1000 Men, 1000 Stories : Editor's Research: Canadians in Combined Ops Return Home (4)

The Allies are Making Progress on Various Fronts, and ...

A Few Canadians in Combined Ops (Maybe)... Home at Last!

Jim Searle! From the January 12, 1944 issue of The Winnipeg Tribune

Introduction:

The words 'Navy Commandos' in the headline helped, along with the following line:

The lads returned to Canada for leave just before Christmas after they had "wound up activities at Messina."

Why, I sat right up. "Bingo!" I said. Those are the same words that could be used to describe my father's return to Canada - with many other members of the Canadian 80th Flotilla of Landing Crafts - in early December aboard the Aquitania.

Seven members of RCNVR and Combined Ops cluster together aboard the

Aquitania. They arrived in Halifax on December 7, 1943, on leave, after two

years duty overseas. Dieppe, North Africa, Sicily, Italy is behind them now.

Joe Watson (Simcoe) turns a collar. Doug Harrison (Norwich) behind him.

The name 'Jim Searle' also sounds very familiar, with 'Jerry Mulvey' and 'Harold Billington' partly so.

I will attempt to find information about any possible connections between the aforementioned 'Navy Commandos' and the 80th Flotilla. I know that Canadian sailors were trained in the role of Navy commandos to assist with the formation of secure beachheads when landing crafts - loaded with troops and all materials of war - hit the beaches. Some may have been under the command of Royal Navy officers during Allied actions, others with Canadian ships and flotillas. We shall see what we can see and add it to the offerings below.

First, news from various fronts from January 12 - 14, 1944, as found in the digitized version of The Tribune:

Besides our Canadian boys being busy in Italy, on the 'home front', our ship yards are very active as well:

Very nice artwork (in my opinion) is used to inspire the home front toward victory:

Photographs associated with the above incident concerning L.-Cpl. R. Y. Boyd appeared in the January 14 issue of The Tribune, and they appear immediately below:

Oh, you can't fool an old sailor, and in the case below, a very young one as well:

There's a first time for everything! : )

The article that was used to introduce this post (re "Six Winnipeg Navy Commandos...") will appear shortly, and I have been able to find more information about - and from - some of the sailors mentioned in it. The information is found in the book St. Nazaire to Singapore... Volume 2, and the two-volume set contains WWII veterans' stories and was self-published in the mid-1990s, so it is exceedingly rare (sometimes a copy appears at AbeBooks).

Stories compiled by David and Catherine Lewis, and Len Birkenes, circa 1995

D. Lewis and L. Birkenes, RCNVR and Combined Ops, approx. 1941 - 45

The set was inspired by Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks (for sale on this website; see "books for sale re combined ops" in side margin or contact Editor at gordh7700@gmail.com. All three were part of my father's collection - he was a member of RCNVR and Combined Operations from 1941 - 45.

The original publication by Londoner Clayton Marks, circa 1993

C. Marks, RCNVR and Combined Ops, approx. 1941 - 45

Details re the Combined Operations organization (aka Combined Operations Command) follow the recap re six Navy Commandos:

In a story entitled "The Value of Army Experience in Combined Operations" by Lt. Cdr. Ian A. Barclay (RCNVR, Combined Operations) found in Volume 1 of St. Nazaire to Singapore, we read about some of the sailors mentioned in the 'Navy Commandos' news article above. Barclay's story recounts some early experiences of Canadians sailors during Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa beginning November 8, 1942:

In the North African show, we landed at Arzew... On our first attempt we had a mechanical breakdown in the craft, and while repairing it we were caught in machine gun fire. One of the guns was situated in a factory about three miles away, and being unable to leave the beach, we hit for the sand dunes where we offered a smaller target... Fortunately the Yanks soon got control and were entering a house twenty yards ahead of us, when a shot was fired from it and hit one of them. The sniper had spotted us... and but for the timely arrival of the Army would have had a crack at us.

St. Nazaire to Singapore, page 10

In memoirs my father mentions landing U.S. troops at Arzew, getting stuck offshore in the process, needing assistance to get off a sandbank, hiding "behind a 'dozer blade" when snipers opened up, and a few other details that make me think he was very near the action experienced by Lt. Barclay.

Doug Harrison writes:

Buryl McIntyre and I were among the 200 sailors who had worked on our landing craft ferrying army supplies ashore night and day for about a week at a little town south of Oran named Arzew.

"Dad, Well Done", page 89

Doug Harrison continues in another entry:

We left Greenock in October, 1942 with our LCMs aboard a ship called Derwentdale, sister ship to Ennerdale... We had American soldiers aboard and an Italian in our mess who had been a cook before the war...

In the convoy close to us was a converted merchant ship which was now an air craft carrier. They had a relatively short deck for taking off, and one day when they were practicing taking off and landing a Swordfish aircraft failed to get up enough speed and rolled off the stern and, along with the pilot, disappeared immediately. No effort was made to search, we just kept on.

One November morning the huge convoy, perhaps 500 ships, entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar. It was a nice sun-shiny day... what a sight to behold...

