Growing List - Canadian Members of Combined Operations

A Growing List

Shoulder patch for Canadians in Combined Operations

As books, passages from texts and newspapers, and photographs are displayed, more names of Canadian members of Combined Operations are gradually revealed and will be recorded here whenever possible in alphabetical order:

Fred Alston (Stoker)

Don Arney

Art (Gash) Bailey

R. W. Brown (Stoker), first left. Art Bailey is far right.
A 1989 reunion of two shipmates at Dieppe

Sub-Lieut. Ian Barclay, Montreal [link to news article]

Barclay was one of two Navy men from Combined Ops to help

the Navy win the Grey Cup in 1944

Photo and quote found in St. Nazaire to Singapore Volume 2

AB Sam Belisle, Ottawa [link to news article]

A/B H. Billington, Winnipeg, Manitoba

LS (Leading Seaman) Norm Bowen, Ottawa. [link to news article]

R. W. Brown (Stoker) [appears in photo above with Gash Bailey]

Roy Burt

AB Lloyd Campbell, 17138, London, Ontario

Richard Cavanaugh, V6678, Ottawa, Ontario

Earl Chambers

Lt. Walter (Wally) Charron

D. Chisholm

Ed. J. Corbett (Stoker), Fort William, Ontario

F. Coverdale

A. Daley

W. Dayton

K. Downey

A. Drew

Tom Enright

Thomas Fawdry (Stoker), Harrow, Ontario

AB Lloyd Evans, Ottawa [link to news article]

Photo as found in Ottawa Citizen, Feb. 1944

A. Fraser

W. 'Bill' Grycan

S/Lt. George Hampson, Montreal, Quebec

Doug Harrison, Norwich, Ontario V8809

D. Harrison, 2nd left, served at CO camp in Comox, BC, 1944 - 45

George Hobson

C.E. Howard

James 'Jim' Ivison

A/B M.W. Key, Winnipeg, Manitoba

S/Lt. John Keys, Montreal, Quebec

Budd Kidd

A. G. Kirby

Lieut. Jack Koyl, Saskatoon [link to news article]

AB Jean Kroon, Standard, Alberta [in above photo with Lloyd Evans]

Chuck Levett

Chuck Levett, centre row, left, is beside Bill Grycan

David Lewis, Alberta

Comb. Ops veterans put heads and stories together in the 1990s

Don Linder, Kitchener, Ontario

AB (Able Bodied) Cy Little, Ottawa [link to news article]

James 'Jim' Malone

Jim Ivison and Jim Malone, back row, first and second from left,

were members of the No. 1 Navy ball team, Comox, 1944-45

L/Seaman Mair, Victoria, B.C.

Clayton 'Red' Marks

Photo from Combined Operations by Clayton Marks

Vic Mauro

A/B W.C.R. MacDonald, Abbotsford, British Columbia

J. McFarland

Buryl McIntyre, Norwich, Ontario

AB Joseph McKenna, V1540, PEI

Lt. Robert McRae, Toronto, Ontario

Lt. McRae became a POW at Dieppe, 1942

Sketch from St. Nazaire to Singapore, Vol. 1

A/B J.R. McTavish, Regina, Saskatchewan

C. Michael

Norm Mitchison, Niagara Falls

Waldo Mullins, FO 81st Flotilla

A/B Jerry Mulvey, Winnipeg, Manitoba

W. Parkes

Bruce Rendell

Jack Rimmer, Montreal

F. Robinson

Charles 'Chuck' Rose, Chippawa, Ontario, V-8927

Ted Sales

Jim Salisbury

Edward Scaysbrook, V-46818

Tom Scott

Lt. W. R. Sinclair

John Singleton, V-17334

Donald Slauenwhite, V-25787

Joe Spencer, V-8929

Gerald Spero, V-40874

F. L. Stapley, A-1399

L/Seaman Coxswain Lysle Sweeting, Gull Lake, Saskatchewan

Harold Tomlinson

A/B John Tomlinson, Galt, Ontario

S/Lt. Harry Trenholme, Montreal, Quebec

John Vandersluys, V-31672

Douglas Walker, V-34153

E. Walker, A-4081

Fred Walkley, V-59342

S/Lt. Clifford D. Wallace, Montreal, Quebec

Harold Wallace, V-44571

Joe Watson, Simcoe, Ontario V-8821

 Canadians in Combined Ops aboard H.M.S. Keren, Atlantic 1943

Names of Canadians aboard H.M.S. Keren, Atlantic 1943

Lt. Andy Wedd

Don Westbrook, Hamilton, Ontario

Lieut. Jud Whittall, Vancouver [link to news article]

Richard Wilson, V-43414

Douglas 'Doug' Zink

*  *  *  *  *

More to follow.

