Operation Husky Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  OTHER MILITARY HISTORY BOOKS BY MARK ZUEHLKE

  PREFACE

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  PART ONE - TOWARDS AN INVASION

  [1] - If the Army Can’t Agree

  [2] - Finally, the Final Plan

  [3] - Everyone Knowing His Job

  [4] - Going to Be Some Party

  PART TWO - FIRST BLOODING

  [5] - The Actuality of War

  [6] - Which Direction Do We Take?

  [7] - Call This a Fight?

  [8] - These Men Have Surrendered

  [9] - On Shank’s Mare

  [10] - Wranglings

  [11] - Hazards and Hardships

  PART THREE - BATTLE FOR THE SICILIAN HILLS

  [12] - Long and Savage Minutes

  [13] - Mountain Boys

  [14] - Private Miracles

  [15] - Faces to the Foe

  [16] - Daring and Spectacular Actions

  PART FOUR - THE EASTWARD ADVANCE

  [17] - Follow the Band

  [18] - Red Patch Devils

  [19] - Lion, Tiger, and Grizzly

  [20] - Hard Fighting

  [21] - Roughest Country Yet

  [22] - Such a Party

  [23] - On a Barren Sicilian Mountainside

  [EPILOGUE]

  APPENDIX A: - PRINCIPAL UNITS AND COMMANDERS IN OPERATION HUSKY

  APPENDIX B: - THE CANADIAN ARMY IN OPERATION HUSKY

  APPENDIX C: - CANADIAN INFANTRY BATTALION

  APPENDIX D: - CANADIAN MILITARY ORDER OF RANK

  APPENDIX E: - AXIS MILITARY ORDER OF RANK

  APPENDIX F: - THE DECORATIONS

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  GENERAL INDEX

  INDEX OF FORMATIONS, UNITS, AND CORPS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  THE CANADIAN INVASION OF SICILY,

  JULY 10—AUGUST 7, 1943

  OTHER MILITARY HISTORY BOOKS BY MARK ZUEHLKE

  Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary

  Campaign, September 13-November 6, 1944a

  Holding Juno: Canada’s Heroic Defence of the

  D-Day Beaches: June 7—12, 1944a

  Juno Beach: Canada’s D-Day Victory: June 6, 1944 a

  The Gothic Line: Canada’s Month of Hell in World War II Italy a

  The Liri Valley: Canada’s World War II Breakthrough to Romea

  Ortona: Canada’s Epic World War II Battlea

  The Canadian Military Atlas: Four Centuries of Conflict from

  New France to Kosovo (with C. Stuart Daniel) a

  The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the

  Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

  For Honour’s Sake: The War of 1812

  and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace

  4/5 July 1943

  Dear Family:

  I am very proud and happy in the knowledge that I am going to lead a Company of so fine a Regiment in an Assault Landing such as we are going to do in the early morning of next Saturday. I talk to them in their mess deck, telling them of the specific jobs, etc. and I am a lucky man indeed to have such a good lot of lads under my command. The average age is 24, although there are a number who, claiming 20, look about 18. In their shorts and open-necked, rolled-up sleeved shirts they look like a bunch of Boy Scouts. It is hard to believe that these Western Ontario school boys of 1939, and in some cases later, are the “tough assault troops” which will be the newspapers’ probable description of them.

  They all have fighting spirit, but are school boyish in their enthusiasm; it seems a shame that so many of these splendid fellows will be dead or wounded before this week is out.

  —Captain Strome Galloway, Royal Canadian Regiment

  PREFACE

  WITH THE 1999 publication of Ortona: Canada’s Epic World War II Battle, I unwittingly committed myself to a series of books chronicling the Canadian Army’s World War II experience. I say unwittingly, because during the research and writing of Ortona, no thought had been given to its being the first in a series. There was no way of telling whether the book could attract a readership sufficient to convince a publisher of the value of more such titles. Happily, Ortona was well received in Canada and even beyond the nation’s borders. It continues to be so still today.

