Editor's Research: Invasion of Italy (8) - Montreal Star (Sept. 9-10, '43)

So, Where is War Correspondent Sholto Watt? What?

Headlines in The Montreal Star, September 9, 1943. As found on

microfiche, University of western Ontario (UWO), London ONT

I started this research project, searching through 1943 issues of The Montreal Star (From Sept. - early Oct., re invasion of Italy), because I had discovered a very interesting sentence in an equally interesting story by a Canadian officer associated with the Canadian flotilla of landing crafts used to land men and materiel of war on the toe of the boot in Italy during Operation Baytown. 

I don't have a name for the officer. I don't have a name for the reporter. All that sparked my attention was the following line:

"There was one expedition I do remember, when our maintenance staff took a reporter from the Montreal Star on a trip. We landed at Scilla, looked over the town..." (Page 101, Combined Operations, by RCNVR veteran Clayton Marks)

Because my father was a part of the Canadian 80th Flotilla of Landing Crafts working in The Med at that time, and mentions visiting the toe of the boot himself in September, 1943, I am hoping to find stories re the Landing Crafts, Mechanised (LCMs) with which he was familiar.

Sholto Watt is a reporter with The Montreal Star known to have travelled to The Med with several other Canadian writers. (I found a story re the writers in The Winnipeg Tribune; the story is posted on this site). And I featured Mr. Watt's first story for The Star in an earlier post, a week or so ago, during the early days of this research project.

Unfortunately, I have not seen anything by Mr. Watt since that first article. And I'd like to know if he is the above-mentioned writer transported in the Canadian landing craft. So, where is Sholto? Why isn't he posting more stories? What is he up to?

Honestly, I'm not sure, but I'll keep looking.

From the September 10 issue of The Montreal Star:

In the caption attached to the above photo, we read "In the lower picture". It appears after the following news article - not by Sholto Watts. The 'thrust' that is mentioned, south of Naples, may have been Operation Avalanche, the tough landing on beaches of Salerno:

I am certain I displayed the top photo of Gen, Bernard L. Montgomery in an earlier post, and I was able to find it easily again:

Link to Wikipedia to see the above with more details. Photo Credit - IWM

 That gives me hope that I will also find and be able to display a clean copy of the photograph below, of the landing crafts, troops and some of the veterans of RCNVR who manned the landing crafts. I bet there is a copy somewhere in the vaults at Imperial War Museum, UK. It's on my to-do list.

I feel there are Canadians at work on the landing crafts,
and some of the troops will be Canadian as well

The largest invasion exercises ever in the English Channel are mentioned in the article that follows. So, while Canadians in Combined Ops are busy in Italy, more combined operations are taking place back in the UK, in preparation for D-Day Normandy, less than a year away:

The following story gives us a clear picture of the ongoing action north of the toe of the boot. More landings of Allied troops did take place in the days and weeks that followed the initial landings at Reggio Calabria, on the toe of Italy's boot. Landings at Salerno and Anzio were met with sharp resistance and much has been written about those actions.

Note that "the first eyewitness account of the Allied landings" was brought back by a young Canadian flier  FO John Anthony Vasicek - from Chatham, Ontario, about one hour from my home. 

Note the spelling of the flier's name in the last sentence

above. 'V' and 'C' are side by each on a keyboard.

With the help of Mr. Google I was able to locate a few more lines about the Canadian pilot John Vasicek at Gathering Our Heroes, an important website dedicated to honouring WWI and WWII enlistments from the Chatham Kent area:

Service # J/13034

Unit # 683 Sqdn., RCAF

Son of Stephen and Mary Annie (nee Bartosek) Vasicek, of R.R.#1 Mull, Ontario, Canada. Brother of Mary Ann, Lloyd, Charles....

John enlisted at Windsor, ON in the RCAF 13 Sept. 1941. He graduated as a Pilot Officer in September, 1942 at RCAF – Montreal at the head of his class.