Link to A Work in Progress 3

Memoirs re Combined Operations

"DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs 11

by L/S Coxswain Doug Harrison

Comox is near top-centre on a painted map found in Victoria, BC

Chapter NINE. VANCOUVER ISLAND AND V-E DAY

Then I went to Givenchy III, known as Cowards Cove, at Comox on Vancouver Island. It was absolute heaven there. Just normal routine; I trained a few zombies on cutters, and played ball five or six times a week under a good coach.

At Comox, in "absolute heaven": "I played ball five or six times a week"

D. H., front far left; George 'Hobie' Hobson, coach, top far left

I also looked after Captain Windyers sailboat and prepared it when he wished to go for a sail. One day quite a wind was blowing and I was called by the captain to prepare the boat for sailing.

First thing I did was drop the drop keel and it sheered its bolt stoppers and plummeted into twenty feet of ocean. Diving would not raise it because we could not dive low enough, but by means of a wire we hooked a hole and retrieved it and soon the sailboat was ready to sail. “Isn’t it a bit windy today, sir, for sailing such a small craft?” I said. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he remarked. He hadn’t gone a hundred fathoms when the sailboat tipped over and he was bottoms up. We rescued him with an LCM barge, and when he came ashore - hair flattened and really soaked - he never even glanced my way. I wouldn’t have either.

At Givenchy III I passed professionally for my Leading Seaman rating and Acting Coxswain, classed very good. 

Riverside Hotel* is at top of the hill, trees shading its porch

We used to go to the Riverside Hotel in Courtenay and rent room number 14 because it had a window that opened into an alley just about hip high. Then we proceeded to drink Riverside dry, go to a dance and return to the room and find another dozen sailors who had come in the alley window. The room was crammed, and when we left on Sunday morning the manager’s head turned to and fro, like someone watching a ping pong game. He was utterly astounded but never called a halt because we were such nice guys.

I had a fight with an OPP Constable named Carson. I was drunk and he asked me for my I.D. card. I took a punch at him, missed him by a pole length and he assisted me to the cruiser, he was very kind. He had a hammer lock on me so didn’t open the door, he just put me through the open back window. You know, that shoulder is still sore. He took me to jail, but the cell was already packed with sailors and cleaning equipment, i.e., mops, brooms, etc. They lit the equipment on fire and smoke forced us all out. He didn’t like me because our team used to beat his team at ball. Big sissy. Poor loser.

Doug Harrison (left) with Chuck ‘Rosie’ Rose 

At Givenchy L/Sea Rose and I took a job washing dishes, but we gave everyone to understand that we had to be at the beach at 1300 hours (1:00 p.m.). There were 150 ratings to start but many were shipped out. If we were going to be late we grabbed dishes half full and said, “you’re done”, because we couldn’t keep the girls waiting.

Wm. Fischer, a stoker (not of combined ops but of R.C.N.V.R.), was stationed there. He had, I believe, an unequalled experience. He was on an Atlantic convoy run, on H.M.C.S. St. Croix, and one night in rough seas the St. Croix was sunk and he was the lone survivor. His life jacket had lights on and later he was picked up by the English ship H.M.S. Itchen. It in turn was torpedoed and Fischer was one of three survivors. They took him and his wife on saving bond tours, etc., but when he was asked to go to sea again, he said he would go to cells first. With an experience like that I would have too. He was lucky to be alive.

Gordon Bell, a YMCA director, came to ‘the spit’ as it was called nearly everyday and provided piano music, sewed on crests and buttons, repaired uniforms and showed movies. One night my oppo, Frank Herring, slightly drunk, was laughing his booming laugh at a hilarious movie when he took a sudden urge and jumped right out the window, frame and all, and he didn’t even get out.

The Spit**, a piece of land thinly linked to Comox, w oyster beds

There was a government oyster breeding ground [seen in photo above] at Givenchy and at low tide we would get bags full of the largest ones and put them in the water near the barracks, so, when the tide came in no one saw them and when tide went out we had a feast. We cooked a lot, but some of the large ones we ate raw. They were hard to swallow, i.e., the large ones, and we often needed a slap on the back to be able to move it down our throat. 

It was beautiful to see the snow-capped mountains and the contours - which had various names.

Then one day, the day we had been waiting for came - V.E. day - and what a celebration. They poured beer in my hair, there was no routine, but nothing untoward happened.

“...there was no routine, everything went mad and uncontrolled...” 

The fellows were just so glad, that it gave us time to think back and count our blessings. No, I cannot recall anything unusual happening to write about. It had a sobering effect on most of us who had been in Combined Operations under the White Ensign.

Of course, I said we were very very happy, but we were also very very lucky and knew it. Soon we went to H.M.C.S. Naden, with none of us volunteering for the Japanese theatre of war, although we were all asked by a recruiting officer.

A naval photographer took a picture of six of us: L/Sea Watson, L/Sea Warrick, L/Sea Rose, L/Sea Westbrook, L/Sea Spencer and myself, L/Sea Harrison, because we all joined the same day, went through twenty-three months overseas together and were going to be discharged all on the same day too.

