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Chapter 11 ‘Sicily and Italy’

We landed at Catania on the east coast of Sicily and found that our immediate role was to defend a large airfield, largely American, on Gerbini plain some twenty miles inland. My immediate memory of that location is twofold. Firstly it was mosquito ridden and we had to cover as much exposed flesh as possible every night to avoid being eaten alive. Secondly it was the place where I celebrated my twenty first birthday, though celebrated is a bit of an exaggeration, because there were just the four of us in our small tent and not a drop of alcoholic beverage in sight. I recall that as a change from our usual evening game of Bridge or Poker, Spencer Forbes introduced us to Chemin de Fer. A nice simple game, he said and he must have known as he proceeded to win some sixty pounds from the three of us; a considerable sum in those days.

Talking of money reminds me of the Field Cashier. He was an officer of the Army Pay Corps and it was his job to visit front line units once a month to dispense cash. Each officer was allowed to draw a certain proportion of his monthly pay according to rank and the remainder was credited to his bank account back in England. It wasn’t a bad idea because it meant we had a nice little nest egg when we got back home and there wasn’t very much to spend money on anyway.

By this time the main army had crossed to the mainland of Italy and as the Allies had gained almost complete air superiority life became pretty dull for us that remained on the island. After some weeks my Colonel got rather fed-up with not being called forward and decided to send a reminder to 8th Army Headquarters that we were still languishing in Sicily. I was detailed to carry the message and set off in a Jeep with a driver.

We went north to Messina where I cadged a lift from the Navy in an LCT (Landing Craft Tank) to take us across the Straights of Messina to Reggio di Calabria on the mainland. There ensued a chase round the foot of Italy until we finally caught up with Tac HQ (Tactical Headquarters) and found the BRA (Brigadier Royal Artillery), the Army’s senior gunner. I delivered my message and was told to return to my Regiment and tell the Colonel that he had not been forgotten and would receive orders in the near future. There being no particular hurry I decided to return by another route and so we drove round the northern coast of Italy’s toe and back to Reggio. It was a particularly pleasant trip because not only is the coast of that part of Italy quite spectacularly beautiful but, as many of the bridges on the coast road had been blown by the retreating enemy, we had to make continual diversions into the mountains where in the many villages we were feted as some of the first Allied soldiers the locals had seen; apart that is from the advance troops who had been in too much of a hurry chasing the enemy to stop. Each village had someone who had at least one person with a little English and with our few words of Italian we managed to communicate. In one village we came across one old man who’s English consisted of a recitation of all the names of the railway stations between New York and Chicago. Apparently he had worked there on the railway and when he had come back to Italy for a holiday had been refused an exit permit to return to the US.

The BRA was as good as his word and it was not long after I got back to my Battery that we received orders to cross to the mainland and make our way to Foggia where we were to defend another large forward landing ground, this time mainly R.A.F. and South African aircraft.
Before we left Sicily I did, however, get the opportunity to climb to the top of Mount Etna a ten thousand foot active volcano. The first part was hardly a climb as a reasonably good mountain road took us to within about four thousand feet of the summit but we did do the last part on foot and a hard slog it was; rather like walking up a giant slag heap, so that in places ones feet slipped back one pace for every two or so advanced. When we got to the top we looked down into the crater and could see why it was named as active because whilst we were not looking at molten lava there were plenty of fissures with steam fizzing out. Indeed when we tried to sit down to eat our lunch we found the ground uncomfortably hot and it wasn’t long before we made our way down; this time more a series of slides than a walk.

We hadn’t been at Foggia very long before volunteers were called for to attend a course exploring the use of our anti aircraft guns in the ground role. The Germans had been doing so quite successfully with their 88 millimetre AA guns and our forward troops had become somewhat fearful of the 88s air burst shells that exploded some thirty feet above the ground spraying lethal shrapnel over a wide area. Being totally bored with the lack of action that had been our lot for almost a year I was a willing volunteer, as was a friend of mind, another subaltern by the name of Wally Gervers. His full name was Frank Walter Kitchener Gervers, the third Christian name signifying that he was the grand nephew of the famous First World War field marshal of that name. Wally was a regular soldier and he too was glad of the opportunity for a change. Whilst we were on the course the BRA 8th Army came to inspect the school of gunnery and let it be known that he would be happy to see any officer who sought an interview. Both Wally and I were quick to seize the chance and asked the Brigadier whether we could be considered for a transfer to field artillery. Happily both of us succeeded and before long we were posted to the 53rd Field Regiment RA equipped with twenty five pounder guns. The 25 Pounder Gun Howitzer, to give it its full title, was a very different proposition to the 3.7 HAA Gun its role being to give close combat support to the infantry. As such it necessarily had to be very mobile and whereas we had been used to having to take sometimes hours to get the anti-aircraft guns ready for action, particularly if the ground was rough, we were now to experience a very much smaller and more mobile gun.

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