  Ortona’s success encouraged me to embark on a series wherein each book would provide an exhaustive account of a specific battle or campaign of pivotal importance to Canada’s involvement in the war. The first outing consisted of two more books on the Italian Campaign—The Liri Valley and The Gothic Line—which, together with Ortona, became known as the Italian trilogy. Next, Juno Beach and Holding Juno detailed the invasion of Normandy—the former covering, as Cornelius Ryan called it, “the longest day” of June 6, 1944, and the latter, the six following days, when it remained in the balance whether the Allies would be able to retain their hold on the beachhead.

  To this point the books had followed a loosely chronological order, except that The Gothic Line, which concluded the Italian campaign, recounted events that occurred after the Normandy invasion. This was logical, as it took the trilogy through to completion.

  Thereafter, however, I decided to depart from chronological faithfulness and, instead of relating the story of the bitter July and August battles in Normandy, jump forward to write Terrible Victory, an account of the gruelling campaign First Canadian Army fought between September 13 and November 6, 1944, to open the Scheldt Estuary and the Belgian city of Antwerp to Allied shipping. I did this because the Scheldt Campaign—the Canadian Army’s most costly of World War II—had been sadly shunted into obscurity. It seemed time to put the campaign back into the spotlight of national remembrance.

  Foregoing a chronological approach to the series freed me to repair an inadvertent oversight. Starting with Ortona had excluded the Canadian Army’s divisional-scale combat debut from the apparent boundaries of my work. Or so it had earlier seemed. But if I could jump forward in time, it was equally possible to travel back to earlier events.

  Which brings us to Operation Husky—the book you are currently reading.

  The Canadian role in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, is yet another story that has been ill told. No Canadian work dedicated solely to this campaign has previously been published. Yet the Sicily campaign was of critical importance to the Canadian Army. Because it represented the first divisional-scale combat operation in World War II, Sicily was where many officers and men—who would form the backbone of First Canadian Army in future campaigns and battles—began their transformation from trained neophytes into combat veterans.

  I was puzzled: why had no book about this experience been written before? My fear was that, rather than being pure coincidence or oversight, the cause might be a lack of source material. As it turned out, nothing could have been further from the truth. For a campaign involving one division and one tank brigade, engaged in a relatively short, twenty-eight-day period of combat, the amount of paper produced chronicling it was incredible. Many regimental war diaries were full of battle accounts written by company commanders and even platoon commanders. Stuffed away in files at Library and Archives Canada and in the vaults at the Directorate of History and Heritage, Department of National Defence, were hundreds of pages of detailed reports on various aspects and moments of the fighting. I was blessed with so many riches that the book could have grown almost exponentially in size, something that would guarantee publisher apoplexy.

  As has been my wont in the other books, I have told the story by mixing personal accounts of veterans in with the material drawn from official records, regimental histories, and many other sources in order to give the reade
r a “you are there” experience. Still, every attempt has been made to ensure that events are portrayed accurately. In many cases it was possible to rationalize differing accounts through painstaking cross-referencing. This proved particularly necessary with regard to dates. For some reason, in Sicily more than anywhere I have seen before, the war diarists often seemed confused about what day of the month they were recording. I agree with the suspicion of the Canadian Army official historian that the cause of this was that some war diaries were not being updated daily but, rather, whenever was convenient. Surprisingly, however, this did not result in great inaccuracies regarding the facts of events beyond the attribution of incorrect dates.

  I was also happy to find little discrepancy between the official record of how events played out and what veteran memory reported. This was surprising given the confusion natural to an amphibious landing, the incredibly complex and rugged Sicilian landscape, and the rapid pace at which the Canadians advanced across the battleground. Where there was disagreement, I followed my standard practice of consulting every source I could find and then drawing a reasonable conclusion.

