by Mark Zuehlke
ON APRIL 20, just three days before his fortieth birthday, Simonds had been promoted from brigadier to major general and given command of 2nd Division. Now Simonds would lead Canadians into their first divisional-scale campaign. Tall, lean, and bronzed by the North African sun after an extended tour at Eighth Army headquarters, Simonds had grey-blue eyes that were as steady and unnerving as Montgomery’s. His jet-black hair was set off by a little wave at the temples, his moustache thin and turned up at the ends. Simonds never rambled. Each sentence was clipped and precise. A Winnipeg Free Press reporter commented: “He’s a marvelously keen observer who can put the picture into words without any need to write a long report about it. That’s the Montgomery style.”6
Hardly surprising, for Simonds had deliberately modelled himself after the Eighth Army commander—even to the point of favouring a black tanker’s beret. The two men were alike in having quick, incisive minds, being arrogantly self-confident, and being impatient with perceived failings in others. Montgomery had taken an early interest in Simonds and still acted as an occasional mentor to one of the few Canadian officers he considered possessed of any talent.
Simonds lacked one Montgomery quality, that charismatic ability to win the confidence and admiration of the common soldier. Naturally aloof, Simonds had embraced the ramrod-straight persona of the Royal Military College (RMC) graduate and Permanent Force officer. He seemed incapable of relaxing. Old acquaintances were often taken aback. In the mid-1920s, working as a reporter with the Regina Leader-Post, Richard Malone had roomed with Simonds—then an artillery captain on the local district staff. With the war, Malone had joined the army and been posted to Britain as Defence Minister Colonel Layton Ralston’s staff secretary during an extended mission in 1940. Here, he eventually crossed paths with then-brigadier Simonds. “Far from any friendly or relaxed greeting from an old friend of our rowdy bachelor days, I was accorded the strictly formal, frozen Permanent Force treatment with the clipped sentences and raised eyebrows. Thank heaven I remembered to salute him, as I was, still, only a mere captain.”7
Upon learning Simonds had been given command of 1st Division, Ralston studied a report on the new major general written by a senior officer. A “most outstanding officer but not a leader of the type that will secure the devotion of his followers ... Temperamentally suited to serve as a high Staff Officer... Has undoubted ability and will fight his Division and make few mistakes,” it concluded.8
Brigadier Chris Vokes, who commanded 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade (2 CIB), was pleased by Simonds’s appointment. They had been RMC classmates and as close to friends as Simonds would allow. Vokes “had every confidence that Guy would be an outstanding leader. I had a very high opinion of his military ability and of his leadership. I hoped . . . that the confidence was mutual. I knew, however, I would be judged on my performance and what my brigade did in action and, that if I didn’t measure up, or if the brigade didn’t, I would be fired by Guy, old friendship notwithstanding.”9
This was the man who strode into Norfolk House two hours after his reassignment and demanded a detailed briefing. Although many papers had been lost in the plane crash, Kitching had a copy of Salmon’s operational plan and quickly summarized it. Two of the division’s three brigades would land on beaches close to Scoglitti, while a parachute battalion dropped near Comiso and seized the airfield there. Overlooking the beaches was a sharp-edged ridge from which the Italians could bring down artillery fire. This would be the division’s first objective. The troops would then cut the Comiso-Ragusa road and link up with the paratroops. A major problem the engineers had to solve was that each beach was backed by dunes and high banks. Only one beach had a narrow track cut through. Until the engineers bulldozed gaps in these obstacles, little motorized traffic—including tanks and artillery tractors—could advance to support the infantry.
