Story Time: The Invasion of Sicily and Italy, 1943 (2)

Canadians in Combined Operations Move into 'The Savoy'

"Tremendous Bonfire in the East... HMHS Talamba was Gone"

HMHS Talamba (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) Sailing into harbour. 

Location not known. © Imperial War Museum (IWM) E 240348

Introduction:

In looking for online photographs of HMHS Talamba I discovered a bit of controversy surrounding the number of hospital staff and wounded soldiers that were killed during the bombing of the ship when it was stationed off the east coast of Sicily on July 10th (or was it the 11th!?) near HOW and GEORGE sectors (or beaches) served by the Canadian 80th and 81st Flotillas of Landing Craft.

My father, Doug Harrison (RCNVR/Combined Operations) was among those sailors onshore the night it was hit by German bombers and he mentions a few details in the video that follows.

Please link to Story Time, WWII (2) as found on YouTube.

About the sinking of HMHS Talamba: 

Wikipedia shares the following - During the amphibious invasion of Sicily, she was attacked twice by the Italian Regia Aeronautica and German Luftwaffe. A bomb fell into her engine room which caused an explosion that killed 5 of her crew but all 400 wounded were evacuated to safety. HMHS Talamba, sank off Syracuse on 10 July 1943.[2] Link - Wikipedia

That only 5 of her crew were killed is not supported by a few sources in my possession, stories by Canadian WWII veterans of RCNVR and Combined Operations (British organization).

An article "written by Stan Fernando, a Junior Engineer from Sri Lanka (Ceylon as known then), who was serving on S.S. Talamba at the time when disaster struck" reveals that many more than 5 lost their lives and goes on to suggest why such a low number was given. Readers may find the comment thread under Stan Fernando's story interesting and informative as well. 

The maps below provide details about the location of HMHS Talamba at the time of its arrival on July 10, 1943:

The above modern day map features the town of Fontane Bianche (upper right) approx. 5 - 6 km. south of Syracusa. The one kilometre long beach ('C' shaped) was designated as George Beach during Operation Husky and the Canadian 80th Flotilla of Landing Crafts (LCMs - landing craft, mechanised) transported all materials of war to three designated areas (Red, Amber, Green) on GEORGE. My father made a cave his home near the kilometer-long beach for 2 - 3 weeks, 80 years ago. He referred to it as "The Savoy."

Please note the city of Gallina in the lower left section of the above map. It was one of the three designated areas of HOW Sector (or beaches) to which the 81st Flotilla of Landing Crafts transported goods beginning July 10. More details below.

Map found in WWII Canadian veteran's story re the invasion of Sicily.

(Email Gord H. for a link to St. Nazaire to Singapore, Volume 1)

The Red and Amber sections of HOW Sector is where Gallina is today.

(The cities of Noto and Avola are misplaced, and are 5 - 6 km south).

My father made a short reference to the hospital ship in his story:

We had a hospital ship with us named the Alatambra (sic: Talamba) with many nurses and doctors aboard. She came in to about three miles in daytime and went out to seven miles and lighted up like a city at night. No one was to bomb a hospital ship and for days on end we took the wounded out to her, many being glider pilots with purple berets. Never a sound out of them, no matter how badly they were hurt. Mostly Scotch soldiers.

One night we saw what appeared to be a tremendous bonfire in the east, offshore a long way out. In the morning, the Alatambra was gone, nursing sisters, doctors, wounded and all. Seven hundred and ninety were killed or drowned. The Germans had either bombed or torpedoed her that night. So goes war. Page 33, "Dad, Well Done"

Admittedly, I have no idea where my father came up with the figure, "seven hundred and ninety were killed or drowned." There would have been lots of talk amongst the crews of the 80th and 81st Flotillas, because they were doing the transport of the 'sets of survivors', but unless somebody was keeping a list and checking it twice...

That being said, a higher number than five casualties is certainly suggested in a file of Lt. Cmdr J. E. Koyl (RCNVR/Combined Ops:

It was with great relief that the troopers who had landed the assault forces were sailed away. There was still a tempting assemblage of shipping off the beaches, perhaps fifty vessels, and the stores they carried were vital to the operation of the 8th Army now advancing towards Syracuse.

The exact scene Koyl describes above may be depicted in the photo below:

Liners right inshore, 4 miles south of Syracuse unloading troops
and landing craft. Photo - Roper, F G (Lt) © IWM A 18090

Koyl continues:

At 1530 the first serious air raid took place but a number of dive bombers and medium bombers achieved no success with attacks which were directed mainly against transports.