  It should be noted that with each book, the number of veterans able to give interviews diminishes. Passage of time is taking its toll on our veterans, and the rate of their passing increases each year. For some still with us, memories are dimming, even fading to black. There is still time, but not much, before the last veteran of a war that can now be thought of as occurring long ago is gone. If you have a relative or acquaintance who is a veteran, please consider sitting down and recording what memories remain. Such material is of inestimable value to historians of World War II. Whether you use a tape recorder, digital recorder, or video camera or simply write their memories out longhand, consider donating this record to an archive, museum, or other depository where it can be preserved and made available to researchers.

  The men and women who fought in World War II were indelibly marked by that experience. What they did and what they believed after peace returned them home was influenced by surviving a war. If we are to understand that generation that became our parents or grandparents or even great-grandparents, it is necessary to comprehend the reality endured when they were soldiers and young.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  FIRST OFF, SPECIAL thanks must go to several veterans who assisted in different ways. Sheridan “Sherry” Atkinson kindly provided written accounts of his experiences as a young Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) lieutenant during Operation Husky. Syd Frost, despite being seriously ill, offered advice for finding the monument to Canadians that stands near Ispica. Another RCR officer, Strome Galloway, through the years discussed the Sicily and Italian campaigns many times with me over dinner, lunch, or a drink when I was able to visit him in Ottawa. He’s gone now, but his friendship is not forgotten. The same holds true for John Dougan, who passed away in October 2006. My understanding of World War II combat was much enhanced by the memories and opinions these two fine men offered. Non-veterans also helped with providing the personal stories of soldiers. Ken MacLeod, now living in Courtenay, B.C., again made his interviews with veterans available and this book is the richer for it.

  My good friend Alex MacQuarrie, an Ottawa translator, spent many hours translating French-language documents relevant to the Royal 22e Régiment and also made sense of some German material.

  Fortune shone on me when Marilyn Minnes asked that I accompany her 2007 Legacy Battlefield Tour of the Italian Campaign as the historian. This provided the perfect opportunity to visit the Sicily battlefields once again. Thanks to the tour group as well for being so good about understanding the difficulty I and the other drivers—yes, I drove a nine-person van around Sicily and Italy—had negotiating Sicilian highways and byways. Those other drivers, Richard Gimblett and Jim Pengelly, did a great job, and I enjoyed our dinnertime talks. Richard’s map-reading skills saved the day countless times.

  Dr. Steve Harris, at the Directorate of History and Heritage, Department of National Defence, and other staff there were exceedingly helpful to my efforts in tracking down various documents important to understanding the campaign. This was also the case with staff at Library and Archives Canada. At the Canadian War Museum, Carol Reid and Jane Naisbitt once again ensured that I saw everything in that institution’s archive and library, respectively, that pertained to Operation Husky. As always, staff at University of Victoria Special Collections greatly assisted my consulting of Dr. Reginald Roy’s papers and the oral history collection there. Chris Case in Ottawa dug into his files for the master’s thesis he is writing and came up with some solid nuggets of information I was unable to get hands on otherwise. Major Michael Boire of Royal Military College provided a copy of the never-published regimental history of the Three Rivers Tank Regiment, which saved the day on several occasions. Casting way out to Newark, New Jersey, I found David H. Lippman, who offered many suggestions on where to look for valuable accounts relevant to the U.S. Seventh Army’s operations in Sicily and even provided a copy of the U.S. official history of the campaign.

  Special thanks to my agent, Carolyn Swayze, for helping to ensure that the financial and career considerations stayed on track, freeing me to focus on the writing.

  I am fortunate to have the support of Scott McIntyre, my publisher at Douglas & McIntyre, who continually shows his belief in the value of this series. This time, my long-standing editor, Elizabeth McLean, was unable to take on the daunting task of editing such a complex work. Kathy Vanderlinden took over and did a fine job. C. Stuart Daniel of Starshell Maps once again drew the essential maps to help readers navigate the battlefields as described in the text.

