Editor's Research: Canadians in Combined Ops Return Home (5)

The Allies Continue Their Advance (a Slow and Deadly Slog) in Italy, 1944

Canadian War Correspondents (and others) Keep Us "Up in the News" 

Most of the Canadians in Combined Ops (landing craft operators) learned about

deadly anti-personnel mines a few months earlier in Sicily (Operation Husky).

More information to follow. Photo - Winnipeg Tribune, Jan. 17 1943, page 7

Introduction:

The term 'Bouncing Betty' is new to this reader but when I found the above photo and caption about it I recalled a line or two from Navy memoirs related to an earlier operation, i.e., Operation Husky (invasion of Sicily), during which Canadian troops - and sailors, members of RCNVR and Combined Operations, living in caves near Avola for a few weeks - learned how to recognize and disarm (or explode) another type of German anti-personnel mines. 

In his Navy memoirs re Sicily, my father (RCNVR, Combined Ops, 1941 - 45) writes the following:

I had 27 days at Sicily living on tomatoes and Bully Beef. I swore I would kick the first bull I saw in Canada - right in the posterior - if I got back. Everywhere I looked there were anti-personal (sic) (Editor: Although my father's spelling almost describes the same thing in my opinion) hand-sized grenades that needed only to be touched to go off. They were built to maim and not kill because it takes men to look after the wounded, but if you’re dead, you’re dead. We threw tomatoes at a lot and exploded them in that manner.

"Dad, Well Done", page 33

The news items, editorial cartoons, adverts and photographs that follow were found in the digitized version of The Winnipeg Tribune, published on January 15 - 18, 1944 (and available for your perusal, link here).

By this time in '44 my father and many mates had returned to Canada, celebrated a precious Christmas with family and friends (while on a designated, lengthy leave - after two years overseas) and were well on their way to - or had arrived at - their next area of service, Canada's only Combined Operations School at HMCS Givenchy III, Comox, Vancouver Island , B. C.

And that being said, local newspapers across Canada caught a few of the returnees (in all forces, not just those in the Navy or in Combined Operations (or in both, as in the case of my father and mates) in their growing media-net for interviews and stories that would (and still do to some good degree) captivate their readers. Knowing this, my search continues.

PS - I have found some items with unique links to Canadians in Combined Operations and that's what I am chiefly looking to find!!

Before Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily beginning in early July 1943, many Canadians in Combined Operations circled Africa aboard troopships (with their landing crafts hanging from davits) and found time to explore Cairo, and later Alexandria, before D-Day, July 10. Some ventured to see the pyramids as well. Below is a photo of four Canadians in Combined Ops in Ismalia, Egypt:

L - R: P. Martel, E. Chambers, Sam Ingram, Norm Mitchinson, circa July 1943.

Photo is from the collection of Joe Spencer, RCNVR, Combined Operations

I would say that the four sailors above likely returned home to Canada on leave after two years overseas (having participated in operations aboard landing crafts at Dieppe, North Africa, Sicily and Italy) and may have returned to General Service after their time on leave expired. Ed Chambers (2nd from left), among many others, volunteered for Combined Operations once again and - as the war in Italy progressed in Jan. 1944 - settled into a very different routine at Canada's only Combined Operations School on The Spit at Comox (HMCS Givenchy III) on Vancouver Island.

Five Canadians in Combined Ops at HMCS Givenchy III on The Spit

E. Chambers, Montreal, kneeling in front row, near barracks 1944

The back of the above photo appears next.

"Married Don Westbrook, Hamilton. Party at his place, Westy." (Don and wife Margaret lived in married quarters).

Hopefully there will be more connections to Canadians in Combined Ops as my search of January - February newspapers continue.

And now, back to the news from Italy: 

While Allied troops "plod over a snow-covered mountain trail", some Canadian members of RCNVR and Combined Ops are getting used to the views of mountains on Vancouver Island:

Photo - GH, during 2015 trip to HMCS Quadra (formerly HMCS Givenchy III)

The book entitled Ticket to Hell via Dieppe, written by Canadian A. Robert Prouse (a POW from 1942 - 45), contains not just a gripping account of one man's experience re escape and survival, but several pieces of art and songs ('barbed-wire ballads') produced by POWs. Below is a sketch of "The Peterhof Gasthaus... a welcome refuge from the atmosphere of the camp and the drudgery of the work parties" by Prouse, and a fine drawing by a padre:

Photo - As found in Ticket to Hell, page 116

About the padre, Prouse writes: "Padre Bamber, a British chaplain, was a fine artist who captured the tranquility of Peterhof in this pen sketch." Page 121.

Before moving on to news clippings from the January 17th issue of The Winnipeg Tribune, I will add one more reference to the Canadians in Combined Operations who were safely at work helping new recruits master seamanship and gunnery skills on Vancouver Island. 

