A Lancashire Lad Goes to War : Chapter 9

Sicily

We painted the trucks from sand-colour to field colours - green and khaki. We changed the corps sign from camel to the rampant boar of 30 Corps. I remember receiving a letter from my father saying that Lord Haw Haw was asking where the 8th Army (Desert) had gone. It had disappeared!!

Eventually we were on the move again. We water-proofed the trucks by extending their exhaust pipes and stretching a French Letter (condom) over each of the batteries. On 7th July 1943 we sailed from Sfax to Sicily. The 3-day voyage occurred during the roughest storm that the Mediterranean Sea had experienced for 20 years. I was in the bottom bunk of the landing craft, and I could see the bottom of the bulkheads move as the waves passed under the ship. The cooks were seasick, so George Lloyd and I took over their duties. We only needed to cook for less than half the people on board as the others were sea-sick and so there was a lot of rations left over which luckily we had room to store on our two vehicles including a chest of tea, ½ cwt sugar and various tins of meat and fruit!

Our ship landed at H+lO (tenth hour) on 10 July 1943 with the 51st Highland Division at Cape Passero on the south-east corner of Sicily, but we were not allowed to disembark. We had been towing a pontoon, until it was lost on the second day during the storm. A spare pontoon was attached to the ship at Sicily and used to offload other troops and supplies - our mass was needed as ballast to keep the pontoon in position. Fortunately, we were not subjected to artillery or mortar fire, although we could hear sporadic bursts from a Spandau machine gun somewhere in the distance. While we were sunning ourselves on the deck of the landing craft in the afternoon, a mine suddenly exploded near us, throwing a large ball of water into air. I remember looking up and seeing this water shooting straight upwards - a long way up and I knew that it was a mine. I forced myself under the canvas of a nearby truck and the other people on deck were trying to force their way down below and an officer shouting, “Don’t Panic! Don’t Panic!” just like Cpl Smith in ‘Dad’s Army’. The water came down and flooded the decks which were soon covered in a couple of inches in water. Eventually we all very gingerly appeared and tried to work out what had happened, and decided that it must be a mine with a time fuse. No-one was injured but it made us all jump.

The 8th Army advanced along the eastern coast of Sicily and captured Syracuse on the day of landing, whilst airborne forces concentrated on the western part of the island. After two days on the beach we were finally allowed to disembark, so we headed off into the night with little idea of where to go. We bedded down in the dark but found the ground to be very bumpy; in the morning we found that we had been sleeping in a lemon grove and had been lying on very large lemons about the size of grapefruit. Two days later, having seen no Italians locally, we decided to have a good wash in a clear stream further inland, but we were surprised by three teenage girls. We were all stripped off, so the sight of four naked men set the girls giggling.

We finally encountered the German forces in a valley on the Catania Plain. It was a Luftwaffe unit, the Herman Goring (Fallschirmjager Panzer Grenadier) Division and though this was an armoured division with a regiment of Tiger tanks, the infantry looked only about 18 years of age and very inexperienced. We had no artillery work to perform, but were asked to report on the enemy's movements. It was normal for us to be connected to Corps Headquarters, AGRA (Army Group, Royal Artillery) and the nearest 25-pdr battery by means of a telephone exchange, and we sometimes used cable rather than radio for field communications. Norman Pearson worked in the telephone exchange. There were cliffs about thirty or forty feet high in a horseshoe formation around the German unit and before we got to Sicily the RAF pattern-bombed the top of the cliffs leaving behind huge craters about 15 feet across and 5/6 feet deep. I was told that I had to go up on to the top of the cliffs with a Signaller (Norman Pearson) feeding a wire from HQ switchboard up to our point of observation which was right in the middle of the bombing holes. We went by truck which left us there and the driver told us that he would collect us later that night. We positioned ourselves at the edge of the cliff so as to observe the valley. Night came and no truck. I rang down to Sgt Donald Sinclair and asked why we were still there. The answer was that no truck could negotiate the craters in the dark. In the morning I rang again and enquired as to when the truck was coming to pick us up, and the answer was that there was none available. I said that we had only had some sandwiches which we had eaten the day before, so were they sending some up to us today. The answer was that there was no vehicle available. All this time, we were still passing on information on what we could see was happening down below in the Herman Goring Division. I rang again in the afternoon and again asked if we were being picked up as we still had had no food and the answer was that it was too late to negotiate the craters so we enjoyed another night on the cliff tops. First thing in the morning I rang again and Donald said that they should be able to get someone to us in the afternoon. Another twenty four hours passed and by this time Norman and I were feeling very cross and hungry and thirsty. Again first light I rang and asked for transport and was told that someone should be collecting us in the evening. Feeling desperate I said that I was going to open my Emergency Rations, and was told that only an officer can give that permission. I said that as I was the senior person present I gave myself permission to open the rations, and sometime later in the afternoon someone eventually came to pick us up. All the time we were stuck on the cliff tops we were sending back information on the Germans.