Back row: Donald Westbrook, Charlie Rose, Joe Spencer 

Front row: Joe Watson, Doug Harrison, Arthur Warrick

Chapter TEN to follow.

*Photo Credit - Comox Valley Record Heritage calendar, 2012

**Photo Credit - Comox Museum

Please link to more Memoirs at "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs 10

Memoirs re Combined Operations

"DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (10)

by L/S Coxswain Doug Harrison

HMS Queen Emma, built in 1939: Photo credit - Rodaways of WW1 - 2

Chapter EIGHT. SCOTLAND AND HOME ON LEAVE 

After our work from Sicily to Italy was done and our armies were advancing we returned to Malta. We stayed but a few days, then took MT boats to Boujie in Algiers, and were soon after loaded onto a Dutch ship, the Queen Emma. The ship had been bombed and strafed, her propellor shaft was bent and we could only make eight knots an hour under very rough conditions. Her super structure was easily half inch steel, and in various places where shrapnel had struck I could see holes that looked like a hole punched in butter with a hot poker, like it had just melted.

We arrived at Niobe barracks in Scotland and in true navy style were put on a train and sent to Lowestoft in England, not too far from Norwich, England (my hometown’s namesake or visa versa) on or near the east coast.

Backing up a bit. While on the Queen Emma we had an attack of boils break out and we were taking exams to become Acting Leading Seamen. It was my fortune to not get boils at first, and I teased everyone aboard. But my turn came. I got three beauts close together on my neck. I went to sick bay, and what did they put me on? You guessed it - mercurochrome. I said, I won’t be back, same as when I broke my toe, and I didn’t. I passed my exam, got my book and carried the boils clear to Lowestoft.

I heard mess deck buzz. We were getting a lot of money and going on leave. The stipulated time for ratings is twenty-four months overseas and we were closing in. No more raids. Thanks God, for pulling me through. The mess deck buzz proved to be correct, they gave us all a pile of money (pound notes), and I thought it was too many for me because I made a big allotment to my mother. How they ever kept track of our pay I’ll never know, and to my dying day I will believe they gypped me right up to here.

Before going on leave I went to Stoker Katanna and I said, pinch out these boils. “I’ll lean on the top bunk and no matter how it hurts, pinch them out.” I never felt a thing because they were as ripe as cherries. I slopped on a big bandaid and away I went on leave, never bothering to answer a ton of mail. I also received eight hundred cigarettes.

Stoker Katanna's name appears opposite my father's on a Navy hammock

Katanna's hammock, housed now at a Navy Museum*, Esquimalt, BC  

We were due for a do and we did it up brown. You couldn’t possibly lose me in London, England even when I was three sheets to the wind. No way.

About leave. When I was in southern England I put in for Glasgow and received two extra days for travelling time. But I never really saw Glasgow. I went, paid off a grudge, and immediately put in for the return trip to London.

Do I have a reason for such odd behaviour? Yes. One day at Roseneath (sic) camp in Scotland, we ratings were all fallen in ranks, when out comes black garters and he says, “Any one of you guys a fast runner?” I stepped one pace forward. “Okay, run over there,” says black garters, “get a wheel barrow, shovel, fork, hoe, and go with this man and clean up that big estate garden.” What a hell of a shock and what a hell of a job. It had been left for years. I made up my mind then that I would get back at black garters, and I connived to do it while on a leave, and I damn well did.

About Roseneath camp. It was where many chaps came down with impetigo and they were put on Gentian violet, the colour of an elderberry stain. O/S Art Bradfield, of Bradfield Monuments in Simcoe, went to Dieppe in pajamas - under his uniform - the only man to go to Dieppe in pajamas, and he got out of bed in Roseneath to do it.

"She sure made a big fuss when she saw me"

After my leave I went back to Lowestoft, then to Greenock, then was loaded on a ship back to Canada and 52 days leave. Mum waited at Brantford Station for every train for days and I never came. And when I did arrive she wasn’t there. But she sure made a big fuss when she saw me and we cried an ocean full of tears. It was nice to be home again, Mum. It was coming up to Christmas and quite a few times I thought we would never see another one. I thank God for his protection.

"Frank Herring and I visited the Top Hat Pub." Drawing by G. Harrison

Back to Lowestoft. Before leaving Lowestoft, oppo Frank Herring and I visited the Top Hat Pub. When we entered two WAAF girls were there, one blonde and one brunette. After three or four drinks we moved to their table and asked if we could join and they said, “Yes, of course.” So we had a few more drinks - the girls paid a fair share - and all the while I had my eye on the blonde. It was getting close to “Gentlemen Please” time and the girls suggested we go down to a games room where there were pinball machines, so we all agreed and I grabbed the blonde and Frank the brunette. There was a terrible closing rush in the ‘black-out doors’ area, and when we arrived at the pinball machine area I had the brunette and Frank the blonde. Such is life.