When Kitching finished, Simonds asked for the administrative and quartermaster plans, only to learn that the single copy had been in Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Finlay’s briefcase. Simonds turned to Finlay’s deputy, Major Ab Knight, and asked if he remembered enough details to rewrite the plan. Blessed with a photographic memory, Knight assured the general he could not only rewrite it verbatim but also recall the questions Finlay had intended to raise in Cairo.10
Satisfied, Simonds turned to the individual brigade plans. As 1st Brigade would land on the division’s right, Brigadier Howard Graham led off, laying out a plan that adhered to accepted beach-landing doctrine. His troops would first secure a bridgehead and then advance on a nearby small airfield. Once these two tasks were completed, the brigade would pursue the enemy. Simonds scowled, and snapped that securing the bridgehead was a “waste of time.” There was the “necessity of getting on with the job of beating up the enemy.” Graham was taken aback at being dressed down in front of his colleagues simply for confirming Salmon’s judgement that securing a bridgehead “was a wise and proper operation to minimize the risk of being driven back into the sea by an immediate counterattack.”
When Simonds turned to Vokes, whose 2 CIB would land on the left, he skipped all mention of securing bridgeheads. Instead, Vokes would chase “the bloody Hun” or “the Ities” all the way to Messina. As his 3rd Brigade was in reserve, Brigadier Howard “Pen” Penhale refrained from offering any plan until it was clear how the advance brigades were “prospering.” Unlike Simonds and the other two brigadiers, Graham was not an RMC graduate. A militia-trained officer, he suspected this was the reason that Simonds made a point from then on of addressing him by last name while the other two were Chris and Pen.11
BY LATE AFTERNOON, the most pressing unresolved problem was that a plane had not been found to replace the one that had crashed. Upon learning of the crash and the lack of an immediately available plane capable of making the long journey to Cairo, Prime Minister Churchill offered his personal Liberator bomber. Early on the morning of April 30, Kitching, Vokes, the division’s chief signals officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jake Eaman, First Canadian Army’s deputy chief of general staff, Brigadier Warwick Beament, and Lieutenant Colonel Don Tow boarded Churchill’s plane at a Royal Air Force (RAF) airfield on Salisbury Plain. On the drive from London, Kitching and Vokes had speculated about Churchill’s Liberator. “Comfortable beds? Armchairs? A dining room with attractive WAAFs to serve us? We got a rude shock as we climbed into the main bay of the converted bomber. It was completely open and the only furniture of any kind was about a dozen mattresses scattered around the floor. We found that these were to be our beds for the next twenty-four hours and our food would be haversack rations. It was a bit of a let-down but we found the mattresses were comfortable and that there were a number of clean pillows to enable us to prop up our heads to read or recline in the Roman fashion.”12
The journey was long. Not until 1900 hours on May 1 did the Liberator set down at an air base outside Cairo. The officers were whisked by car into the city and checked into the famous Shepheard Hotel, declared a British bastion for the duration. Simonds was also en route to Cairo, his party having departed Britain that morning and due to arrive late the following day. Aboard Simonds’s plane was Rear Admiral Philip L. Vian—replacing Rear Admiral P.J. Mack—as well as Lieutenant Colonel Geoff Walsh and Major Ab Knight.
Kitching and Vokes held preliminary discussions with xxx Corps planning staff, who indicated that the plan was undergoing major changes. Just before he left London, Simonds had been warned that a change in the Husky plan was “contemplated.” During a refuelling stop in Gibraltar, he met a British general who “said that the change of Plan was still to the fore but that it was still not firm.” From Gibraltar, his plane flew to an airfield near Algiers, where it was grounded by a sandstorm. Simonds seized the opportunity to visit Force 141 headquarters. He carried away a “new Plan . . . that . . . was still not the final Plan.” At 1700 hours on May 4, the plane touched down in Cairo, and the following morning, at precisely 0630, Simonds reported to Force 545 headquarters.13
Finally
the final plan was final, he learned. Gone was the Canadian assault on Scoglitti. They would strike to the east on the right flank of Pachino peninsula. This was Sicily’s southernmost feature and formed the island’s southeastern corner. Simonds took the radical change in stride, sitting down to study intelligence summaries regarding enemy defences on the new beaches. Then Simonds walked into the model room and considered the three-dimensional displays of the island. Here, Simonds wrote, he “decided how ... to carry out my share of the task allotted.”