From then on the blitz continued throughout the night and at frequent intervals during the next 48 hours. Although the bombing attacks were so numerous, there were never many aircraft in any one attack - about thirty aircraft, mostly German, in the heaviest raids on "HOW" sector - and the raids were surprisingly unsuccessful. Not until the evening of the 11th was any ship sunk or severely damaged. Then, in a dusk attack, dive bombers selected a hospital ship lying lit up some distance to seaward of its transport anchorage and sunk her in twenty minutes. According to a record kept by a stoker of the 81st Flotilla, there were twenty-three raids on "HOW" and "GEORGE" sectors in the first three days.

The hospital ship sunk at dusk on the 11th was the "TALAMBA", to which Lieut. "Koyl" had taken casualties from the LST. It was a grim business for him and his Flotilla to search the wreckage for survivors during the night. Sub Lt. Barclay of the 80th took a prominent part in this work and describes the great difficulties of transferring wounded men from an LCM to the cruiser, H.M.S. "UGANDA", in the heavy swell that was running. Stretchers were improvised and the "UGANDA'S" aircraft derrick used for hoisting them inboard. Although a large number of the wounded were saved, most of the medical and nursing staff went down with their ship - a tribute to their heroism and devotion to duty.

Page 177 - 178, Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks RCNVR/Comb.Ops

From the same book re the role of Canadians in Combined Operations, we read the following from a LCM Flotilla Engineer Officer, including casualty reports re Talamba:

In the twenty-eight days we spent there (Sicily) I only saw three ships sunk. This figure excludes a hospital ship which was deliberately lit up by flares and dive-bombed until it sunk with considerable loss of life.

It was in the second air attack on 'D' day (D-day Sicily, July 10, 1943) that our Flotilla Officer Jake Koyl and his crew narrowly escaped annihilation. Jake had just beached his boat and was engaged in off-loading the vehicle it carried when a dive-bomber attacked the beach. An LCT was unloading a few yards to port and an LST only a few yards to starboard. The bombs dropped so close to Jake's LCM that the blast carried right over their heads, but completely wiped the bridge of the LST and killed the entire personnel on the LCT, with the exception of one Officer, who was very badly shrapnelled and burned.

In a shorter time than it takes to tell, Jake and his boys had their craft off the beach and rushed to pick up injured from the two unfortunate large craft. This occupied them for the remainder of the afternoon and it was to the hospital ship I have already referred to that the wounded were taken.

That night she (i.e., Talamba) was sunk and the next morning Jake had the gruesome business of taking what few survivors that were still alive from the two instances (i.e., the sinking of the two troop ships and the later sinking of the Talamba) to another hospital ship. My one and only hope is the crews of the enemy planes that sank the hospital ship stink in the hubs of hell forever and ever! Or should I rather bring my curses onto the heads of those who are responsible for the training of human robots to do such damn brutal and down right cowardly deeds! But all the cursing (it will likely be censored) in the world won't bring back those lads who were twice battered in battle, nor the Sisters, nurses and doctors who lost their lives from such treachery.

Page 95, Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks RCNVR/Comb.Ops

My trip to Sicily approaches but there will be a few more items to follow before readers are bombarded with a few 100 photos of GEORGE Beach, near which the sinking of HMHS Talamba took place 80 years ago.

Please click here to view Story Time: The Invasion of Sicily (1)

Unattributed Photos GH

Story Time: The Invasion of Sicily and Italy, 1943 (1)

Operation HUSKY: "This Was to be Our Worst Invasion Yet"

"Utter Death and Carnage," on the Beaches of Sicily

Happier times, as five members of RCNVR and Combined Operations

prepare to board a train for the West Coast of Canada, December 1943

Introduction:

After the invasion of North Africa, Operation TORCH (beginning November 8, 1942), Canadian sailors in Combined Operations who were involved - delivering troops and all materials of war to shore - returned to the United Kingdom, likely for a well-deserved leave before returning to various Royal Navy and/or Combined Operations training centres. Moves to this camp or that camp were so numerous many sailors could not keep track of all the locations they visited. New Landing crafts were being developed and the growing number of recruits needed to keep up-to-date.

In the spring of 1943, the next Allied operation - during which many Canadians in Combined Ops spent three months in the Mediterranean - was on the horizon.

My father writes: 

Back to England I went for more training in May, 1943 with barges aboard the S.S. Silver Walnut, a real dud. We formed up and headed to sea again, this time from Liverpool. We didn’t know but Sicily was next. ("Dad, Well Done" page 27)

I get the impression from his memoirs that he spent time at HMS Weymouth (near Southend-on-Sea, east of London on the River Thames) after Operation TORCH, but there are a few stories about being in Scotland as well. When he arrived in Liverpool with landing craft aboard the Walnut he likely thought "more training lies ahead. What camp will we visit next?" 