But all is well that ends well. We saw them other times and being cooks they brought us wonderful cookies and goodies from a bakery. I maintained a correspondence with Grace Purvis, the brunette, and spent a wonderful weekend with her at a Blackpool resort, enjoying circus rides and long walks on the pier. I respected her very much as her boyfriend was in the Eighth Army and she remained very true to him. Where are you today, Gracie? I sure hope you and he are happily married.

What can I say about fifty-two days leave at home? Draw it out... or say it was mostly wine, women and song?

I guess that covers it without revealing too much. 

Chapter NINE to follow.

*I visited the Navy Museum in 2013, held Katanna's hammock to my nose and smelled diesel fuel.

Please link to more Memoirs re Combined Ops "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (9) 

Unattributed Photos by GH

Memoirs re Combined Operations

"DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (9)

by L/S Coxswain Doug Harrison

"Instructions being signalled to waiting landing craft by semaphore

at dawn of the opening day of the invasion of Sicily."* July 1943

Chapter SEVEN. SICILY AND ITALY

We had a hospital ship with us named the Alatambra (sic)** with many nurses and doctors aboard. She came in to about three miles in daytime and went out to seven miles and lighted up like a city at night. No one was to bomb a hospital ship and for days on end we took the wounded out to her, many being glider pilots with purple berets. Never a sound out of them, no matter how badly they were hurt. Mostly Scotch soldiers.

One night we saw what appeared to be a tremendous bonfire in the east, offshore a long way out. In the morning, the Alatambra was gone, nursing sisters, doctors, wounded and all. Seven hundred and ninety were killed or drowned. The Germans had either bombed or torpedoed her that night. So goes war.

Aboard Hospital Ship Talamba, April, 1943: From collection of

QA Lieut. Marion Dann. Photo Credit to Hospital Ships

Just another little sidelight. We had acquired a portable record player in a green round box with an ample supply of records by Artie Shaw, Glen Miller, Vaughn Munroe and Tommy Dorsey. We had to wind it by crank and we cranked it so much we broke the handle. Then we had to spin the record with our index finger. It was quite a chore to get the correct speed but with time we achieved it. How I wish I had that record player and records today.

One morning in Sicily I woke up in my hammock in our cave (the hammock was slung between two lime-stone piers and above the lizards) and I saw Hurricane planes taking off just a short distance away. We now began working eight hours on and eight hours off. When we were pretty well unloaded I decided, on my eight hours off, to investigate the air strip and, behold, they were Canadians with Hurricane fighters. I arrived about supper time and explained who I was and was invited for a supper of tomatoes and bully beef... Not that again!

Canadian Hurricane fighters in flight, date unknown:

Photo credit - WW2 database 

“I have no mess fanny or spoon,” I said, and the cook told me there were some fellows washing theirs up and to ask one of them for the loan of their mess fanny and spoon. So I walked over, tapped a man’s shoulder and asked if I could borrow his equipment. The man straightened up and said “sure” and it turned out to be Bill Donnelly from my own hometown of Norwich, Ontario. I got my oppo, A/B Buryl McIntyre from the cave and did the vino ever run that night. Small world. So when we had had enough Bill crawled into his hole in the ground, covered himself with mosquito netting, and we headed back to the cave. Overhead, Beaufort night fighters were giving jerry fighters and bombers hell. We felt the courage given us by the vino and slept quite soundly in our dank old cave ‘til morning rolled around again.

After approximately 27 days I came down with severe chills and then got dysentery. I was shipped to Malta on the Ulster Monarch and an intern came around and handed me 26 pills. I inquired how many doses was that? “Just one,” he replied. At Malta I was let loose on my own to find Hill 10 Hospital. I did after a while and they asked me my trouble. I said, “Dysentery.” “Oh, we’ll soon cure that,” they said. How? “We won’t give you anything to eat.” So for four days all I got was water and pills and soon I was cured, though weak. I thought of those poor devils in the desert.

When I felt better they sent me to a tent where I got regular meals. I saw an air force newspaper and on the front was a picture of Bob Alexander of Norwich, a school chum. But Bob returned to the fray and was lost on one of his bombing missions. How sorry I was to hear that news. He had already done so much.

“Bob Alexander of Norwich, a school chum":

Centre, 1935 - 36 High School photograph

Doug Harrison, stripped sweater, 1935 - 36 

Soon all the boys returned to Malta and we prepared for Italy, though all our barges stayed in Sicily. We took a Landing Ship Tank (LST) back to Mila Marina, Sicily and, if memory serves me correctly, attacked Italy at Reggio Calabria across Messina Straits on my birthday, September 6, 1943.

There was no resistance. The air force had done a complete job and there wasn’t a whole building standing and the railroad yards were ripped to shreds. How long we worked across the straits I cannot really recall, but perhaps into October. One of our stokers set up a medical tent for the civilians at Messina and treated them for sores and rashes. We fed them too but when pregnant women came we had to close up shop.