About HMCS Givenchy III my father said, "It was absolute heaven there." Yes, the scenery was that gorgeous. As well, it was not like Dieppe, North Africa, Sicily or Italy where guns were often a-blazing - and aimed in the direction of assault and mechanised landing crafts under the control of these Canadians now in British Columbia. 

Canadian sailors (200 are mentioned) raise money for Victory Bonds

at the Combined Operations school on Comox Spit. Photo - GH
 

A. Robert Prouse was still 'serving time' as a POW (re the Dieppe Raid) in Jan. 1944, and at some time during the early months of his imprisonment - while himself recovering from wounds - he crossed paths with a man in hospital who had been wounded during the raid as well. 

Prouse writes:

The nights were long in the hospital. It was difficult to sleep while trying to shut out the groans and moans of the wounded. The bed next to mine was occupied by who else but the chief moaner from the train journey. We never spoke; we only glared at each other with mutual dislike.

On my other side was a very badly wounded private [Editor's note: Prouse says 'private', I say Canadian sailor. In bed clothes the force to which they belonged would not likely be distinguished], and although he must have been in great pain, he never uttered a whimper. He died within the week as gangrene had set in and could not be curbed, even after amputating his leg. Ticket to Hell, pages 28 - 30.

I have conducted a fair bit of research related to the 'sailor' that Prouse saw, and it connects a lot of dots leading to a young man from London, Ontario (my home city) who was wounded at Dieppe and mentioned in a few places in memoirs and stories by Canadians in Combined Ops.

If interested, readers can connect to the story of Canadian sailor Lloyd George Campbell here.

And now, back to The Trib:

"It was a cinch." You don't hear those words very often! Canadian War Correspondent Dick Sanburn gets to tell the tale on the front page:

Ralph Allen's continuing series of 'Answers by Allen' gets the front page too:

Editorial cartoons are often my cup of tea. And always on page 6 of The Trib:

Ralph Allen had a bit of fun, I think, writing about army rations, nutrition-levels or lack thereof. Our Canadian sailors in Combined Ops had to maintain a sense of humour about the availability, quality and quantity of food options - or lack thereof - as well, at times.

During the invasion of North Africa, Operation Torch, my father worked for four days straight unloading American troops and supplies - before his first real break for food and rest - and said he survived on grapefruit juice, which he "stole from the Americans." 

The next year in Sicily, once the first troopships were unloaded and returned to N. Africa - leaving Canadian sailors manning landing crafts without a place to sling a hammock or get a meal - dozens slept in caves, e.g., near Avola, and scrounged for food. 

My father writes:

We used a pail of sand saturated with gasoline to heat our meals on if any food was available. Later we moved into a limestone cave, dank and wet, but safe from bombs. We hung a barrage balloon over it, about 1,000 feet up, and one sailor got drunk and shot it down but we had 50 - 60 feet of limestone over our heads.

I had 27 days at Sicily living on tomatoes and Bully Beef. I swore I would kick the first bull I saw in Canada - right in the posterior - if I got back.Dad, Well Done page 33

I think one of my father's best meals was handed to him out a window by a Navy officer, after he had helped steal some chickens while living in or near Messina (during Operation Baytown, the invasion of Italy beginning Sept. 3, 1943).

He writes:

We weren’t too busy and the officers (who ate separately but had the same food as us) were growing tired of the diet, the same as we were, even though they had a Sicilian cook and we didn’t. An officer by the name of Wedd asked me if I knew where there were some chickens or something. I said, “Chickens, yes.”

When he said, “How be we put on some sneakers and gaffle them,” I said right then, “Okay by me. Tonight at dark we’ll go, but I get a portion for my part of the deal.” He agreed and later we got every chicken in the coop, rung their necks, and then took them to the house and had the Sicilian cook prepare them. I got a couple of drum sticks out the window. Next morning, the Sicilian cook came in as mad as hell. Someone had stolen his chickens. Little did he know at the time he cooked them that they were his own because his wife looked after them.

Dad, Well Done page 36

He writes one line about having "dining-room duties" while on Vancouver Island in 1994 - 45, so he and his mates probably did a whole lot better food-wise once back in Canada.

They look pretty healthy to me in the picture below, taken at HMCS Naden (Esquimalt, B.C.) shortly before their discharge from the Navy in the fall of 1945:

Back row: Donald Westbrook, Charlie Rose, Joe Spencer

Front row: Joe Watson, Doug Harrison, Arthur Warrick

"A naval photographer took a picture of six of us because we all joined the same day, went through twenty-three months overseas together and were going to be discharged all on the same day too."

Dad, Well Done page 43

News from The Trib continues:

This post concludes with another Canadian returning home with a tale to tell:

More to follow from The Tribune re Canadian troops and sailors(!) returning home in 1944.

For more information about Canadians returning home from war in early 1944, please link to Editor's Research: Canadians in Combined Ops Return Home (4). 

Editor Gord Harrison, London can be reached here - gordh7700@gmail.com - with questions or concerns.