Canadian Sailors Serve in Sicily Until August 5, 1943
They Recuperate in Malta Before Returning to Italy
Operation Baytown, the invasion of Italy, at Reggio, Sept. 3, 1943
Introduction:This entry, though long on written details re the Canadians in Combined Ops as they served in Sicily (July) and Italy (September), is short on photographs from
Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks. His next collection relates to the invasion of Normandy beginning June, 1944.
That being said, photographs do appear below that touch on the activities of Canadians referred to in Mr. Marks' book. A third and lengthy excerpt from Combined Operations follows (re Sicily and Italy), along with maps, a rare news report that mentions a few sailors by name that have been referred to in earlier posts, and links to other pertinent material.
Operation Baytown, the invasion of Italy at the toe of the boot beginning September 3rd, 1943, involved members of the 80th Flotilla of Canadian Landing Crafts, and was described as much easier than the invasion of Sicily about two months earlier. Many sailors were involved in transporting troops from various Sicilian ports (e.g., Messina) to Reggio (a 7 mile round trip), then, once troops were ashore, they delivered all of the materials of war (for about 30 days).
Landings of troops and all available supplies were made to other Italian beaches as well, as indicated by the blue arrows below. E.g., to Taranto, at the heel of the boot, beginning very shortly after an Allied beachhead was established at Reggio; to Salerno, south-east of Naples, a very difficult undertaking (Operation Avalanche) beginning September 8th.
Details about those days - continuing with Canadian sailors' war efforts in Sicily - are provided below from Combined Operations, pages 84 - 87. The excerpt is divided into two parts to make room for a rare news report by Canadian War Correspondent Dick Sanburn re Operation Baytown:
The Canadian Flotillas formed, of course, only a small part of all the Flotillas engaged, but wherever they operated the warmly admiring comments of British Officers seemed to indicate that they were pace-setters. The mechanical aptitude and the loving care which their maintenance parties lavished on the craft gave particular cause to marvel. During eighteen days of continuous work not one craft of the Flotilla was out of operation.
The demands of the armies proved higher and the demolitions in Sicilian harbours more inconvenient than had been expected, and landing craft had therefore to be kept longer on the ferry service. This meant a great deal of discomfort for the Canadians, as for all the landing craft Flotillas. The beaches of semi-tropical Sicily in late July and early August were far from being health resorts. Almost every man suffered at one time or another from a variety of disorders which included dysentery, septic scratches, jaundice, sandfly and malarial fever.
The small, amphibious craft were not equipped for life on the beaches. Moreover, their men were now everybody's children and no one's. Their parent landing ships had long since departed. They ferried cargo ashore from every ship that came, but their home was the hot beach, and there their companies had to make what living arrangements they could.
Some found accommodation of a sort in an old, disused Army camp and many more had to take shelter in a very dirty and uncomfortable cattle cave. Their food consisted of rations acquired from the Army, occasional largesse scrounged from the better-hearted merchant ships, and what they could acquire from an impoverished countryside. The cave-dwelling members of the Flotilla had improvised a stove of petrol tins in order to apply some heat to their unsavoury victuals; and one evening the stove blew up. Flames licked back into the cave, igniting another can of petrol and consuming most of the kit bags, hammocks and clothing of the men. About half the personnel of the 80th Flotilla had to get along for the next three months on borrowed gear.