After a time we were sleeping in casas or houses and I had a helper, a little Sicilian boy named Pietro. First of all I scrubbed him, gave him toothpaste, soap and food. He was cute, about 13 or 14 years of age, but very small because of malnutrition. His mother did my washing and mending for a can of peas or whatever I could scrounge. I was all set up. When Italy caved in there was a big celebration on the beach, but I had changed my adobe and was sleeping with my hammock, covered with mosquito netting, slung between two orange trees. I didn’t join in the celebration because I’d had enough vino, and you not only fought Germans and Italians under its influence, you fought your best friend.

We weren’t too busy and the officers (who ate separately but had the same food as us) were growing tired of the diet, the same as we were, even though they had a Sicilian cook and we didn’t. An officer by the name of Wedd asked me if I knew where there were some chickens or something. I said, “Chickens, yes.”

When he said, “how be we put on some sneakers and gaffle them” I said, “Okay by me. Right then, tonight at dark we’ll go, but I get a portion for my part of the deal.” He agreed and later we got every chicken in the coop, rung their necks, and then took them to the house and had the Sicilian cook prepare them. I got a couple of drum sticks out the window. Next morning, the Sicilian cook came in as mad as hell. Someone had stole his chickens. Little did he know at the time he cooked them that they were his own because his wife looked after them.

We had some days off and we travelled, did some sight seeing, e.g., visiting German graves. We met Sicilian prisoners walking home disconsolately, stopped them, and took sidearms from any officer. We saw oxen still being used as draft animals when we were there. Sometimes we went to Italy and to Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory (AMGOT). (They later changed that name because in Italian it meant sh--!) While a couple of ratings kept the man in charge of all the revolvers busy, we picked out a lot of dandies. If he caught us we were ready. We had chits made out, i.e., “Please supply this rating with sidearms,” signed Captain P.T. Gear or Captain B.M. Lever, after the Breech Mechanism Lever on a large gun.

I learned quite a bit of the Sicilian language under Pietro’s tutelage. He did all my errands and I would have sure liked to have brought him home. It broke my heart to leave him.

Chapter EIGHT to follow.

Please link to Memoirs re CO "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (8) 

*Photo credit - World War II Today

**HMT Talamba

Unattributed Photos by GH

Memoirs re Combined Operations

"DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (8)

by L/S Coxswain Doug Harrison

D. Harrison (left) and Joe Watson survived the invasion of
Sicily, July 1943, and returned to Canada, December 1943

Chapter SEVEN. SICILY AND ITALY 

July 10, 1943. We arrived off Sicily in the middle of the night and stopped about four miles out. Other ships were landing troops and new LCIs (landing craft infantry), fairly large barges. Soldiers went off each side of the foc’sle, down steps into the water and then ashore, during which time we saw much tracer fire. This was to be our worst yet invasion. Those left aboard had to wait until daylight so we went fishing for an hour or more, but there were no fish.

A British Universal Carrier Mk I comes ashore with troops and guns during

the invasion of Sicily on 10 July 1943. Photo credit  - World War II Today

A signal came through, i.e., ‘do not fire on low flying aircraft, they are ours and towing gliders.’ What, in the dark? Next morning. as we slowly moved in, we saw gliders everywhere. I saw them sticking out of the water, crashed on land and in the vineyards. In my twenty-seven days there I did not see a glider intact. We started unloading supplies with our LCMs about a half mile off the beach and then the worst began - German bombers. We were bombed 36 times in the first 72 hours - at dusk, at night, at dawn and all day long, and they said we had complete command of the air.

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.

“I was only about one hundred feet out. Utter death and carnage.”

Epus 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 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 (Simcoe). What good would that have done?

"We saw machine gun bullets stitching the water right towards us"

Joe Watson (left) and Doug Harrison survived to tell the tale

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.

We were never hit but six ships were hit in a sneak attack out of the sun by German fighters carrying a bomb apiece. At night they would drop chandelier flares with their engine motors cut off. Everything would be dark and then suddenly it was like daylight. The flares were on parachutes and took forever to come down. After the flares lighted us up in came the bombers. Fortunately our gunners got so expert they could shoot out the flares.

A Landing Craft Mechanized (an LCM, Mark 3) going ashore

during the invasion of Sicily. Photo Credit - IWM* (A17955)

Our LCM was fortunate enough to pick up rum destined for the officers’ mess; but it never arrived there - we stowed it in the engine room. From then on we went six or seven miles up the beach at night, had a swim, slung our hammocks and drank ourselves to sleep, to awake in the morning covered with shrapnel, but never heard a sound.

One morning as we returned to the beach after a heavy bombing we noticed an LST with its bows completely gone and smoldering a bit. We went aboard to examine it and found under the rear canopy a sailor sound asleep in his hammock. After we awakened him he said he hadn’t heard a thing. The rest of the crew was missing.