  In 2000, my partner Frances Backhouse and I travelled by train, bus, and foot around much of Sicily. By design, we stayed in Agira’s single small hotel in order to descend on foot from that mountaintop town to the valley below so that someone could mark Remembrance Day in the Agira Canadian Cemetery. Her enthusiasm for this idea was typical, but most appreciated. Through the years, she has always been willing to trek across one more battlefield, offered support when I’m racing to beat the clock of another crazy-tight deadline, and lent a patient ear to endless comments on war and the relating of veteran stories. Thanks, love.

  Map 1

  Map 2

  Map 3

  Map 4

  Map 5

  Map 6

  Map 7

  Map 8

  [INTRODUCTION]

  The Supreme Tragedy

  CANADA COULD HAVE avoided invading Sicily. Indeed, it required the intercession of senior generals and the minister of national defence, Colonel Layton Ralston, as well as a personal plea by Prime Minister Mackenzie King to Winston Churchill before Britain reluctantly invited Canadian troops to join the venture. From the British perspective, there was little to recommend diverting forces from First Canadian Army in England for service in the Mediterranean theatre.

  Ever since the first flight of 1st Canadian Infantry Division had disembarked in Greenoch, Scotland, on December 16, 1939—just ninety-eight days after Canada declared war on the Axis powers in response to the assault on Poland—the British had resisted committing this increasingly potent force to combat operations. By April 6, 1942, when First Canadian Army headquarters opened for business at Headley Court, it had under command about 170,000 men organized into five divisions, two tank brigades, and various supporting arms. This was, however, an army still in a formative phase. Every Canadian soldier overseas had volunteered for combat duty, but only a relatively small number had any militia service and, because it had been so depleted during the interwar years, even fewer came from the regular army. The Imperial General Staff had immediately recognized that the Canadians—particularly the officers—needed a great deal more training before the army could be considered combat effective. With planning already begun for an eventual cross-channel invasion of northwest Europe, First Canadian Army was tapped to play an important role. Its strength was to be nurtured.

  This sentiment
perfectly suited First Canadian Army’s commander, Lieutenant General Andrew McNaughton. Meeting with U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 9, McNaughton had explained his army’s purpose as being, first, to ensure the security of the United Kingdom and, second, to maintain “our foothold for an eventual attack on the Continent of Europe . . . There could be no question but that the war could only be ended by the defeat of Hitler and the only way of doing so was to attack him from the West.” McNaughton emphasized that he “had never lost sight of this object and...had always been convinced that an offensive would sooner or later have to be launched from the United Kingdom across the narrow seas.” The general assured Roosevelt that the Canadian government had “accepted” this view the previous week during an Ottawa meeting.1

  The fifty-five-year-old McNaughton had served as an artillery officer in Lieutenant General Arthur Currie’s I Canadian Corps during the Great War, rising in 1918 to command the heavy artillery unit. During the latter phase of the war, McNaughton duly noted Currie’s refusal during the great German spring offensive to allow Canadian divisions to be severed from the corps to fill endangered sections of the British Expeditionary Force front. Currie had been adamant that the Canadians fight as one or not at all. McNaughton felt the same about First Canadian Army.

  His position was unpopular with some subordinate senior officers and even with many of the troops idling the months away in southern England while battles raged in distant lands. Lieutenant General Harry Crerar, who in 1942 commanded one of McNaughton’s corps, was the most vocal advocate for sending Canadian soldiers into harm’s way at any opportunity. As Canada’s chief of staff in 1941, Crerar had convinced a reluctant Mackenzie King to accede to a British call for men to reinforce Hong Kong’s weak garrison against Japanese attack. When the colony surrendered on Christmas Day, 1941, all 1,975 men of the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers were lost. In the winter of 1942, illness had forced McNaughton to return to Canada and temporarily relinquish command to Crerar. Believing army morale was poor due to lack of action and that people at home were impatient for their soldiers to fight, Crerar hectored the British chiefs of staff for a role in cross-channel raids. When McNaughton returned from sick leave that spring, the decision was already made that 2nd Canadian Infantry Division would star in a raid on Dieppe. On August 19, 1942, the raid ended in disaster, with 907 men killed and another 1,946 lost as prisoners.