Later on we entered a large town on the eastern coast which had no signs of life, but I remembered seeing many dead Scotsmen in kilts as well as dead German soldiers. We were also visited by an Army film unit. For the purposes of the film, a Geordie Gunner, who happened to be a friend Sgt Sinclair replaced me as operator of the recorder unit. He had not idea what to do or how to use the equipment, so it was decided that he be filmed pouring developer into the developing bath. I was dismissed out of the area so never found out what the filming was all about.

RAF Corporal Bill Johnson from the meteorological unit stayed with us all the way through the war after joining us whilst we were in the desert. He broadcast by radio to the guns as “Wigan Johnny” as well as supplying information to ‘S’ Troop. He sent balloons up twice a day, or more often when requested because of changing wind conditions. When balloons were used at night, they trailed a candle below to enable Bill to spot the effect of the wind. Prior to launch, the balloon had a small weight attached to its neck. A one-way valve allowed hydrogen to inflate the balloon. The correct degree of inflation resulted in neutral buoyancy, such that the balloon neither rose nor fell. At this point, the neck was sealed and the weight removed. The balloon rose into the air at a rate of about 160 yards per minute. Bill used optical instruments to measure the bearings of the balloon while one of us wrote down the results and readings of the time ascent which measured its altitude. The combination of these measurements gave an assessment of the variation of wind speed with altitude. This information was wised by the Gunnery Officer to adjust the trajectory of his shells, and by the Sound Rangers because of the variations in the speed of sound. Sergeant Humphries, Bill’s superior officer, was stationed at the Regimental Headquarters.

He reported directly to Colonel Whetton, our commanding officer, and it was generally considered that the CO required his troops including me to be as far forward as possible in order for us to get as many co-ordinates of German guns (which would obviously help our artillery). This was particularly difficult in Sicily where there was an ill-defined front line. I never actually saw Colonel Whetton who seemed to communicate most of his orders by telephone or despatch rider (commonly known as Don-R), but we just concentrated on doing our job.

Our advance stopped just short of Messina on 19th August, 1943 and we camped at a village called Galati which overlooked the Straights of Messina. We could see trucks on the coast road round the leg of Italy but in Sicily all was quiet -the Germans seemed to have evacuated Sicily. Our route into the village ran under a railway bridge, which was too low for our trucks. We had to dig into the road fourteen or fifteen inches to increase our headroom. There was the Mediterranean Sea and the beach on one side of the road, and a steep escarpment rose up on the other side. The inland face of the ridge was terraced and used for growing black grapes, and we set up our bivouacs on these terraces amongst the vines, helping ourselves to the fruit. Even though there was a war being fought all around them, the grapes were still being cultivated. We watched as the workers picked the grapes and straight away trod them without washing their feet. We were offered a few bottles of wine which we happily accepted even though we knew how the wine process worked! After the grape harvest had been gathered and the wine bottled, some of our soldiers were invited to celebrate in the annual local party though I was not included. The farmers also gathered nuts for the soldiers, and made boxes about the size of foolscap sheet of paper and nearly two inches deep and filled them with mixed nuts which we bought and sent back home. The local people had seemed very happy that we were there, and it had given us a nice feeling to see and hear them cheering us when we had driven through the villages.