We used a pail of sand saturated with gasoline to heat our meals on if any food was available. Later we moved into a limestone cave, dank and wet, but safe from bombs. We hung a barrage balloon over it, about 1,000 feet up, and one sailor got drunk and shot it down but we had 50 - 60 feet of limestone over our heads.

I had 27 days at Sicily living on tomatoes and Bully Beef. I swore I would kick the first bull I saw in Canada right in the posterior if I got back. Everywhere I looked there were anti-personal hand-sized grenades that needed only to be touched to go off. They were built to maim and not kill because it takes men to look after the wounded, but if you’re dead, you’re dead. We threw tomatoes at a lot and exploded them in that manner.

After Sicily the Canadian 80th Flotilla participated in the invasion of Italy

More to follow from Chapter SEVEN

Please link to Memoirs re Combined Operations "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (7)

*Imperial War Museum, UK, as found at www.wikisicily.com/ww2

Unattributed Photos by GH

Memoirs re Combined Operations

"DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (7)

by L/S Coxswain Doug Harrison

[D. Harrison (right), Norwich Gazette, February 3, 1943]

Chapter SIX. SOUTH AFRICA, THEN PORT SAID 

Back to England I went for more training in May, 1943 with barges aboard the Silver Walnut, a real dud.

We formed up and headed to sea again, this time from Liverpool. We didn’t know but Sicily was next. The Silver Walnut left convoy at Cape Town, South Africa to coal up and for repairs. She was constantly breaking down and was a sitting duck for subs. Fortunately, there were not many subs in S. Africa vicinity.

While aboard the Silver Walnut I struck up an acquaintance with a Scottish engine room engineer named Hastings, age about 55 - 60, with lots of money. Every morning for awhile he would wake me up early and say, “Are you for a halfer, Douger?” I’d say yes and go up to his cabin for a big hooker of whiskey. Our captain caught on and stopped it. How thankful I am now.

“The Silver Walnut left convoy at Cape Town,” later at Durban 

One night Hastings and I went ashore in Cape Town and he had been there many times before. He always carried a straight razor in his pocket or in his hand as if he were about to shave. We walked down a railroad track to a small overhead walk bridge crossing a channel. He put the razor away and used both hands to climb up the seven or eight rungs, but remarked, “When we come back after dark there will be a negro there below the ladder pretending to be fishing.” I noticed he drank with his left hand and his right hand was always at the ready on the razor.

We got our fill and headed back to the ship and, sure enough, there was a negro at the bottom of the ladder. Hastings left-handed it down the ladder and I came next, but the negro never made a move. He could see Hasting’s right hand was ready although it was dark.

Also, Hastings had just bought a new cap (cab driver type), with a beautiful emblem on it and he stumbled somehow on the railroad on the ties and his hat fell into the channel. I slipped off my jersey, hat and boots and dove in - the tide was running fast. He cried, “Sharks, Douger. Let it go!” But I retrieved the hat, dressed and we continued to the ship. The following Sunday we were both free and Hastings invited me to Cape Town to go for a trip in a taxi. He hired a cab (driven by a man named Owen who talked fluent Zulu) and took me to the Valley of a Thousand Hills just outside of Cape Town where we saw a Negro chief and his many wives and garden. We got negro boys to do a war dance for us for pennies.

 

[Photo - As seen in Norwich Gazette, Feb. 3 1993] 

We saw another Negro chief with a leather shield and spear, and we drove miles and miles and the cab driver acted as an interpreter for us. We came out of the valley to a huge restaurant all painted white and run by an American or Canadian woman. Never, never have I had such a meal and never will I again. Eight courses beginning with pheasant and with each course a different drink. When we headed home I was full of drink and food. It was a wonderful day. He sure had a high regard for the hat I saved for him from the channel.

Before I continue our trip to Sicily I want to recall one incident in Freetown, W. Africa. I thought negroes would not be understandable, but when we dropped anchor one immediately came up in a canoe singing ‘The Lambeth Walk’ - in perfect English. We would throw three pennies at a time into the water and he would retrieve them every time, never missed. 

[Lloyd Evans (above) and other Canadians bought monkeys in Freetown:

Photo - by permission of Mr. Evans, RCNVR, Comb. Ops, of Markham]

We spent eight or nine days in Cape Town, maybe longer, then started out with the old Silver Walnut again. Stop, stop, stop - and damn it was hot! Our middies turned yellow from white because of the sun. We couldn’t step on the deck, it was so hot. We should have had the half-inch calloused soles on our feet like the Gari pullers or cart pullers in Cape Town and Durban. (Gari - a two-wheeled cart with a seat and a pair of shafts; we went sight-seeing in them and a negro pulled from between the shafts.)

