After some days encampment we were told to get kitted up again for some more action further up the coast. We boarded a ship called the Ulster Monarch, and headed for the town of Augusta. This town should have been taken by the Durham Light Infantry, but they had met fierce opposition, and had been pushed out again, by German troops.
When we got into Augusta harbour, all hell was let loose, and we were subjected to heavy gunfire from the roof tops of the houses, on the occupied side of the harbour. The boat couldn’t stop but moved slowly backwards and forwards, firing at shore targets.
We scrambled down the nets on the quiet side of the ship on to a landing craft getting protection from the ship.
The landing craft couldn’t go all the way into the beach, as there were a lot of slippery looking rocks sticking out of the water. I took the wireless set off my back, and carried it in my hands, as I didn’t fancy being weighed down by it if I slipped into the water. I did slip into the water, but was able to place the wireless on a rock above water level as I went down. Several of the lads nearby were picked off by snipers bullets, and I did not see them again.
On landing on the shore, we were mustered together, and then the soldiers started fighting their way around the town from house to house. My wireless was set up on the flat roof of a house, and progress messages sent to the ship. Opposition was a lot stiffer than previous, as in this engagement, we were fighting Germans.
The town was cleared by the following morning and the troops did a bit of searching around in the premises for anything they fancied. In the previous engagement at Syracuse, a pianolo had been found, which was thought to be suitable for the officers mess on board ship. It had been pushed down to the harbour, but when it was found to be too big to be ferried out to the ship, it was just pushed off the harbour wall.
Admiral Troutbridge, who was in charge of the operation, and on board the “Ulster Monarch”, congratulated the troops on their success in capturing the town of Augusta. We returned to the ship, and shortly we found to our dismay that we were sailing back towards North Africa.
The Germans were driven out of Sicily by the combined forces of the British, American and Canadian troops by the 7th August 1943.
Mussolini, the Italian leader, had believed that Hitler was a certainty to win the war, and he had declared war on the Allies on the 10th June 1940.
Churchill regarded him as a bombastic hanger-on, and called him “the bullfrog of the Pontine Marshes.” Mussolini was eventually to find that he had made a very big mistake.
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