After about ten days we moved our equipment to a school, where I became acquainted with a local family. Carmelo Romanitti, the head of the family, spoke excellent English, and began to teach me to speak Italian, (When I returned to Italy in 1970 with my family, I was told that I spoke Italian with a Sicilian accent). The electricity cable to the school had been cut just before the main terminal box. I had to reconnect the cable, but had difficulty identifying each of the three wires - especially as they were all live. Nevertheless, by wearing gloves and gym shoes I completed the job without mishap. Carmelo was glad to use electric light instead of candles.

Some members of the Troop wanted to hold a concert. Indeed, some of the lads were quite talented: one Cockney did an excellent impersonation of Max Miller. We built a wooden stage in the school yard. I made the footlights by cutting two flimsies - 5-gallon petrol cans - on opposite corners. I made a hole in the bend of each half-can, just big enough to screw in a light bulb. In the absence of a bulb holder, I had to solder the wires to the bulb, which made the whole assembly live! I had to warn each of the villagers who came to watch the performance, using my newly-acquired Italian not to touch anything to do with the lighting. The people seemed to like the show and laughed when we laughed, but it did make me wonder how much of it they understood.

All the time we were in Sicily, the Germans on mainland Italy only shelled us once or twice. I think only about six shells came over from Reggio di Calabria (across the Straits), and the shells either hit the top of the escarpment or landed further inland. Nevertheless, the shelling terrified the villagers until we assured them that their sheltered position offered sufficient protection. The only injury (as far as I was aware) was when one surveyor bought a 0.22” pistol from a Carabiniere and which he sometimes kept loaded. As I was passing his bivouac one day I heard a yell and someone shouting, “You stupid bugger!”
Apparently a poor unfortunate soldier had been accidentally shot in the thigh as the surveyor played about with the pistol. (My wife and I bumped into the surveyor when I lived in the Potteries after demobilisation and Dorothy later exclaimed, “What a weird bloke!”) There was a large empty house which was adjacent to the sea and was commandeered by the troop. We were each allowed stay at the house three days at a time for rest and recuperation and when it was our turn, six or seven of us would have our names posted up on the camp information board. Swimming underwater at night was a particular treat, because when I stirred up the water with my hands I could see beautiful luminous silver trails of phosphorus, and the water was absolutely transparent and I could right to the bottom. The water was not cold and as there were no females in the area we were able to swim naked amongst the fish. I bought a silver Hunter watch from a little watchmaker’s shop in the next valley which I used all the time until I came back home - in fact I still have it.

Three weeks after staying at the school, we moved to the railway station, but we still had nothing to do. One day we were able to wash our bodies and clothes whilst on the station platform as the rain came down in stair rods. It was torrential and we stripped off all our clothes and gave them a good scrub in fresh water. It was so much better than bathing in the sea as the salt remained in the material and rubbed against our skin. This was particularly uncomfortable when we were serving in the desert, but even in Sicily we did not often have the luxury of clean, fresh water to wash our clothes in. Even in August Mount Etna was covered with snow and because the Sicilian winters were bitterly cold we were able to barter our army blankets and coats for food. One day a spare blanket was swapped for a live hen and there was considerable debate regarding how to kill it. I asked if anyone knew how to kill one. Someone suggested shooting it but I said that I would do what my dad did. My grandmother used to keep hens and I used to watch Father as he got hold of them under their beaks and twist; so I had a go. Unfortunately, I also pulled its head off and was so shocked that I released my hold on its body, which ran around and around in a circle about three times before it actually dropped. We built an oven into the embankment at the rear of the station by digging into the side, and lined the hole with stones to stop soil falling in. Then we made a flue out of a tin can, built a fire of wood in the hole and after stuffing the chicken with chopped chestnuts and herbs we smeared it with butter and cooked it in our home-made oven. This was our first fresh food in Sicily and it was delicious. Towards the end of our stay, one soldier suggested that we take some recently harvested lemons back with us, so a large crate was filled, wrapped in waterproof material and labelled ‘Survey Equipment’. (When we arrived in England, every one of us had about ten each and they were the first lemons my family had seen in four years.)

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