manor house we had requisitioned.
The scream, coming from the house of a tenant farmer, was repeated.
An officer grabbed his pistol belt and we ran toward the scene of mayhem.
A woman lurched out of the house, her face distorted with agony.
She was a stubby peasant type and she was beating her chest
with both fists, then flailing them to the skies.
She stumbled toward us, screaming and wailing with rare virtuousity.
Then she fell upon me and spoke words that were drowned in emotion.
I looked helplessly about me for aid which, thank Heaven,
came galloping out of the vineyard in the form of her husband.
By this time a French-Canadian officer who could speak Italian joined
the anxious group. We waited breathlessly for details of the tragedy.
Was it murder? Rape? Had a drunken trooper dishonoured
her daughter and flung her babies into the well?
"No," said the French-Canadian officer.
"She just counted her chickens and discovered one missing.
If it is not produced immediately she'll complain to Amgot."
Page 63 - 64
Sicily's suffering indeed took many forms. Though the loss of one chicken does not seem the greatest of tragedies, it was certainly upsetting at the time for an impoverished family. As well, in mid-September, something very similar took place when Canadian Navy personnel (members of Combined Operations and participants in Operation Baytown) connected to the Canadian 80th Flotilla of Landing Crafts were settled into rough accommodations in Messina.
Leading Seaman Doug Harrison writes the following in memoirs:
One day at Messina, the late LT Andy Wedd asked me if, with my rural background, I knew about poultry. I informed him that the subject was right down my alley. He then told me of the location of six or eight beautiful hens and asked if I would help him divest the owner of the same.
When he asked how we could keep the hens quiet, I told him, “With an axe!” Or, we could firmly grasp their necks and tuck their heads under their wing and rock them for awhile. We chose the latter because it actually works. By now, of course, our mouths are watering.
“Tuck their heads under their wing and rock them for awhile...”
Doug Harrison, my father, at home in Norwich, circa 1990
We went in at dark, like another raid, and entered the outside pen with a flashlight, a kit bag and mitts on. Andy slowly cinched each one by the neck, handed them to the master who rocked them to sleep and lowered them quietly into the kit bag. His idea of a beautiful hen sure didn’t match mine! Anyway, without a squawk we cleaned the roost and proceeded to the officers’ mess, kit bag between us.
In the morning, the Sicilian cook came in with one hell of a snit. Somebody had stolen his mama mia’s chickens. Andy said he was the first Sicilian he had met that was ready to fight and never let it out of the bag about our midnight raid and feast.
From "Dad, Well Done", page 71
In late August, 1943, preparations for the the invasion of Italy grew apparent. Shapiro records a scene in "They Left the Back Door Open":
On the morning of 27th August, the character
of life on the Catania plain was suddenly changed.
Gone were the laughter and lolling.
The road north to Messina hummed
with the wheels of armoured vehicles.
"Ducks" moved in convoys
of sixty toward the narrow waters.
Every inlet was jammed
with troops and landing craft.
The Eighth Army was on the move once more.
The assault on the Italian mainland was being prepared.
Page 64 - 65
TAORMINA 1943, Canadian army parade in the Umberto Corso
in front of Piazza 9 April (Photo by Fabrizio Sergi, Santa Teresa).
As found at - CARTOLINE D'EPOCA RIVIERA JONICA.
Posted by Salvatore Coglitore
in front of Piazza 9 April (Photo by Fabrizio Sergi, Santa Teresa).
As found at - CARTOLINE D'EPOCA RIVIERA JONICA.
Posted by Salvatore Coglitore
Amphibious DUKWs* loaded with men and equipment, enter the water at Messinain Sicily to cross to the Italian mainland. Photo as found at WW2Today (IWM)
(*a six-wheel-drive amphibious vehicle, aka 'duck')
Art LD 3384. The Invasion of Sicily: Troops and vehicles embarking
on invasion craft at 'Charlie' Beach near Santa Teresa di Riva, Sicily,
3 September, 1943. Found at Imperial War Museum (IWM)
on invasion craft at 'Charlie' Beach near Santa Teresa di Riva, Sicily,
3 September, 1943. Found at Imperial War Museum (IWM)
As Allied troops and Navy personnel prepared for the September 3rd invasion of Italy directly across the Strait of Messina at Reggio di Calabria (on the toe of the boot), war correspondent L. Shapiro grabbed the opportunity to accompany forces destined for Operation Avalanche, the invasion of Italy at Salerno (to begin the following week, beginning on September 9th). So, though he missed travelling with Monty and the Canadian flotilla of landing crafts to Reggio (any subsequent stories about that would have been treasures for me!), L. Shapiro was on hand beside Gen. Mark Clark (and the Fifth Army, the first British-American Army) to witness tumultuous events on Salerno's beaches. Excerpts from his eye-witness accounts follow:
Shapiro Sets the Stage
On September 1st, the plans and preparations
(of Gen. Clark's Fifth Army) were completed.
Landing crafts and troopships were crowded stem to stern
in every Allied port of the western Mediterranean.
Excited tommies and doughboys crowded the rails.
They awaited only the signal to move.
