Operation Husky, the Invasion of Sicily - July 1943

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	The land campaign.

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Pages from Bert's log book pertinent to the Sicily Campaign.

Bert Holt DFC served with the Glider Pilot Regiment. He was based in Sousse immediately before the campaign began and flew as second pilot. He was interviewed for the Centre in January 2000 by Dr Peter Liddle.

We flew to Sicily from Sousse. I flew a Waco with a friend of mine, carrying 16 soldiers of the Border Regiment. We were towed by a British plane called Albemarle which was a very nice aeroplane to be towed behind, and we set off for Sicily at night ... via Malta. We had to fly over the centre of Malta, then take a compass course from there to land just on the south coast of Sicily.

We landed exactly where we were supposed to because the moon was not too bad. The only thing that worried us when we got near the ground was that our maps were coloured as if looking at the place in moonlight. Now Sicily didn't look like these maps, so when we got down there it wasn't a flat field - there were woods and stone walls, whereas the stone walls on the map looked like footpaths. So, what we had to do was land between trees, knock the wings off and hope to Christ that we stayed on one level.

On approaching the island we were met by fires from what appeared to be Bofors guns. They were the same type of shell, explosion etc, that our Bofors made. We got a few holes in the wings, but nothing else.

On round figures it was said that 50 gliders landed on Sicily. The other 100 landed in the sea and that 100 were all towed by Americans, whereas of those that landed on the island, 35 were towed by British aircraft. I do sympathise a bit with the Americans. All these lads had only flown Dakotas in America, delivering letters and parcels. They had never seen a gun in their lives, so one can possibly excuse them with the barrage that they received when they hit Sicily.

On landing, we were to ensure that the Border Regiment knew exactly where they had to go and meet the rest of their chaps, so we made our way to the bridges which were just up the road from Syracuse, where we had landed ... I got there by crawling through a tomato field, joined the soldiers of the Borders and the glider pilots that were already there, and took up positions on the bridge.

In the Syracuse area was a river and a canal and our, the job of the Army, was to hold the bridges covering these two streams so that the lads landing from the sea further south than Syracuse were able to get over and proceed through the island. We were there with some Paratroops but mostly with our successful landings by Horsas which landed round the bridge. There were about 65 to 70 soldiers defending these areas and we looked out for them and kept them away until the next day, or it might have been two days. On the third day we ran out of ammunition. We had to give ourselves up and the Italians came in, being very happy about the whole situation.

The Italians lined us up and asked us questions in Italian, which we didn't understand. So they went through all our pockets and our gear, putting anything which they thought might be useful to themselves away. One of the Italians who was searching my equipment found a tin, an unopened tin, in my equipment and he asked me what was in it. I told him, in Italian, that it was food. "Oh", he said, "good". This tin had a tin opener with it and the Italian must have been hungry because he immediately opened the tin and when he looked inside he looked at what he thought was some sort of jelly. He put his finger in and put it in his mouth. It was actually solid methylated spirits. I still wear the bruise on my backside from what he did after that!

They put us all together and marched us up the road. We had marched for about two hours when we saw the seaborne troops, I think it was a Scottish Regiment, we saw the first lads coming towards us. We saw them pick up their rifles and drop down as if they were going to shoot us, so we shouted out, in great basic English, who we were - that we were English and not Italian. The Italian lads ran away. Some of them got killed by these Scots lads chasing them, and we finished off in Syracuse.

The diary of A.H.Lee, a Wireless Telegraphist on a Harbour Motor Defence Launch (HMDL) gives a strong insight into naval activity during the campaign. He arrived, from Sousse, at the south east corner of Sicily on 7 July 1943.

On the 11^th (of July), we had the job of acting as ferry boat to none other than Lord Louis Mountbatten and one of the Brigadiers in charge of the operation. L.M.M. is a very nice chap and I had a close up view of him for about an hour at very close range. I was standing right alongside him on our bridge.

That evening, on the 11^th, I had the chance of listening in to the news from London. It was very good to hear how we were progressing. Incidentally, that is the only method we have of keeping in touch with the Sicilian news. After this bulletin, in particular, there was a short talk on the invasion and particular stress was laid on the craft used to navigate the correct beaches for our lads to land on. It was stated how difficult it was to manoeuvre these craft in heavy seas, the expert seamanship required, etc. etc. I felt quite pleased to think that, at long last, some person recognised the fact that we were doing some valuable work to help the war effort. The speaker was talking about us.

That night, we had air raids the whole period of darkness, just as we have had every other night since. None of us on board had any sleep for several nights after that, due to Jerry. The barrage was particularly heavy and shrapnel came down like rain.

One amusing incident I have forgotten to mention. When we pulled in to one of the bays to anchor for a few hours, there was a crowd of Italian soldiers standing on the shore waving white flags to us. Apparently they thought we were after their blood.

On the 13^th July, we left the south east corner of Sicily, we called it Bank East, en route for Syracuse, a short trip of about one hour. Upon arrival there we had some more ferrying to do. This time our passengers were none other than the famous General Montgomery and Admiral Ramsay. They, I believe, were in complete charge of the whole job.

That night, we had a particularly heavy air attack. The flak that went up was so thick you could not put a finger in between the shell bursts. We saw nine planes brought down. (Who is afraid of fireworks and bangs now?).

On the 14^th, we went aboard our English merchant ship which had been set on fire by jerry bombs and took off several guns. The ship was still on fire and the decks still hot.

Obtaining small guns such as Tommys, Lanchesters, Brownings, the Italian Breda, etc., was a job which we were continually executing. We raided several Italian packets and took off their Bredas. At present we have more guns on board than crew. We are rather fed up with the sight of armaments.

We are having air raids every night and I usually wear a steel helmet when I turn in.

On the 19^th, we had a funeral party and took two chaps out to sea for burial. They were part of the crew of an M.T.B. which had set out for Messina the night before. Apparently they were led into an ambush. They entered the Straits of Messina quite easily but, no sooner had they reached the narrowest part of the Straits, when the searchlights were put right on to them and every shore battery opened up. Four boats left here but only two returned.

On the morning of the 20^th, I saw a particularly violent explosion, made by an ammo ship exploding after being hit by a bomb. She also had a quantity of petrol on board. Smoke went up to about five hundred feet. On the night of the 20^th, we had rather a heavy air attack and a couple of large British merchant ships were hit and set on fire. We happened to be passing one of them as the bombs came down so we were naturally on the spot to pick up casualties and swimmers. We managed to get a few chaps on board, although one of them died a little later in hospital on the cruiser Newfoundland. The whole harbour was a one mass of fire. Apparently one of the merchant ships had petrol on board in tins and all the empty cans, etc., were floating around.

Every night without fail, we could see fires and gun duels in the front lines, a few miles away at Catania. It was pretty hot at times, believe me.

We stayed at Augusta for a few weeks and, on the night before we left, which incidentally was the last night of fighting in Catania, (it fell to our troops the next morning) there was a huge fire which absolutely lit us up like daylight. It was going all night and was supposed to be the jerries burning their equipment. That was round about the beginning of August. We then departed for good old Malta.

	Overview.
	This page: This page: air and sea assault.
	The land campaign.