Winnipeg Tribune - News from Operation HUSKY
Bold, brave headlines on Saturday, July 10 re Operation HUSKY
Introduction:
Of course, across Canada and in many of its large newspapers, many of the headlines and initial stories from and about would have appeared the same on the same day.
An earlier post revealed stories found in The Montreal Star, unfortunately not digitized.
However, because The Winnipeg Tribune is now digitized, (please link to Winnipeg Tribune) one can go back to important days and read the news in a easier fashion than on microfilm.
Canadians in Combined Operations are seldom mentioned, but we know that about 250 Canadians - members of the 55th, 61st, 80th and 81st Canadian flotillas - manned assault landing craft (ALCs) and landing craft mechanized (LCMs) and transported troops and materials of war to Sicilian shores for up to 30 days.
Some of the articles provide readers with good details of the invasion and landings. Ads for movies and clothes, etc., provide information about the 1940s lifestyle (much different than our own), familiar to the Canadians aboard landing craft in Sicilian waters.
Credits for all articles and photographs - University of Manitoba, Libraries, digital collections - @ digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca
From The Winnipeg Tribune, July 10, 1943.
A quote by Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King is found in an article on page 1:
The Canadian Army was not delivered to shore in landing crafts manned by Canadians (e.g., members of RCNVR and Combined Operations) until the invasion of Italy's mainland, so this may be one of the reasons few people knew about the scores of Canadians steering landing craft to shore during Operation HUSKY.
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An July 10 article out of London, UK, by Alan Randal (Canadian Press Staff Writer) reveals an interest in pointing a spotlight toward the Canadians involved in the invasion of Sicily, but it was 'early days', so to speak.
He writes:
With dramatic suddenness, it was announced early today that the Canadian forces are at last in full scale action, assailing the shores of Sicily in company with British and American forces.
Canadians who stood guard in britain for three years and more went to the attack with their Allies.
He continues:
On page 17 Randal writes:
("Preparations for movement of the Canadians from Britain had") been known to be going forward for weeks. Naturally all efforts were made to protect the troops, and details were not known, but war correspondents "disappeared" from London a good while ago.
Correspondents Along
Just who are with the Canadian assault force cannot be said as it is too early for word of such details to come back from the beaches of Sicily, but it can be taken for granted Ross Munro, Canadian Press war correspondent, is right in the van. Munro quietly packed his kit and left London without saying where he was going.
Closely following him went C.P. war correspondents Louis Hunter, William Stewart and Maurice Desjardins....
Editor: A lengthy story by Ross Munro can be found at an earlier post, from The Montreal Star, and we learn that war correspondents knew very little about "who, what, when, where, why" prior to invasions (no more than the troops did), so there are several related reasons why little information can be found at times about the role of Canadians (e.g., as members of Combined Ops aboard various landing crafts), as news hits the streets.
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The above photo, featured on Page 1 of The Winnipeg Tribune to accompany news of the invasion of Sicily, is a well-travelled one, i.e., it also appeared in The London Free Press to accompany a story of two RCNVR and Combined Ops veterans (Buryl McIntyre and Doug Harrison - my father - of Norwich, Ontario), February 5, 1944.
I believe the photo, also found at the Imperial War Museum, UK, depicts a training exercise using early landing crafts at HMS Quebec (No. 1 Combined Ops Training centre), Inveraray, Scotland. circa early 1940s.
On July 10, 1943 the photo was featured with the following story:
The article continues, in part:
A Reuters news agency correspondent cabled London today from North Africa that "the first line of Allied troops are this morning locked in combat with the enemy after clambering over mines and barbed-wire fences to attack pillboxes and machine-gun nests on the Sicilian beaches."
....Allied warplanes bombarded Sicily's coastal defences preceding the landing of General Eisenhower's troops, and warships pounded the enemy from off-shore as the first landing craft sped up to the island's beaches.
Editor: Shortly after troops exited their ALCs (including those manned by Canadians of the 55th and 61st Flotillas of landing craft) along the south-eastern coastline of Sicily, larger landing craft (e.g., LCMs of the 80th and 81st Flotillas) were launched from large ships stationed a few miles offshore.
About what turned out to be a lengthy operation for LCMs, my father writes:
We fired at everything. I saw P38s, German and Italian fighters and my first dogfights. Stukas blew up working parties on the beach once when I was only about one hundred feet out. Utter death and carnage. Our American gun crews had nothing but coffee for three or four days and stayed close to their guns all the time. I give them credit.
Ephus P. Murphy’s pet monkey went mad and we put it in a bag of sand meant to douse incendiary bombs and threw him over the side. The Russian Stoker on our ship, named Katanna, said Dieppe was never like this and hid under a winch. Shrapnel and bombs just rained down.
My oppo (pal, chum), Leading Seaman Herring, was bothered constantly with constipation, but when bombs began to drop close in Sicily, his problem suddenly disappeared, he was so scared. It scared the beep beep right out of him. Hitler’s laxative, so he wasn’t all bad, was he?
