Photographs: Canadians in "Combined Operations" (Pt. 5)

Invasions of Sicily and Italy - A Big Deal (Three Deals, in Fact)

Operations Husky, Baytown and Avalanche, July - Sept. '43

Four Canadian Flotillas of Landing Craft (see 80th, 81st, 55th and 61st)

were active on beaches of SE coast of Sicily, beginning July 10, 1943

Map found in Combined Operations by London's C. Marks, pg. 76

Introduction:

After duties related to Operation Torch (the invasion of N. Africa, beginning early November, 1942), Canadians in Combined Ops returned to the United Kingdom for more training aboard landing crafts. My father, for example, trained for a time at HMS Westcliff at Southend-On-Sea, east of London, on the north shore of the Thames River.

And in the spring of 1943 they embarked, flotilla by flotilla, aboard troop and cargo liners to destinations touching on or near the Mediterranean in order to prepare the launch of the world's largest armada (up to that point) for (firstly) Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. Some, like my father, aboard the Silver Walnut,  travelled the long-way-'round to get to Port Said and Alexandria - all the way around Africa - in order to arrive at HMS Saunders, a Combined Operations training camp next to an inland lake, south of Port Said. 

The first group of old photographs found in Combined Operations (page 75) after stories re the Dieppe Raid reveal a little bit about the arrival of Canadian sailors (RCNVR, Combined Operations) at HMS Saunders, and a couple of other locations in Egypt. These are followed by the map of Sicily as seen at the top of this entry. It is also shared in a larger size below.

Along with Mr. Marks' photos - most only have the shortest of labels, i.e., location - I have included a few other items:

Approaching Port Said, perhaps; or Alexandria?

Help Wanted: If anyone looks familiar, let me know!

Comments to gordh7700@gmail.com

Help Wanted again: If anyone looks familiar, let me know!

Comments to gordh7700@gmail.com

In my father's collection I found the following. Tents can be seen, faintly, in the background and I recognize one good friend of Dad's, i.e., Don Westbrook (Hamilton) in back row, 4th from left. He may be wearing borrowed (huge!) shorts because of the dysentery problem that some sailors recalled in memoirs.

Wouldn't a list of names be lovely? I can only say the site is HMS Saunders.

Wait! I recognize the second from left, up front. Harold Tomlinson!*

Art Work - Herbert Hastings McWilliams, HMS Saunders, Kabret, Egypt, 1945

Credit - As found at Combined Operations Command

*Harold Tomlinson and Don Westbrook appear together below in a photo taken while they and other Canadian sailors in Combined Ops were aboard HMS Keren - in the Atlantic - and travelling around Africa to get to Port Said, Summer, 1943:

Chuck Rose, front left, was another fine friend of my father's*,

and came from Chippawa, ONT (near Niagara Falls)

*My father and Chuck played a lot of baseball together when back in Canada, but still during the war:

Doug Harrison and Chuck Rose at an RCNVR or Combined

Operations reunion, during their middle age. 1975-ish?

Canadian sailors took in sights and sounds of places during the war that would have cost them a small fortune to revisit later in life. Cairo, Alexandria, the Pyramids, etc.

The night sky over Alexandria is lit up like a Christmas tree!

Again, wouldn't a list of names be lovely? Combined Operations, page 75

The following photograph is from the collection of Joe Spencer and from the same time period:

"Ismalia, Egypt. (L-R) P. Martel, E. Chambers*, S. Ingram, Norm Mitchinson"

*E. Chambers also appears with the group of ten (above) aboard HMS Keren

A few sailors mention visiting the Pyramids aboard camels during leave

Before the Canadians in Combined Ops and their flotillas of landing craft (aboard troop ships*) made their way to the invasion of Sicily ("Husky"), they faced the perils of German subs in the Atlantic Ocean and a lengthy trip around Africa to arrive in Egypt.

"LCM 81-7 hoisted off E. Charmain in Sicily, July 10, 1943.

MacGregor's boat." Photo - Joe Spencer, RCNVR, C. Ops

Below are excerpts from Combined Operations that help tell the tale:

SICILY AND ITALY July 10, 1943 - and - September 3, 1943

The armies for the invasion were gathering in England. Many of their divisions were already hardened, trained and ready. Weapons, stores and supplies were accumulating in enormous volume, in incredible variety.

Great fleets of Allied bombers were now battering at German industries, cities and strategic centres; at the country's brain, nerve centres and heart. The war seemed to be moving toward its climax, as indeed it was. Yet the grand diversion, the round-about closing in from the south which had begun with Operation Torch on November 8, 1942, was still in progress; had still to reach the point where it could mesh and move forward as an integral part of the final assault. It had advanced through several phases during the mid-months of 1943, and in some of those phases the Landing Craft Flotillas of the Canadian Navy had again played a part.

About the middle of March, 1943, several large convoys left British ports for Suez. The end of the North African campaign was coming in sight, and the next step would be the forcing of a passage to the Italian mainland. Sicily lay between North Africa and Italy, separated from the toe of the boot only by the narrow Straits of Messina; and Sicily was chosen by Allied planners as the next step toward Rome.

