On 8-7-43, we set sail at night and slipped out of port in darkness, and the buzz soon got round that our destination was Sicily. When the officers had been briefed on the master plan, they got their own men together, and told them what their part of the operation would be. We were ordered to land at Cape Muro di Porco, which is a little cape that is on the bottom right hand side of the island, near Syracuse. We were also given wireless frequencies, and call signs, and told that three gunboats would provide navel bombardment if required. Our allocated gunboat was called “the Scarab”.
Gliders containing troops had been sent in before the main seaborne attack, and some of them had come down in the sea. It was dark, when we came near the coastline, and we could hear the troops shouting for help, but the landing craft just carried on to the beach head. I heard later, that the glider pilots had taken evasive action to avoid all the flak being shot up at them, got lost, and came down in the sea. The pilots who survived were returned to America, and courtmartialled.
Our particular part of the beachhead was very quiet and there was not a soul in sight, much to our great relief. We had landed at H-4, meaning four hours before the main assault, and the L.R.D.G. troops had to march inland, to create a wide safe beachhead, in which the main force, with armament, and stores could be landed. It started to get light, and we started to encounter opposition. The captain gave us a position to transmit to the ship, but to our horror the shells landed behind us. We quickly sent them a signal to stop shooting, and the captain rechecked his figures, and said they were correct, but for safety’s sake he added a few hundred yards on, and when the ship started firing again, the shells roared over our heads towards the enemy. The captain said that we were shooting at a concentration of troops and transports which appeared to be Italian. When the ranging shots came close to the target the captain ordered us to send a message to the ship to fire broadsides, which it did.
The devastation which this caused was too much for the Italians, and they were surrendering in large numbers.
We marched a lot of them to a prisoner of war camp which had been put up near the landing point, and some of them kindly offered to carry my wireless set. One of the Italian soldiers told a British soldier guarding them that the safety catch was fastened on his rifle, and it would slow him down in firing if he tried to escape. They all thought it was a great joke. A lot of the Italians could speak English with an American accent, as they had been to the States, got some money, and then returned home. They were glad to be taken prisoner.
It was a rural area, and the housing left a lot to be desired. They were two storey but their animals were kept on the ground floor, and the family lived above. There was no running water, and drawn, as required from wells. All bodily functions were done in the vineyards, which no doubt helped the crops.
Two women wearing Red Cross armbands were seen hanging around the camp, and we assumed that they were Red Cross workers. We heard later that they had set up business in a barn, as comforts for the troops, and that the badge was a sign of purity. The story went round that a queue had formed, amongst them the padre but this may have been a soldiers joke. We had gone fishing using captured Italian hand grenades.
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