Video: Fox Movietone Newsreels - Sicily, 1943.

Operation HUSKY: The Invasion of Sicily, July 1943

[Canadians in 80th Flotilla of Landing Craft aboard SS Silver Walnut, 1943.
They will sail around Africa on their way to serve in Sicilian landings]

Introduction:

A deep collection of WW2 newsreels can be found on many sites. A number of them can inform viewers of the role played by Canadians in Combined Operations during WW2, as they manned landing crafts and transported troops and materials of war to beaches in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and France.

One can link to several producers of newsreels by visiting the following: The Newsroom Blog.

Many newsreels are 8 - 12 minutes long and reveal the latest news on several fronts or subjects, and enrich our understanding of significant events.

[Canadians in 80th Flotilla aboard HMS Keren. Trip around Africa is ahead]

Below are links to five newsreels produced by Fox Movietone News related to Operation HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily, 1943: 

1. Allies Invade Sicily - Volume 25, Number 90, July 16 1943.

2. How Allies Prepared for Invasion of Sicily - Volume 25, Number 91, July 20 1943.

3. Official Pictures of the Sicilian Invasion - Volume 25, Number 93, July 27 1943.

4. The Battle For Munda - Volume 25, Number 95, August 3 1943.

5. Allies Smash Last Nazi Lines in Sicily - Volume 25, Number 97, August 10 1943.

Photo Credit - British units arriving in Avola, Sicily, 1943. Charles "Ray" Priddle

The above, rare photo (incl. LCT, Rhino bridge, LCM and more) appears at The Memory Project with the following story (also found on audio tape), as told by Charles Raymond Priddle, Canadian WW2 veteran (likely RCN or RCNVR):

I always thought, “Well, before I get home, I got to go into action.” And that was my thoughts at the time, you know. And, but, I managed to come through and survive – we had two people killed in Sicily on the beach [in 1943]. But, other than that – they got killed by anti-personnel mine.

And, so and then we went on, after that I landed in the toe of Sicily in a place called Avola, and then after a few weeks we went up to – Augusta. There was a naval barracks there, Italian naval barracks we took over, and we were there for quite a few weeks.

I was a signalman and, I mean, I got trained in the use of an Aldis lamp, as they call it, which you held in your hand and it was flashlight-signalling light, you know. That was my job.

When we landed on the beach, we used to have to set up a little signal station where the beachmaster, who was usually a lieutenant-commander in the navy, was in charge of the beach, and, you know, the movement and things on the beach, and he had a crew as well, in case anything got bogged down, they’d dig them out and get them moving and that sort of thing.

Please link to Video: Fox Movietone Newsreels - North Africa, 1942.

Unattributed Photos GH