The CDN 9/09/42* reported that a flight (was made) over the Naples district (and) a Canadian flier said, “the whole area of approximately 1,000 square miles was swarming with an invasion fleet”.... (the report continues, as per the news article above)

[*Editor's comment: If The Star gives an accurate account, and I believe it does, then the date should read 9/09/43]

At Gathering Our Heroes we read this unfortunate conclusion:

John’s father Stephan was notified in early February, 1944 that his son was missing after operations. He presumed that this was in the Mediterranian theatre of war. He was flying in an RAF squadron for several months assisting in the invasion of Sicily and Italy. CDN 2/02/44(P)

Age: 22, KIA – Date of Death: 18/01/1944. Flying Spitfire fighter EN 504 on reconnaissance flight for the 5th Army. He crashed south of Garigliano, Italy. The aircraft was seen to go into a spiral dive and F/O Vasicek bailed-out at 100 feet but he made no apparent effort to open his parachute. The crash is believed to have been caused by a lack of oxygen and not due to enemy action.

War production was booming in various Allied countries, particularly in the United States and Canada. Successes on various war fronts would not have taken place without the hard toil of workers, male and female, "back home":

As readers can see, stories taken from microfiche are not the world's clearest copies and can be a struggle to scan or read fully. My only alternative is to type the stories up myself or convince someone at The Star to digitize each issue related to the war years. Hopefully, more Canadian newspapers will move to digital copies in the future.

Headlines from September 10, 1943:

I see nothing from Sholto Watt on the front page. MIA?

I will keep looking for him

Canadians in Combined Operations were active at Reggio di Calabria for several weeks, and some were active at the landings on beaches near Salerno (Operation Avalanche). Some details about those landings appear below from the Book Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks, RCNVR veteran:

SALERNO - OPERATION AVALANCHE

September 9, 1943

On September 11th the British landed unopposed in the harbour at Taranto but Salerno was a far tougher nut. Apart from Dieppe, which was a special case, it was the first seriously opposed landing that we had ventured on, and there was a period when it was near to failing altogether.

The date selected for Avalanche was the 9th of September. The Italian request for an armistice was made public on the evening of the 8th, which led some of the more ill-advised among the troops, despite warnings, to expect something like a walkover. Top level arguments, and the consequent lower level adjustments, were still continuing when the first and slowest elements of the invasion force crept out from their bases and set their course for Salerno.

Sixteen separate convoys sailed from five separate ports on six different dates, according to their speed and port of origin. There were several air attacks on passage, but the total damage was negligible; it amounted to only one LCT sunk, one Hunt Class destroyer damaged by a near miss, and one LST damaged by a bomb which passed clean through her without exploding. The last two reached their objectives, and the destroyer played a notable part in the bombardment of the beaches before being ordered back to Malta for repairs on the second day of the landings. It was a poor score for the Luftwaffe against 700 ships and landing craft.

Rendezvous and landfalls were made faultlessly, and the assault began more or less on time. The northern or British half of the front comprised of sectors, each of two beaches. On the northernmost beach the leading battalion got ashore successfully, and Brigade Headquarters followed it soon afterwards, but the right battalion on the next beach was less fortunate.

By bad luck the LCT(R)s discharged their rockets too far south, and the Commanding Officer of the leading wave had to make up his mind quickly whether to land on his allotted beach, where the defenders had escaped attack, or to switch to where the rockets had struck, so as to exploit their effect. He chose the latter course, and it proved to be a wrong decision. Trying to fight his way north to the area in which he should have landed his men came under heavy fire. His supporting weapons, following in the next wave, did not know of the change of direction, and landed on the original beach, where, with no bridgehead to protect them, they were wiped out. This battalion and the reserve battalion following in its wake, each suffered 50 percent casualties. (Page 102)

(More will follow from the above account in future posts).

Now, back to The Montreal Star:

Naples is north of Salerno, where Operation Avalanche is underway. We see Salerno mentioned briefly in the article that follows:

A Canadian first!? Play ball, boys! : )

More from The Montreal Star and Combined Operations will follow.

Please link to Editor's Research: Invasion of Italy (7) - Montreal Star (Sept. 8, '43)

Unattributed Photos GH

Editor's Research: Invasion of Italy (7) - Montreal Star (Sept. 8, '43)

Italy Surrenders. Canadians Toil Upon Fairly Peaceful Waters

September 8, 1943 - Headlines as found in The Montreal Star

(From microfiche - University of Western Ontario (UWO)

On any given day in 1943, most of the articles and photographs in The Montreal Star (which I collect and display here) only indirectly relate to the Canadians in Combined Operations who make their way aboard landing crafts from supply depots in Messina, Sicily to beach heads in Italy.

