Articles: "First Wave of Invaders..." (Italy) by Alan Moorehead

A Well-Positioned War Correspondent

Alan Moorehead stayed in a villa at Taormina in mid-August, 1943 and was

with General B. Montgomery and the Eighth Army at Messina on D-Day Italy,

Sept. 3rd. The above drawing is found in Moorehead's book ECLIPSE. Pg. 32

Introduction:

There were many war correspondents who risked life and limb to observe and write about the progress of Allied troops in the Mediterranean Theatre and on other war fronts during World War II. Their contributions to our understanding of the history of the war - its highlights and low-lights - are extremely valuable.

While reviewing 1943 issues of The Montreal Star, The Winnipeg Tribune and The Ottawa Citizen, articles by Alan Moorehead (British Press) occasionally crossed my computer screen (or monitor of a microfilm reader at A. B. Weldon Library at the University of Western Ontario), and I remarked that Moorehead's eye-witness accounts provided valuable details re the events or operations in which hundreds of the Canadian members of Combined Operations were involved as they manned landing crafts in the middle of intense events in Sicily and Italy, July - October, 1943.

I recently posted four entries on the site that present informative, details passages or excerpts from Mr. Moorehead's book entitled ECLIPSE (first published in 1945). It deals with Allied operations from the invasion of Sicily, to Italy, to D-Day Normandy.

Art work on the front cover jacket of Alan Moorehead's ECLIPSE

Painting by Barnett Freedman - Imperial War Museum

Readers can link to the four entries by clicking on Passages: "ECLIPSE" by Alan Moorehead (1 - 4).

And below, readers will find newspaper articles by Moorehead that relate to the Mediterranean Theatre of war in which Canadians were significantly involved.

For example, when the invasion of Italy began in the dark hours of the early morning of September 3rd, 1943, Moorehead was present, and described the scene in an article that reached Canada in time for the evening edition of The Ottawa Citizen on the same day.



Moorehead provides several lines that give us some better understanding of the conditions in which landing craft squadrons operated (e.g., the 80th Flotilla of Canadian Landing Crafts):

"...at night and without a moon... on a (calm) sea... hundreds of ships and barges (i.e., landing crafts) began setting out for the Italian coast with only starlight to guide them to the enemy beaches."

One member of the Canadian 80th Flotilla wrote the following about the night time invasion in his memoirs:

At midnight on September 3, 1943 our Canadian landing craft flotilla, loaded once again with war machinery, left the beaches near Messina, Sicily and crossed the Messina Strait to Reggio Calabria in Italy. The invasion of Italy was underway.

It was no different touching down on the Italian beach at Reggio Calabria at around midnight, September 3, 1943 than on previous invasions. Naturally we felt our way slowly to our landing place. Everything was strangely quiet and we Canadian sailors were quite tense, expecting to be fired upon, but we touched down safely, discharged our cargo and left as orderly and quietly as possible.

In the morning light on our second trip to Italy across seven miles of the Messina Straits we saw how the Allied artillery barrage across the straits had levelled every conceivable thing; not a thing moved, the devastation was unbelievable and from day one we had no problems; it was easy come, easy go from Sicily to Italy. (From "Dad, Well Done", by Doug Harrison, pages 115 - 116)

Moorehead described the invasion flotillas of landing craft in a creative way when he wrote, "Meanwhile, invasion barges - the same mosquito fleet that made the landing on Sicily - stole up the coast to take the army on board." Perhaps he had seen scores of the small craft swarming deftly into every available cove to pick up soldiers and military equipment from ammunition to fuel to rations. 

He continued:

In Moorehead's book ECLIPSE, published shortly after he left the Mediterranean Theatre of war, he provides clear detail about landing on the Italian shore in a DUKW (aka duck) with General Montgomery ("Monty"). A passage about that event can be viewed here.

Monty enters Reggio aboard a DUKW, Sept. 3, 1943

Photo found in Eclipse by A. Moorehead, Page 29. 

Though the following article does not offer the name of its author, it comes from Taormina (a city on the Sicilian coast several miles south of Messina). Monty and Moorehead stayed in adjacent villas in that city, and the article (from Moorehead's pen? Perhaps!) relates to what Moorehead would have witnessed and later mentioned in Eclipse.

Article is as found in The Ottawa Citizen,

published on September 2, 1943

Alan Moorehead's article about the invasion of Italy on September 3rd, 1943, was also published in The Montreal Star on the same day. It is about 90% the same as what was offered in The Ottawa Citizen. Though the microfiche was of low quality, the story and its differences were not. (I say, be patient and "vive la difference").

The above photo, from the Sept. 9 issue of The Montreal Star, is similar to
so many found in other newspapers, i.e., of poor quality. (Though tantalizing too,
because we know good photos were taken, but where are they to be found?)

Alan Moorehead's article made its way across Canada on September 3rd, or at least to the middle of our vast country. The following map and article (same as above) appears below from The Winnipeg Tribune.

As one can see, The Winnipeg Tribune reads as clear as a bell. It is a digitized newspaper and is available online at The University of Manitoba.

For read more articles that can be directly linked to Canadians in Combined Operations, please link to Articles: Four Canadian Sailors Make Headlines (2).

Unattributed Photos GH