Photo Credit - K. Harrison, London ONT
On August 5th operations ceased on the Sicilian beaches, and the two Flotillas returned to Malta. After a month of hard work under exceedingly difficult conditions the men were looking forward to a fourteen-day leave which had been promised them, always subject to "exigencies of the service". The news which greeted them on arrival in Malta was, first, that civilian dockworkers were on strike, and secondly, that their craft must be put in condition at once for a landing on the Italian mainland. Twenty-four cranky LCMs, which had been overworked consistently for a month to land 40,959 men, 8,937 vehicles and 40,181 tons of stores, must at once be retuned to concert pitch by the equally over-worked men who had operated them. Complaints were loud, eloquent, sustained and unavailing, but once this routine gesture was over with the Canadians manifested, as always, a peculiar zest for anything mechanical. At the end of two weeks, during which all the fit men of both Flotillas worked day and night, they announced to amazed dockyard authorities at Malta that their craft were ready to sail again.When the 81st Flotilla withdrew from Sicily in August, two LCM's were unable to make their way to Malta, so were left in Syracuse along with twelve ratings. They were joined by one other Canadian who was aboard a Royal Navy LCI.The Canadians eventually had their landing craft welded and repaired by a Royal Navy LCM Flotilla under Canadian Command and were requested to accompany them on the landings at the Straits of Messina and the further invasion of Italy.When these two landing craft were no longer usable, the Canadians left the British and joined up with the 80th Flotilla in Messina, and stayed with them on their trip back to North Africa and finally to the U.K. with some travelling on the "Queen Emma", which at that time was also under command of a Canadian Officer.Just before the departure for northern Sicily in preparation for the jump across the Straits of Messina, it was decided that the 81st Flotilla would not be sent. Its craft were not of as recent a type as those of the 80th and would not be useful in the unfamiliar role of assault landing craft, which was to be the work allotted them. Moreover, a large number of men from the 81st were in hospital with sickness acquired in Sicily. The 80th Flotilla therefore sailed alone from the Great Harbour of Malta on August 27th.On September 1st, at one of the assembly points near Messina, from which the expedition was to cross, the Officers of the Flotilla were briefed. Thirty-six hours later they began to embark the Canadians of the Royal 22nd Regiment, the West Nova Scotians, and the Carleton and Yorks. Canadian soldiers and Canadian sailors were operating together at last.In the early morning darkness of September 3rd the loaded craft moved up the Strait, close inshore on the Sicilian side, making for their take-off point. Among many ships crowding the narrow waters, "Warspite" and "Valiant" swept by, looming hugely. The wash from the battleships' passing bounced the landing craft like water bugs and sent huge waves over the sides to soak the men. The big ships of the Royal Navy, at that tense, nerve-fraying moment, came in for a heartfelt cursing.At dawn the armies for the invasion of Italy moved across the six mile Strait. "Warspite" and "Valiant" were forgiven their trespass by the men in the landing craft as the Navy added to a great barrage put up by artillery firing from Sicily across the Strait. Screaming through the half-light overhead, thousands of shells from the artillery of the Army and the big Naval guns passed above the Flotilla. Plumed explosions rose inland as the ramps of the craft went down and the conquerors of Sicily set foot on the Italian mainland. Great transit searchlights from the Sicilian side were cutting through the dim morning to assist navigation and directing smoke shells were providing some assistance mixed with a good deal of confusion.
The Editor interrupts Clayton's fine story to bring you this important announcement from The Ottawa Citizen, Sept. 5, 1943:
Photo as found in
Eclipse by A. Moorehead
Correction: L/S Norm Bowen, Ottawa
Please click here to learn more related to the observations of Lt. Koyl, mentioned in the article above -
Memoirs re Combined Operations - Lt. Cdr. J. E. Koyl
C. Marks' story concludes:
For a month after the lightly-opposed Italian landing the 80th Flotilla carried out its familiar routine of ferry work. The end came with the Italian armistice and a great celebration in which the population of the countryside joined, and after that the word "England" was on every man's lip. The men of the 55th and 61st assault Flotillas had long been in the United Kingdom. The 81st was also there. Last of the Combined Operations units to return to Britain, the men of the 80th Flotilla, arrived on October 27th.
A little more than two months remained of 1943. In England the men heard cheering news of conditions in the Atlantic and of the war around the world. Good tidings continued to arrive, right up to the destruction of Scharnhorst in the closing days of December. Already 1944 was being spoken of as the year of "the invasion", and perhaps the year of decision. The Allied world was girded at last and moving forward in the full tide of its strength and confidence.
Yet the bells of the new year ushered in a season of tense foreboding, for the men of Canada as for all men of the warring world. Before the armies now in Italy loomed icy hills fanged with the guns of a desperate and determined enemy. The divisions long trained and ready in England had yet to meet their great and costly test. Canadian Airmen knew that the fading Luftwaffe had not yet lost its power to sting. The men of the Atlantic escort forces looked forward to a continuance of a weary, four-year old task, from which the conquest of the U-boats - if it remained a conquest - meant the removal only of the greatest among many perils. For the powerful Tribal destroyers, and the still newer Fleet destroyers which were on the way, there was to be surface combat in the old tradition but with deadlier weapons. And before the men of the landing craft lay other hostile shores.
More information re the invasion of Italy can be found here.
More will follow related to the photographs and stories - related to the invasion of Normandy - as found in
Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks.
Winter tried to have the last laugh in April. I think it succeeded!