That being said, I think the available resources do help fill in our collective understanding of what strategic actions were taking place, and what conditions were like (e.g., the level of personal danger faced by individual members of the armed forces) to some degree and thereby give us a better understanding of what wartime veterans were experiencing in various theatres of war.

Rome did not fall under Allied control until very early June, 1944, i.e., just a few days before D-Day,  Normandy (France), June 6, 1944. The battle for Italy was one, long, really tough clog.

Admittedly, as far as I know, most of the men I am most interested in, i.e., the Canadians in Comb. Ops - who may soon get honorary mention in a few stories in The Star... if I can find them! - will be gone from The Med by the end of the first week on October, if not sooner. So, we still have some of our own slogging to do. Bear with me : )

On a clear day the Canadians in Combined Operations (many of whom lived north side of Messina in bombed out houses) could see the Italian shore line. But I am told they had a seven-mile trip as they delivered men and materiel of war to the Reggio Calabria beaches. See map below.

More details about the action in Italy from The Montreal Star:

Meanwhile, on another war front:

The German armies retreated north through Italy but played a stubborn, defensive rearguard game. Allied troops made up ground slowly and at some heavy cost. One interesting highlight of this story by William A. Wilson - a British patrol stumbles across part of a commando unit that had been among the first to land in Italy:

 

The commando leader is embarrassed about the scruffy look of his beard - 

I wrote in an earlier post - re the Sept. 6 issue of The Montreal Star - that my father turned 23 on that day. I have found one mention of it in his memoirs and set it down here:

In order to heat water and cook a bit, our fellows cut large metal hardtack biscuit tins in half, filled them with sand, poured on gasoline and cooked to their heart’s content. The hardtack biscuits are a story in themselves, hard as a rock even after soaking in compost tea. I think some tins were marked 1917.

Some of the Sicilian homes were but hovels, with dirt floors, complete with goats, donkeys, and chickens in the kitchen. The population drank wine at meals as we would tea. I saw wagons being pulled by oxen. Wine (vino) in wooden barrels was everywhere and our flotilla tapped the odd barrel.

In the navy we just acquired things. A tent was set up on the beach after we acquired some salves, soap and gauze to treat the locals who had rashes and cuts, etc. The word spread about the Canadian Marina Hospital and one morning a few days after we opened, two very pregnant ladies appeared. The work of mercy ended, and very quickly I might add, amidst our embarrassment.

One evening an officer and I went on a short foray and acquired a few chickens. The officer had a cook, and I thought of home as I enjoyed a couple of drumsticks in payment for my part in the acquisition. (Oh! We left some chickens for the owner.)

About half of the Canadian sailors went back to England after the Sicilian campaign. That left about 125 to work about a month across the straits. During that time we received mail and parcels. We worked alongside captured Italian and Sicilian soldiers who were loading our landing craft, egged on by Sweet Caporal cigarettes and some canned food. There were no P.O.W. camps and prisoners wandered freely. The Germans had made good their well-planned escape ahead of the invasion. On occasion during the action along the beaches at Sicily and the quieter time at Italy, we often saw big green turtles swimming about. They didn’t know there was a war on.

Some buddies and I spent my 23rd birthday singing our lungs out in a cottage-style house near the beach, complete with a piano but incomplete with no roof. I had my guitar along and we all had some vino. About midnight with the hilarity in full swing, thunder rolled, the skies opened and the first rain in months came pouring in. Soaked inside and out we headed to where we belonged, singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” as big as life and twice as natural.

One night shortly after that event I was all snug in my hammock, mosquito netting all tucked in (it took a while). I was ready to drop off to sleep when all hell broke loose on the beach. Machine gun fire, tracer bullets drawing colourful arcs in the dark sky. Someone shook my hammock and asked if I was coming to the beach party - Italy had thrown in the sponge. I said, “No, I’m not coming, and would you please keep it down to a dull roar because I want to log some sleep.” (Page 115 - 116 “DAD, WELL DONE” Naval Memoirs of G.D. Harrison) 

More will follow from The Montreal Star.

Please link to Invasion of Italy (6) - Montreal Star (Sept. 7, '43)

Unattributed Photos GH

Editor's Research: Invasion of Italy (6) - Montreal Star (Sept. 7, '43)

Men and Materiel of War? See the Combined Ops Dept.!