Once, with our LCM loaded with high octane gas and a Lorrie (truck), we were heading for the beach when we saw machine gun bullets stitching the water right towards us. Fortunately, an LST (landing ship tank) loaded with bofors (guns) opened up and scared off the planes, or we were gone if the bullets had hit the gas cans. I was hiding behind a truck tire, so was Joe Watson of Simcoe. What good would that have done?
Our beach had machine gun nests carved out of the ever-present limestone, with slots cut in them to cover our beaches. A few hand grenades tossed in during the night silenced them forever.
Slowly we took control and enemy raids were only sporadic, but usually at dawn or dusk when we couldn’t see them and they could see us. At such times we had to get out of our LCMs and lay smoke screens, and travelled the ocean side or beach side depending upon which way the wind was blowing. Even then they could see the masts sticking up. During one raid I was caught on the open deck of the Pio Pico, so I laid down - right on a boiling hot water pipe. I got up quickly. (From "DAD, WELL DONE")
Not all resistance was crushed. From The Winnipeg Tribune
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Accompanying brief articles concerning the actual landings on Sicily's beaches was information about the intense air bombardments that preceded the invasion. This was true in all of the other newspapers examined (see earlier posts re "Articles re D-Day Sicily"):
"For months heavy bombers showered the mountainous stronghold with high explosives and smashed at its numerous airfields. The skies above the island were the scene of some of the most violent air fighting of the war."
"In one day Allied airmen knocked down or destroyed on the ground 73 Axis planes and two days later raised that mighty score to 97. The raids grew in ferocity to the extend that near the first of June civilians were reported being evacuated from the battered island...."
".....The triumphant conclusion of the Allied North African campaign and the capture of Pantellaria laid Sicily wide open for attack."
From The Winnipeg Tribune
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As well as sharing information about pre-invasion bombardments, writers also focussed on the added pressure placed on German strategy as Allies gained ground in the Southern Front while Russian troops made a solid stand in the Eastern Front. Randolph Patton's article in The Winnipeg Tribune was one of a few that elaborated on the growing complexities of WW2.
Whatever its immediate objectives, the real aim of the present German offensive in Russia is to cripple the Red Army and thus release enough Nazi troops from the eastern front to meet an Allied invasion.
Acting on the principle that attack is the best defense, the Nazis are making great efforts to break through the Soviet line in the Kursk sector which was the scene of the war's bitterest fighting last year....
He continued later, in part:
In other articles, some bearing comments from German radio, it is apparent that Germany was well aware of the gathering storm:
From The Winnipeg Tribune
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Hometown readers of The Winnipeg Tribune may have been heartened by a few news articles with a direct and indirect focus upon Canada's own front-line efforts.
This from Gillis Purcell (CP writer) on July 10, 1943:
Purcell continues:
Only Major Action
The move into the Mediterranean action is the only major action of the war for Canadian ground forces* in this theatre with the exception of the reconnaissance in force of Dieppe last August when 5,000 Canadians crossed the channel in a one-day attack from which only one-third returned.
No indication came in early reports as to what part of Canada's highly-mechanized army figured in what will be to date the war's largest-scale combined operation against highly organized opposition. Sicily has been softened up for weeks but has been strongly reinforced.
*Editor: Purcell mentions the lack of action for Canadian ground forces since Dieppe (Aug. 19, 1942). It's worth mentioning, in my opinion, the involvement of Canadians in the RCNVR and Combined Operations organization that took part in the invasion of North Africa in November, 1942 - manning assault and mechanized landing craft - about three months after the Dieppe Raid.
Doug Harrison, front left (RCNVR, Comb. Ops), escorts U.S. troops
to the N. African shore at Arzeu, near Oran, November 8, 1942.
Photo Credit - Imperial War Museum
In his naval memoirs, D. Harrison's first lines in his "Foreward" are as follows:
"Dad, well said," I say.
Purcell continues:
Editor: Members of RCNVR manned the landing craft bearing
the tanks and Canadian brigades at Dieppe, as well.
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More 'joyful news' from The Winnipeg Tribune on July 10, 1943:
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Three cheers for the CWACs:
My father shares company with a CWAC, name and location of canteen unknown:
The CWAC looks like the woman, far right, top photo. Naw, couldn't be!
Three cheers for the Navy League, RCAF and welders:
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Good photos can be found in The Tribune:
Caption with above photo reads: STORMING ASHORE - It was just practise when the Canadian soldiers in Britain shown above stormed ashore from landing craft in rehearsal for invasion. Today these these tactics became a grim reality as the Canadians - along with British and Americans - stormed ashore on Sicily to signal the opening assault on the European Fortress.
Caption with above photo reads: Bofors guns are in action today somewhere in Sicily as Canadians help to blast the Axis. The Bofors, although an anti-aircraft weapon, also is used in an anti-tank role. The photo was taken somewhere in Great Britain during Canadian Army invasion manoeuvres.
Caption with above photo reads: Canadian Tanks show what they can do: Canadian tank brigade men put their iron steeds through their paces over obstacles as they train for invasion. In the photo, General A.G.L. McNaughton and General Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, watch Waltzing Matildas perform.
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Final ads and cartoons, but more from The Winnipeg Tribune will follow:
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