Articles: Canadian Flotilla of Landing Craft in Italy (1)

We Can Tip Our Hats to Richard L. Sanburn,

War Correspondent for The Ottawa Citizen

"The Winnipeg Tribune staff put out an extra on VE-Day when the 

war in Europe ended. This is the news desk preparing the extra."

Richard L. Sanburn is fourth from left of those standing,

wearing a white shirt, tie, and nifty suspenders

Apparently, Mr. Sanburn worked for the Ottawa Citizen when he was overseas in 1943. Once back to Canada he could be found (see above photo) working for The Winnipeg Tribune in May, 1945. And according to the full caption that accompanied this photo of him, he "retired in September of 1976 from the position of editor of the Calgary Herald."

It seems he liked moving westward. Had he not retired in Calgary in '76, he might have eventually worked for The Vancouver Sun  and retired in Honolulu.

Where he worked and when (or the direction he travelled) does not concern me. What does is the article he wrote shortly after the invasion of Italy, that appeared in the Citizen on September 5, 1943. And it concerns me only in a good way, for he interviewed a handful of the very men who are my stock-in-trade - the approx. 1,000 members of RCNVR who also joined Combined Operations during WWII. He did so while about 100 of our sailors, including my father, manned landing crafts in the Messina Strait during the first 30 days or so of the invasion of Italy.

The invasion on the toe of the boot in Italy began on September 3rd, and members of RCNVR and Combined Ops who were 'in the know' (likely just the officers) would have referred to it as Operation Baytown.

Operazione "Baytown"; le truppe Alleate sbarcano a Reggio Calabria

[Operation Baytown; Allied troops disembark at Reggio Calabria,

and that might be Gord's Dad chatting it up with the locals ; )]
Photo Credit - Italian website

Sanburn does not call the operation by that name or any other but he does interview some men who are known to careful readers of "1,000 Men, 1,000 Stories" by their contributions to the written and photographic history of RCNVR and Combined Operations.

The insignia of Combined Operations

Though my father, there at the time on one of the 100 landing crafts mentioned in Sanburn's article, is not mentioned by name, he was there as a member of the 80th Flotilla of Canadian Landing Craft and contributes to this entry of mine because he wrote a detailed newspaper column (in the 1990s) about one of the Canadian officers that Sanburn draws our attention to in his own piece.

The full article by R. L. Sanburn follows:

Mr. Sanburn has recorded, for posterity's sake, not only what he saw pertaining to an important landing craft flotilla (the 80th, the only Canadian Flotilla in Italy), but the names of several men attached to the flotilla that deserve honourable mention, and, perhaps one that does not, though he may have already been punished enough for his crime. I list the names of the Canadians in Combined Ops below, and then share more information that I have available about some of them :

Lieut. Jack Koyl, Saskatoon

Lieut. Jud Whittall, Vancouver

Sub-Lieut. Ian Barclay, Montreal

AB (Able Bodied) Cy Little, Ottawa

AB Lloyd Evans, Ottawa

AB Sam Belisle, Ottawa

LS (Leading Seaman) Norm Boren (sic), Ottawa (Norm Bowen)

More to follow.

Please link to Articles: Down Memory Lane by Doug Harrison, 1991

Unattributed Photos GH