The convoys, which were to round Africa and come up through the Red Sea to Suez and Port Said at the eastern entrance to the Mediterranean, carried the Combined Operations Flotillas and a portion of the troops for the landings on Sicily; and among them were the 55th and 61st Canadian Flotillas of LCAs (assault landing craft). Later convoys were to carry the 80th and 81st Canadian Flotillas of larger landing craft (LCMs) for the ferrying of vehicles and heavier stores.

Together, the Canadian personnel manning these Flotillas totalled about 400 men, while another 250 Canadians served in British Landing Craft Flotillas or in the support ships. They were a microscopic proportion of a force which consisted in all of 2755 transports, escorts and landing craft of many kinds; yet they were to be an important part of the ferrying forces at the beaches where they were used, and their performance was to be of a high order.

Far from Sicily, as the battle for Tunisia swept on to its conclusion, the men of the Landing Craft Flotillas trained under the broiling sun of Suez. Large-scale amphibious exercises*, as tough and realistic as possible, ironed out difficulties remembered from the Torch landings, tested the men and the craft to their limits, gave rise to excited speculation as to what actual coast resembled the "dummy" beaches against which the exercises were directed.

*Below are photos re Combined Operations training (i.e., "large-scale amphibious exercises") at HMS Saunders:

A17724. Army troops landing from invasion craft as naval beach parties and

commandos train at HMS Saunders, Kabrit, Bitter Lakes near the Mediterranean.

Photo Credit - Lt. L.C. Priest, RN Photographer, Imperial War Museum (IWM)

8A17725. Army assault troops landing from a landing craft assault (LCA 57)

as naval beach parties and commandos train at HMS SAUNDERS.

Lt. L.C. Priest, RN Official Photographer, IWM.

Please click here for more details and photos re to Combined Ops training at HMS Saunders.

Clayton Marks continues:

On July 4th all Combined Operations Officers were called together for final instructions, and on July 5th the assault convoys sailed from Port Said for a rendezvous position south of Malta. On the 9th the rendezvous was reached, and to the men of the 55th and 61st assault Landing Craft Flotillas, watching from the decks of the Landing Ships Strathnaver and Otranto*, it seemed that every horizon was crowded with arriving convoys.

Certificate re crossing the equator aboard 'ye Goode Shippe Otranto'

Collection of Charles "Comox" Levett, RCNVR, C. Ops. Photo GH

At sea in the western Mediterranean and gathering at the rendezvous, were sixteen escorted convoys and two large Naval covering forces of battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers and destroyers.

At the rendezvous position the convoys assembling from the eastern and western Mediterranean divided into two great forces which passed up on either side of Malta. The Western Task Force carried the American Seventh Army which was to land along the southwest coast on a front extending southward from Licata.

The Eastern Task Force carried the British Eighth Army, which included the First Canadian Division and the First Canadian Army Tank Brigade. It was to land along a two-corps front extending from the western side of the Pachino Peninsula around northeastward as far as Syracuse. Canadian soldiers and sailors, for this operation, were not to have the satisfaction of working together*.

The Royal 22 Regiment lands on the beaches at Reggio, September 3, 1943

"Canadian soldiers and Canadian sailors were operating together at last."

Photo - Alexander M. Stirton. Department of National Defence,

National Archives of Canada, PA-177114.

[* The 'satisfaction of working together' was realized on September 3, 1943, during Operation Baytown, the invasion of (the toe of the boot of) Italy at Reggio di Calabria.]

C. Marks' story continues: 

The Canadian Division was to drive in on the western side of the Pachino Peninsula, carried in British Landing Craft. The Canadian Landing Craft Flotillas were a part of the subdivision of the Eastern Task Force which was to land British troops on the eastern side of the Peninsula, a little to the north of Pachino itself.

Toward evening on the 9th of July, the Eastern Task Force approached the shores of Sicily, and the summit of Mount Etna loomed through the haze.

Two things went wrong in the early stages. The odds against bad weather in those waters at that time of year were long, but a gale blew up. D-minus one (i.e., D-Day minus one day) started as a hot day without a ripple on the water. By noon there was a seasonable breeze from the northwest. By 1500 it was blowing force 4 and 3 hours later it was more like force 7. 

Almost all the troops in the landing craft were sick. As the British came under the lee of the land, conditions for them improved, but the Canadians and the Americans had no such shelter, and had to disembark soaked to the skin and in full misery of seasickness. Yet the bad weather had one good effect; the enemy, certain that we could not make a landing, tucked up and went to sleep.

For a time it was thought that the whole operation would have to be postponed, but after darkness it was decided to continue in the hope of better weather at dawn.

The second misfortune concerned the airborne troops... [To be continued]

Combined Operations, C. Marks, pages 79 - 81

Details concerning Operation Husky is upcoming. Below is a very significant map re where Canadians in Combined Ops were serving.... Acid North (or Centre), at Green Beach, near Avola.

Map as found in Combined Operations, page 76

More photographs and stories will follow from Combined Operations by Londoner C. Marks (RCNVR, Combined Ops), along with other related materials and links.

Please link to Photographs: Canadians in "Combined Operations" (Pt 4)

Photos GH