Anyhow, we had to pull into Durban, S. Africa for quite a spell and I saw there the most beautiful girls in all the world, a cross of Dutch and German and in some cases a little negro thrown in. No makeup was needed but they were very aloof. Can’t say I blame them... I had thoughts, i.e., nice thoughts and some covetous thoughts and some...

[D. Harrison liked to visit with the ladies. Photo - Canadian canteen?]

We finally passed through the Indian Ocean, past Madagascar to Aden and Port Said, properly pronounced Port Sigh-eed. The other boys who arrived in the desert long before us, because of our slow ship, were the unfortunate ones, and were found sleeping in tents - hot in the day and cold at night - and most had severe dysentery, some were just shells. The boys with dysentery so bad just sat in latrines all night and let it run from their poor behinds. I spent one night only in the desert so I was lucky. Thanks, old slow ship.

Unlike my other trip to N. Africa, I ate well. Porridge and flap jacks every morning. I still have only eaten about six flap jacks since I came home in 1944. I weighed 192 pounds at the end of the trip on the Silver Walnut. I had time to see Port Said and Ismailia and headed by truck up beside the Suez Canal to Alexandria. Many of our boys were there already and went to see the Sphinx, but I never did.

[Canadians in Combined Operations on H.M.S. Keren, Atlantic 1943]

[Please note Don Westbrook of Hamilton, back row, left]

[Canadians in front of their tents in Egypt, 1943. Fourth from left is Don

Westbrook, perhaps in his last pair of borrowed shorts due to dysentery]

The convoy formed for Sicily at Alexandria and ran into heavy submarine attacks and mines. I actually saw one torpedo miss us. I was now on the American Liberty ship Pio Pico because the Silver Walnut was abandoned with all the barges we worked so hard to clean and paint, included painted Maple Leaves. (Just a little side light which was very funny. A/B Seaman Bouchard was painting the deck of LCM 108 and told us the paint (battleship grey) was too thin. We said, “add varnish,” which of course made it thicker. But he kept complaining, “It’s too thin, too thin.” We said, “Add more varnish.” Finally he ended up putting it on with a putty knife it was so thick. “You smart buggers,” he said. Barges were left behind anyway.)

One ship was hit and had to be beached and I believe Theo McCready of Burgessville was aboard and was killed.

 

[Canadians 'painted Maple Leaves'*. Photo from
The Canadians At War 1939 - 45, by Readers' Digest]

*A swastika, symbol of a German submarine destroyed, is painted on the funnel of a Royal Canadian Navy ship - but top billing goes to a maple leaf. Canadian warships flew the White Ensign used in the Royal Navy and could be mistaken for British ships until the maple leaf was adopted. From The Canadians At War 1939 - 45.

Please link to Memoirs re Combined Operations "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (6)

Unattributed Photos by GH

Memoirs re Combined Operations

"DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (6)

by L/S Coxswain Doug Harrison

[Part of memorial to men of Combined Operations, at the former

site of H.M.S. Quebec, Inveraray, Scotland. Oct.ober 2014] 

Chapter FIVE. SCOTLAND AGAIN, THEN NORTH AFRICA 

After Dieppe we regrouped and went back to H.M.S. Quebec for further training, this time on LCMs or Landing Craft Mobile or Mechanized. H.M.S. Quebec was in Scotland on Loch Long*.

During the odd times we had leave I visited London and saw my mother’s sister and brother and nephews and had many gay times with them. One Christmas time I took a whole kit bag full of food and clothes to London, and what a time we had because they were on short rations. Our mail caught up with us from time to time and when it did it was tremendous both in amount and content.

One memory sticks in my mind and it was a happy time. They call raisins Sultanas in England and Mum’s sister, Aunt Nellie, had written Mum about some. Mum sent some over and also sent a Christmas pudding. It arrived on Saturday and Christmas was on the following Monday, so Aunt Nellie cried. One tradition was to pour rum on the pudding, close the blinds, and then light it afire. I had never seen it before and it was a sight to behold and remember.

“Aunt Ivy... Aunt Nellie had written mum about some...” 

My group went through much more training at H.M.S. Quebec and then we entrained for Liverpool. Prominent pub was the Crown in Wallasey. We left Greenock in October, 1942 with our LCMs aboard a ship called Derwentdale, sister ship to Ennerdale. She was an oil tanker and the food was short and the mess decks where we ate were full of eighteen inch oil pipes. The 80th and 81st flotillas, as we are now called, were split between the Derwentdale and Ennerdale in convoy, and little did we know we were bound for North Africa.

I became an A/B Seaman (Able-bodied) on this trip and passed my exams classed very good. The food aboard was porridge and kippers for breakfast, portioned out with a scale. We would plead for just one more kipper from the English Chief Petty Officer, and when he gave it to us we chucked it all over the side because the kippers were unfit to eat.

