'Stretcher-bearers': (13) Sicily Landing

Sicily Landing

We were not sorry to be leaving North Africa. its blazing heat, white dust, filth, and smells. We hoped to land in a cooler country and our hopes were not frustrated.
Reveille 5 a.m. Breakfast in the dark at 5.10., followed by a delayed and bungled departure at 7.30 a.m., a route march with numerous stopping places on the road.
At one of these halts we lost the latest member to join our Section 1, an ex-corporal who, on grounds of violent sickness, refused to march further. He was taken to hospital by ambulance.
We continued, sweat literally dripping from us, as we followed behind the infantry to Sousse, a French garrison town and port.
About 11 o'clock we reached the heavily blitzed harbour area and went straight on board American built assault craft. There was a rush for the fresh water tap on deck and then we were conducted below to a compartment decorated with rows of wooden seats.
In the afternoon, since we were not to sail until evening, we were given permission to swim. Leslie, Joss and I swam out to a wrecked passenger boat .
After tea we made a dramatic departure from harbour. This coincided with the sudden visitation of a raging sirocco wind.
Dust and sand eddied hundreds of feet into the air, completely obscuring the shore.
We heard cracks as defence balloons snapped their cables, rocketing skywards, one completely flattened, like grey cardboard.
Our ship heeled over and dashed into the open sea, followed closely by the other assault craft, which then took up their positions in the convoy.
We had started together about 7.30 p.m. and made good progress. It was so stifling below that Joss, Leslie and I decided to sleep on deck. Here it was rather cold, but reasonably comfortable.
(We had recently changed into tropical kit, which was fine for marching under a sweltering sun, but the nights were cool and later, in mountainous country, the cold at night was penetrating.)
Next morning we passed between the two islands Limosa and Lampedusa. The sea grew rougher and a few men were seasick. Then, towards evening, we passed Gozo and Malta, the latter lying on the distant horizon.
A bad night. The seas were running high after dark and spray was dashing over the deck. We had to sleep below, but, after wedging myself under a row of seats, getting cramp in the leg, being kicked by a booted foot and having a steel helmet dropped on my shoulder, I went on deck for fresh air.
Upon returning, I tried another position at the foot of an iron stairway, but found that someone had been sick there, so I climbed up on deck once more.
It started to grow light about 5 a.m. and through the dawning haze we gradually discerned an oil tanker belching out black smoke.
We approached the shore and were soon disembarking in complete safety on a shallow, sandy beach.

Account of the original landing in Sicily by J.B.Blockley.

(Note. At the end of the campaign in North Africa, 78 Division was transferred from the First to the Eighth Army and placed in reserve for the invasion of Sicily. 11 Field Ambulance formed part of this reserve.}

Jack Blockley, who later joined 11 Field Ambulance, took part in the original invasion of Sicily This is his story.

"When I was attached to the Seaforth Highlanders in the invasion Sicily, we landed at night from small boats. The man with the mortars mixed up his bombs in the dark and put down HE (High Explosive) instead of smoke. This lit up our landing.
There was a high barbed wire fence on the beach. The engineers attached to the group blew a hole in it with a Bangalore torpedo rather like a length of drainpipe. I went through this gap just after the officer in charge. He was hit by machine-gun bullets in the throat, so far as I could make out, and fell down in front of me I gave him some morphine but he died soon afterwards.
At daylight I was sent with the RAMC sergeant who was with us to look at a casualty lying near the beach. We walked into a minefield with the mines linked to each other by wires. We set one off and both were hit by shrapnel, but not seriously enough to immobilise us.
The casualty was most likely from the airborne troops which had been dropped in the sea instead of on the land. He could have swum ashore and landed in the minefield. The poor fellow was nearly gone when I reached him. I gave him morphine, but he died.
Then a big Infantry Landing Craft grounded its front on the beach and immediately artillery from the hills started landing shells right on the spot.
We were able to warn the soldiers of the minefield - one of the few useful things I did.
It sounds as though I killed my two casualties with the morphine; but there was nothing else we could do."
(Further report, which follows on from the above.)
" Though I was wounded in the pelvis in the minefield near the beach (I am still carrying three pieces of shrapnel), I was able to walk and moved forward with the infantry, who were making their way inland.
Eventually I reached my own unit, which had established a dressing station. (ADS). They decided that I should be evacuated and I went in a small boat to a hospital ship in the Bay of Syracuse. It was manned by Indians and was called the Talamba. I was put in a bed one deck down and it was great to be there with sheets and pyjamas.
I was very tired, having been on the go since the previous night and having bled quite a bit. From my bed I could see the sky at the top of a flight of stairs.
I don't know how long I had been asleep when I woke up to see sparks falling in the patch of sky. It must have been the noise of the bomb striking the ship that woke me up, but I had no idea what had happened. Some people went up the steps and then the lights went out. As lights were often put out in the war this didn't surprise me , though I should have realised that a hospital ship would keep it lights on in all conditions. Anyway, I was very comfortable and settled down to sleep again. I had no idea that the ship was sinking, but someone pressed on me to get up. Eventually I yielded to this feeling and climbed the flight of stairs.
To my surprise the front of the ship (at least it looked like the front from where I stood) was already just about level with the water. I still didn't know what had happened.
There was another fellow on the deck and we went to the side of the ship. This part was still quite a height above the water. There was a scramble-net rolled up, and the fellow had a knife with which he cut the retaining strings and we climbed down the scramble-net and swam away from the ship.
The waves were quite high. One minute we were down in a trough and the next we were lifted up and could see the beach. We were some distance from the ship and watched it slowly settling down. An attempt was made to launch a lifeboat, but the ropes at one end broke and the occupants, some of them nurses, were tipped into the water, shouting and screaming. I was afraid to go nearer to the ship for fear of being sucked down by it. Eventually it quietly disappeared below the waves.
We swam about some time longer till we were picked up by a small boat that was rowing around collecting survivors.
When I was pulled from the sea, all I had was my identity discs and a pyjama jacket.
We were put on another ship and I was given a blanket on which I lay in the dark. The ship had a near miss from a bomb before it set off for the North African coast, where I was out in a tented hospital on the Homs-Miserata road (so I vaguely remember)."

The following information was kindly supplied by the Guildhall Library, London.
"The Talamba of British India Steam Navigation Company Limited according to Lloyd's War Loss Card was 'deliberately attacked by single enemy aircraft at 10 p.m. July 10 , 1943, when embarking casualties 3 miles clear of Avola anchorage. Vessel fully illuminated. Sunk 36.55 N. 15.14 E. Crew 168 . 4 lost. 10 crew missing, also 9 of saloon crew....400 wounded on board were successfully transferred to other vessels. All officers safe. 3 Indian crew missing. One believed dead."

Jack Blockley was later wounded again, while serving in Eleven Field Ambulance near Termoli, Italy. He graduated at Cambridge Univ. before the war.

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