Canadians who operated the landing crafts make

the news again... indirectly, of course

The Russians are closing a trap. Munich is blasted in a heavy raid. Nazi resistance is crushed in the Donets basin. And the Canadians in Combined Operations, members of the 80th Flotilla of Landing Crafts, are moving Allied troops and all the materiel war like clockwork.

Russians, Munich, and Nazi resistance can be spotted in the headlines. The Canadians cannot be seen but for two poor quality photos that appear below.

(My to-do list is growing! "Find better copies of the photos. But not on microfiche!")

Yes. The Canadians are in there somewhere : ) 

Better photos likely exist. But where?

By Tuesday, September 7, 1943, landings had taken place for five straight days at the toe of the boot in Italy. For the first week at least, Canadians in Combined Ops would have been operating ALCs and LCMs almost non-stop so that Monty and his 8th Army could push inland fully supplied.

We know Ross Munro, William Stewart, Sholto Watt (The Montreal Star) and many other members of the Canadian Press were sending stories back to Canada on a regular basis, with photographs. (The Imperial War Museum in the UK is home to 1000s upon 1000s. Please check headings 'Italy' and 'photographs' in right hand margin of this website/blog). And as I continue researching microfiche at the University of Western Ontario I will collect many more details related to the Allied invasion of Italy that will inform us, directly and indirectly, about the role of Canadians during World War II.

More reports from The Montreal Star follow:

In the fourth paragraph of this next section we read, "The Allies are rushing huge stores of materials into the Mediterranean theatre" (as part of) "new lively movements... in the Western Mediterranean" referring to the Gibraltar area. So not only are Canadians busy now with their landing crafts, taking men and materials of war from Messina to Reggio, but more supplies to unload are coming their way. Reports indicate that the Canadians in Combined Ops (the 80th Flotilla) would be busy for another 3 - 4 weeks in The Med.

 

"Noto Beach head" refers to a site in SE Sicily. The time is likely about mid-

July, two months earlier. Italian prisoners surrendered and went to work.

Photo is from St. Nazaire to Singapore, Canadian Amphibious War

 

Some bits of news catch my eye though not related to Allied forces in Italy:

The sound of music was often heard wherever Canadians served. Moonlight Serenade was a favourite for a time, and stories abound about the lengths some troops would go to in order to keep the music playing while the war lasted. (Example: Canadians in Combined Ops had a wind-up record player and a small supply of 78 rpm records - which they had to spin by hand - while living in a cave in SE Sicily in July, 1943).

 

The war against the U-Boat slowly turned to the Allies favour:

A story of another form of 'combined operations follows:

Below are a few short paragraphs from my father's memoirs about his living conditions in Messina, Sicily during the month of September, 1943 while he was busy delivering men and materials of war across the Messina Strait to Reggio di Calabria:

Our living quarters was a huge Sicilian home (in Messina) and some nights I slept on my hammock on a beautifully patterned marble floor. However, since that was a hard bunk I sometimes slung my hammock, covered with mosquito netting, between two orange trees in the immense yard. Canned food was quite plentiful now and several young Sicilian boys, quite under-nourished, came begging for handouts, especially chocolota, as they called our chocolate bars.

I took a boy about 11 years old under my wing when off duty. In one corner of the yard was a low, square, cement-walled affair complete with a cement floor, tap and drain hole. It was here I introduced “Peepo” to Ivory soap, Colgate toothpaste and hair tonic for his short, shiny, ringletted black hair.

My name was “Do-go” which I am still called today at navy reunions, and this boy really shone when I had finished his toilet. Peepo wasn’t too keen on soap and water and it certainly was obvious, but not for long.

I tried to learn some of his language, and he mine (the 'Canadian Marina'). Although we were from countries thousands of miles apart, the war had brought us together and we got along famously.

He and I also wandered about Messina. I went with Peepo (Pedro Guiseppe) to meet his Mamma. I took some canned food, chocolota and compost tea, a complete tea in a can exactly like a sardine can, with a key attached as well. Although the lad’s mother was forty-ish, she appeared older. Over a cup of tea, and with difficulty, Mrs. Guiseppe said she would do some laundry for me, and mending. (Page 115, "Well Done, Dad")

More news stories and photographs from The Montreal Star will follow.

Please link to Editor's Research: Invasion of Italy (5) - Montreal Star (Sept. 6, '43)

Unattributed Photos GH