On November 11, 1942 (Editor - possibly the 8th as he mentions on another occasion) the Derwentdale dropped anchor off Arzew in North Africa and different ships were distributed at different intervals along the vast coast. My LCM had the leading officer aboard, another seaman besides me, along with a stoker and Coxswain. At around midnight over the sides went the LCMs, ours with a bulldozer and heavy mesh wire, and about 500 feet from shore we ran aground. When morning came we were still there, as big as life and all alone, while everyone else was working like bees.

There was little or no resistance, only snipers, and I kept behind the bulldozer blade when they opened up at us. We were towed off eventually and landed in another spot, and once the bulldozer was unloaded the shuttle service began. For ‘ship to shore’ service we were loaded with five gallon jerry cans of gasoline. I worked 92 hours straight and I ate nothing except for some grapefruit juice I stole.

Doug Harrison (centre) watches as troops and ammunition come ashore

on LCAs at Arzeu in Algeria during Operation 'Torch', November 1942.

Photo credit - RN photographer F. A. Hudson, A12671 IWM

Our Coxswain was L/S Jack Dean of Toronto and our officer was Lt. McDonald RNR. After the 92 hours my officer said, “Well done. An excellent job, Harrison. Go to Reina Del Pacifico and rest.” But first the Americans brought in a half track (they found out snipers were in a train station) and shelled the building to the ground level. No more snipers.

"Dad, Well Done", pages 23 - 25

Lt. Cdr. Ian Barclay's account continues from St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 1:

"On another beach, a Naval officer for five days directed all the troops and made rendezvous for all the armoured vehicles and Jeeps. As the road in front of him never seemed to become congested he figured that everything must have been going all right, and so continued to send them on." (Editor - this sounds like the work of a Navy Commando Beach Master, i.e., securing a beachhead, directing traffic).

"Canadian sailors did very well there, as they did at Dieppe, and are trying to uphold the good name given Canadians by the Army in the last war.

"Our craft are the various types of assault boats and are driven by Diesel and gasoline engines. The Canadian stokers - you'd call them mechanics - are very adapted to this sort of work and have received much praise from all those who come in contact with them. Our greatest difficulty is trying to keep them with us as several senior officers of the Royal Navy think that they should have some of them. (Editor - some members of RCNVR and Combined Ops described themselves as "being on loan to the Royal Navy.")

"Our craft in Africa were proudly supporting such names as "Pride of Montreal, "Peaches," "Pat" and "Miss Galt," to mention a few. In mine, which had two large maple leaves, I had some fine lads - like L/Seaman Sweeting of Gull Lake, Sask., L/Seaman Mair of Victoria, A/Bs (Able Bodied Seamen) John Tomlinson of Galt, Ont., Jerry Mulvey, M. W. Key, and H. Billington, all from Winnipeg, J. R. McTavish of Regina, W. C. R. Macdonald from Abbotsford, B. C., and Stoker E. J. Corbett who hails from Fort William, Ont. Of the officers, S/Lts Harry Trenholme, John Keys ("Swifty"?) and George Hampson, all from Montreal." (Page 11)

Stoker E. J. Corbett donated his copies of St. Nazaire to Singapore

to The Courtenay Library/Archives. Photo - GH, trip to B.C., 2015

Some of those listed may have been Navy Commandos, and trained with Army Commandos in specialized camps in Scotland, and rubbed shoulders with Canadians in Combined Ops who underwent the same training but stayed with the tole of handling landing crafts from Operation Jubilee (Dieppe) to Operations Baytown and Avalanche (invasion of Italy at Reggio and Salerno, respectively).

Navy Commandos at work as found in The Crow's Nest (Sept. 1944)

Editor - One reason that dozens of other members of RCNVR, Combined Ops, and our Commando units were not mentioned with the Winnipeggers in The Winnipeg Tribune is because they'd already hopped off the train in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Brantford and Woodstock (and many other cities, towns and villages) after arriving home safely in Halifax before Christmas, 1943. (One of the motivating factors re this series of posts from The Tribune is to find information about some of the sailors who returned home at the end of 1943... so I've had some success so far!)

There are other references to some of the Winnipeggers et al in St. Nazaire to Singapore (the two-volume set).

For example, link here to read a letter by Lt. Cdr. John (likely "Swifty") Keys, from page 126 of Volume 1.

Link here to see the aforementioned L/Seaman Lysle Sweeting while in Roseneath, Scotland, 1944.

In Volume 2 (page 391) one finds a short entry by Jim Searle, CPO First Class RCN, followed by another piece authored by Lt. Cdr. Ian Barclay (about their experiences in Combined Operations):

And now, back to entries - with a local spotlight - from The Winnipeg Tribune:

When I see news that features a 'motor torpedo boat' (MTB) I think about the Canadian sailors who volunteered to join Combined Operations (C.O.). Reason being - teen-ager Al Kirby of Woodstock may have talked up a C.O. recruitment poster he saw after his torpedo class (at HMCS Stadacona, in Halifax, approx. Nov. 1941) that lead to a significant number of sailors signing up for the unknown (eventually, for the handling of landing crafts, with their first action being at Dieppe).

There were many 'war games' or 'practice manoeuvres' in the U.K. leading up to Allied raids and invasions that involved Canadians in C.O. and in Navy Commando units. Operations or exercises Beaver and Yukon were likely so named because of the growing number of Canadians involved (in all three branches of the armed forces), and casualties or fatalities were not uncommon. See Exercise Fabius, for example, leading up to D-Day landings in France.