How about Sicily? And on such a troubled ship it will take 5 - 6 weeks to get there. As usual, the sailors were not likely told their destination until they arrived in Alexandria, after a worrisome, at times downright dangerous, trip around Africa.

Story Time, The Invasion of Sicily, Part 1, follows:

YouTube - https://youtu.be/GUe9A3zH1sI

S.S. Silver Walnut.  Photo from the collection of Doug Harrison

Doug Harrison (right) with Jim Malone, Canadians in Combined Ops

As found in The Norwich Gazette, early 1990s

While travelling on the Silver Walnut around Africa, my father enjoyed a few rare adventures (and misadventures) with 'a Scottish engine room engineer named Hastings.' One story about the lengthy trip and his eventual arrival in Alexandria aboard Silver Walnut can be found here.

The Scottish engineer is hidden by a headdress? Mr. Harrison smiles a bit.

The Navy cap worn by my father can be seen behind me in the videos

Photo as found in The Norwich Gazette, early 1990s

A Navy hammock, originally belonging to Bill Katanna, who

worked aboard the same landing craft as my father in Sicily.

It can now be found at the Navy Museum in Esquimalt, BC

More to follow from my father's three months in the Mediterranean, July - early October, 1943.

Please click here to for Story Time: "Stealing Chickens" by G. Douglas Harrison

Unattributed Photos GH

Story Time: "Stealing Chickens" by G. Douglas Harrison

While in Messina, 1943, Canadian Sailors Grew Hungry

"Lt. Andy Wedd, RCNVR, Spotted Some Beautiful Hens"

Dad, 'The Master,' knew how to keep a chicken quiet in stressful times

Introduction:

My father, Gordon Douglas (Doug) Harrison, was a member of RCNVR and Combined Operations from 1941 - 1945 and recorded many stories of his varied experiences - in memoirs, news columns for his hometown paper (The Norwich Gazette) and submissions to two rare volumes of Canadian Navy veterans' stories, i.e., St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War 1941 - 1945. Click here to link to Volume 1.

In the top photo he is standing in front of his barn, home to a chicken coop and, usually, several laying hens.

Doug Harrison's barn, in Norwich ONT. As painted by Edith Harrison, his

wife, my mother (a talented painter and writer). Chicken coop is attached

to the barn, behind bent tree, far left. From the collection of GH. 

Coming soon to a theatre near you, "Stealing Chickens": Please click here to link to one of Doug's stories, now on YouTube. [Length - 3min:00sec.]

Here is the same video in 8 seconds! Please maintain a sense of humour at all times:

Proof that I do not know how to use all features on my iPhone!

I include the written version below for those who prefer written versions:

Here’s a Canadian WW2 story from Sicily called “Stealing Chickens”

In mid-September, 1943 at Messina, after Operation Baytown was well-underway, members of the 80th flotilla of Canadian landing crafts settled into a less-stressful routine.

My father writes the following:

We weren’t too busy and the officers (who ate separately but had the same food as the regular sailors, like me) were growing tired of their diet, the same as we were, even though they had a Sicilian cook.

One day Lt. Andy Wedd asked me if I knew about poultry. I informed him that the subject was right down my alley. He then told me of the location of six or eight beautiful hens and asked if I would help him.

He said, “How be we put on some sneakers and gaffle them.” (Or steal them).

I said right then, “Okay by me, but I get a portion for my part of the deal.”

When he asked me how we could keep the hens quiet, I told him, with an axe! Or, we could firmly grasp their necks and tuck their heads under one wing and rock them for awhile. We chose the second plan because it actually works. By now, of course, our mouths are watering.

We went in at dark, like another raid, and entered the outside pen with a flashlight, a kit bag and wearing mitts. Andy slowly caught each one by the neck, handed them to the master who rocked them to sleep and lowered them quietly into the kit bag. Without a squawk we cleaned the roost and proceeded to the officers’ mess, with the kit bag between us. Lt. Wedd asked the Sicilian cook to prepare them. And a little while later a couple of drum sticks were handed out the window to me.

Next morning, the Sicilian cook came in as mad as could be. Someone had stolen his chickens. Little did he know when he cooked them that they were his own - because his wife and his mother looked after them. Lt. Wedd and I kept that story secret for many years.

The story is from “Dad, Well Done,” pages 36 and 70

For those who wish to know more re Doug's memoirs,

please connect me at gordh7700@gmail.com

Doug Harrison loved his bantam ("banties") roosters and hens

Please click here to view another video re Doug Harrison's 'Navy days' entitled Video: "Faint Footsteps, WWII" (Part 9)

Photos, Videos by GH