At the same time, in the Catania-Messina area,
General Montgomery's Eighth Army was awaiting
the signal to move across to the toe of Italy.
Elsewhere in Sicily, Marshal Badoglio's representatives
were making capitulation arrangements wit the Allies.
Both events were to have a profound effect
on the Salerno Bay operation.
On a sundown sometime after September 1st,
the Fifth Army set sail from many ports.
The men eagerly anticipated adventure.
They were to get it -
in greater measure than they anticipated.
They were to know the fury of Dieppe,
the heartbreak of Gallipoli, and
the exhilaration of desperate triumph.
Page 69
As a multitude of large troopships and smaller craft moved into position to attack Italy's shin, Shapiro enjoyed a front-row seat aboard U.S.S. Ancon, headquarters ship of the Fifth Army. Though dozens of his pages deal with the eventual assault and its successes and near misses, I will briefly share only a few passages that will ultimately link to a wee article I found in The Montreal Star.
The Allied Armada Nears Salerno
Deep in the bowels of the ship, heavily
guarded even after we set sail, was the War Room.
A map 10 feet high and 20 feet wide covered the forward wall.
On it was marked the location of every Allied ship
between Gibraltar and Tripoli, Spezia and Sousse.
Shapiro's convoy is north of Sicily, aimed at Salerno
Shapiro continues:
Every concentration of Allied troops and planes
was clearly indicated as to strength and direction of movement.
The map was cut by lines moving from almost every
direction and converging on the area of Salerno Bay...
The ship moved through the night alone.
Shortly before dawn an Aldis light flashed on the bridge.
It was answered by a twinkling light some miles away.
In the War Room the huge map was remarked.
And in the grey light of early morning a convoy of several
dozen ships moved off our port side steaming eastward.
The assault force was gathering.
For 36 hours our ship was Pied Piper of the Mediterranean.
Convoys moved over the horizon and took their places
in the armada with parade ground precision.
Soon the headquarters ship was centre of a dazzling
panorama of troopships, tank and infantry landing craft,
and warships almost as far as the eye could see.
Destroyers raced around the edges of the convoy like terriers at play.
Huge warships steamed menacingly on our flanks.
Late on Wednesday afternoon, 8th September,
less than twelve hours to zero hour, the convoy was complete.
We were now steaming due eastward off the northern coast of Sicily.
If enemy eyes were peering at us from reconnaissance planes,
they might have suspected we were making for the toe of Italy
to support the Eighth Army which had, since September 3rd,
gained a substantial bridgehead across the Straits of Messina.
"Do you think we've been spotted by the enemy?"
I asked Admiral Hewitt on the bridge that afternoon.
"If we haven't, they're blind," he replied as he scanned
the sea covered with hundreds of our ships.
Destination of the expedition was still
a matter for intense speculation on board.
Only a few knew we were headed for Salerno Bay.
But it was clear to most, as it must have been
to the enemy, that the objective was Naples.
We needed the port. Italy was tottering.
The Eighth Army had a firm hold on the toe.
There was a tense atmosphere on board -
too tense for anything but a most daring assault.....
But most serious was the question of air support.
Spitfires, flying from Sicily had enough petrol only for
twenty minutes over the battle area; Lightnings one hour.
For cover from German fighters which would surely swarm
over us from the Naples, Montecorvina and Foggia airfields,
we would depend on our Sicilian fighters and
on a few small carriers launching Seafires.
Never before had we attempted to provide
air cover at such distances.
At sundown on Wednesday, 8th September,
the convoy was idling north of Cap d'Orlando, Sicily.
Suddenly the ships picked up speed,
swerved left in a spectacular manoeuvre
and raced in a direct line for Salerno Bay.
Zero was nine hours beyond the night seas.
Pages 69 - 71
Shapiro goes on to describe the subsequent landings, at which there may have been some Canadians in Combined Ops sprinkled among the landing craft crews that landed U.S. and U.K. soldiers on the morning of the 9th and shortly thereafter.
It is written that the large armada of ships was spotted by the Luftwaffe and therefore the landings were stiffly resisted by sharp German forces. As well, the armada was spotted by a Canadian Spitfire pilot, and shortly after he landed and gave his report, his words were published in Canadian newspapers on the same date.
I found the following news report in the September 9, 1943 issue of The Montreal Star:
As found on microfiche at the University
of Western Ontario (UWO), London
Spitfire. Used w permission, from the collection of Charles Vasicek,
the younger brother of FO John Vasicek
FO John Vasicek's flight log indicates he was on a reconn mission over the Foggia airfields on Sept. 9 and he was chased away by German flak. He spotted the Allied flotilla on the way to Foggia and on his return trip to base as well. I was able to locate surviving family members several months ago and they provided me with more information about John. Briefly, four months after the above report, he was reported missing after another mission. Soon thereafter it was learned he lost his life north of Salerno Bay.
Another news report, online ,material and a few other photos are provided at the following link - FO John Vasicek; Canadian pilot with RAF.
As well, for more excerpts from Shapiro's fine book, please link to Passages: They Left the Back Door Open (2)
Unattributed Photos GH
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