We had American soldiers aboard and an Italian in our mess who had been a cook before the war. He drew our rations and prepared the meal (dinner) and had it cooked in the ship’s galley. He had the ability to make a little food go a long way and saved us from starvation.Supper I can’t remember, but I know the bread was moldy and if the ship’s crew hadn’t handed us out bread we would have been worse off. We used to semaphore with flags to the Ennerdale to see how they were eating; they were eating steak. One of the crew cheered us up and said, “Never mind, boys. There will be more food going back. There won’t be as many of us left after the invasion.” Cheerful fellow. However, we returned aboard another ship to England, the Reina Del Pacifico, a passenger liner, and we nicknamed the Derwentdale the H.M.S. Starvation.

[American troops climb into assault landing craft from liner REINA DEL PACIFICO

during Operation 'Torch', Allied landings in North Africa, November 1942. IWM**]

In the convoy close to us was a converted merchant ship which was now an air craft carrier. They had a relatively short deck for taking off, and one day when they were practicing taking off and landing a Swordfish aircraft failed to get up enough speed and rolled off the stern and, along with the pilot, disappeared immediately. No effort was made to search, we just kept on.

One November morning the huge convoy, perhaps 500 ships, entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar. It was a nice sun-shiny day... what a sight to behold.

On November 11, 1942 the Derwentdale dropped anchor off Arzew in North Africa and different ships were distributed at different intervals along the vast coast. My LCM had the leading officer aboard, another seaman besides me, along with a stoker and Coxswain. At around midnight over the sides went the LCMs, ours with a bulldozer and heavy mesh wire, and about 500 feet from shore we ran aground. When morning came we were still there, as big as life and all alone, while everyone else was working like bees.

[American troops landing on the beach at Arzeu, near Oran, from a landing

craft assault (LCA 26), some of them are carrying boxes of supplies. IWM**]

There was little or no resistance, only snipers, and I kept behind the bulldozer blade when they opened up at us. We were towed off eventually and landed in another spot, and once the bulldozer was unloaded the shuttle service began. For ‘ship to shore’ service we were loaded with five gallon jerry cans of gasoline. I worked 92 hours straight and I ate nothing except for some grapefruit juice I stole.

Our Coxswain was L/S Jack Dean of Toronto and our officer was Lt. McDonald RNR. After the 92 hours my officer said, “Well done. An excellent job, Harrison. Go to Reina Del Pacifico and rest.” But first the Americans brought in a half track (they found out snipers were in a train station) and shelled the building to the ground level. No more snipers. I then had to climb hand over hand up a large hawser (braided rope) to reach the hand rail of Reina Del Pacifico and here my weakness showed itself. I got to the hand rail completely exhausted and couldn’t let one hand go to grab the rail or I would have fallen forty feet into an LCM bobbing below. I managed to nod my head at a cook in a Petty Officer’s uniform and he hauled me in. My throat was so dry I only managed to say, “Thanks, you saved my life.”

The Reina was a ship purposely for fellows like me who were tired out, and I was fed everything good, given a big tot of rum and placed in a hammock. I slept the clock around twice - 24 hours - then went back to work. In seven days I went back aboard the Reina Del and headed for Gibraltar to regroup for the trip back to England. During the trip I noticed the ship carried an unexploded three inch shell in her side all the way back to England.

Just outside Gibraltar, Ettrick was torpedoed in her side and sank, and one rating from Ingersoll, Ontario was among those killed. She took four hours to sink and many were saved. We arrived in England without trouble. Our ship was fast, could do about 22 knots per hour, a knot being one mile and a fifth per hour. (I am going to leave my memories about hilarious occasions during leaves I enjoyed until last.)

The job of the seaman on an ALC or LCM is to let the bow door down and wind it up by means of a winch situated in the stern of the barge. This winch is divided so you can drop a kedge (anchor) possibly about 100 or so feet from shore depending on the tide. If it is going out you can unload and then put motors full astern, wind in the kedge and pull yourself off of breach. The tide is very important and constantly watched.

[H.M.S. Quebec, the site of much training with landing crafts. October 2014]

If it is going out (on the ebb) and you are slow, you can be left high and dry, and if so, you stay with the barge. If the tide is on the make (flowing in) you use the kedge to keep you from swinging sideways on breach. In this case your kedge would be out only a short ways. After much practice, however, the kedge can be forgotten and everything done by engines and helm. Each barge has two engines.

A convoy is only as fast as the slowest ship and fast ships that make over 20 knots usually travel alone on a zig zag course so a sub cannot get lined up on them. That wouldn’t work today as subs are much faster. 

More to follow.

Please link to Memoirs re Combined Operations "DAD, WELL DONE" Navy Memoirs (5)  

*Loch Long is some distance from H.M.S. Quebec and the town of Inveraray. H.M.S. Quebec was situated on Loch Fyne. However, some Combined Ops training occurred on Loch Long with RN Commandos.

** IWM - Photo credits to Imperial War Museum, UK

Unattributed photos by GH