Rear Admiral Vian had been doing his own assessments. Vian told Simonds “he did not like the beaches, and considered them unsuitable for assault craft; but we decided and agreed that in spite of the difficulties the assault was feasible, and we could carry it out.” At noon, Simonds met Lieutenant General Oliver Leese, who approved the division’s operational outline. Simonds later wrote, “I pointed out to him that the enemy coastal defences on the right and left flanks of our sector required special attention and he agreed that 51st (Highland) Division would clear the defences on the right flank, and concurred on the inter-divisional boundary [as proposed by Simonds]. He agreed also to leave the Royal Marine Commandos with me (it had been decided to use them elsewhere) to pinch out the defences on the left flank.”14 Simonds was greatly relieved to keep the commandos. Without them, his left flank would have hung in the air because there was a yawning gap of about twenty miles between 1st Canadian Division and the nearest U.S. Seventh Army division that would be landing west of Eighth Army. Intelligence showed enemy coastal guns positioned there could fire on the Canadian beaches unless silenced. The commandos would do this.15
“I pointed out to General Leese that time was short as far as we were concerned, and that I had to get back to England within two weeks at the outside. I told him I had to put forward a firm plan, and leave Cairo with the clear understanding that whatever Plan I took back with me could not change as the loading of the ships was soon about to start and this could not be delayed.
“In the afternoon I made a further study of the map and model, and put the Plan down on paper and cabled it home that night. The plan was cabled to England within 24 hours of my arrival in Cairo and was never changed.” It was the kind of decisive work Montgomery would have approved of and was typical of Simonds in action.
Over the next few days, Simonds and the other Canadian officers entered into a whirl of meetings with British counterparts. There was the need to ensure that Simonds and the 51st Division commander were clear on the boundaries they would maintain during the advance, so that neither strayed into the other’s gunsights or allowed a gap to develop. Simonds and Vian agreed intelligence on the beaches was woefully inadequate and demanded photo reconnaissance be carried out by submarine. When Simonds attempted to get two small infantry assault ships added to his roster of ships in order to land the commandos an hour before the rest went in, Leese refused. That was about the only thing Simonds wanted that he failed to get.16
Vokes and Kitching, meanwhile, had been discussing weaponry. Some Canadian equipment was outdated or not used by the British in the Mediterranean. With its light armour and armament, the Canadian-made Ram would have to be replaced by the more robust American-built Sherman, which was emerging as the ubiquitous Western Allied tank. The Canadian anti-tank gunners would exchange their ineffectual 2-pound anti-tank guns for the more powerful 6-pound and 17-pound models. There would, the British officers warned, be other equipment changes and precious little time for retraining. Vokes and Kitching assured them that the Canadians were fast learners.17
Within five days of Simonds arriving in Cairo, the Canadians were ready to go home. Because of the risk of plane crashes, they split into two groups with Simonds leading one and Kitching the other. Not everyone would immediately return. Vian and his staff officer stayed behind. Everyone but Kitching and Vokes flew back to Britain aboard a RAF bomber. As the flight approached British shores, the pilot announced that Plymouth was dead ahead and they would land there. Glancing out a window, Simonds asked Major Knight whether he thought they were looking at Plymouth. “No,” Knight said. Simonds ducked into the cockpit, and seconds later the plane’s engines roared as it clawed back altitude. “I thought that wasn’t Plymouth,” Simonds told Knight. “The bearing of the sun was all wrong. It was Cork.” Had the plane landed in neutral Eire, it was likely everyone aboard would have been interned.18 “Our navigator had almost lost me somewhere over Eire,” Simonds reported.19
Kitching and Vokes had a somewhat less dramatic though curious return. Dressed as civilians, the two officers boarded a British Overseas Airways Corporation commercial liner. Shortly after takeoff, the plane was forced to land at El Adem, near Tobruk, to fix a landing gear. Then it stopped at Algiers for engine work. After crossing the Mediterranean, an emergency landing in Lisbon led to its being pronounced unserviceable. Two Canadian officers, both looking precisely like soldiers in civilian garb, wandered about the Lisbon terminal in neutral but Fascist-inclined Portugal. Finally, they booked passage on a Dutch Airways flight for London, but were informed in whispered tones that the takeoff time was indefinite because the ticket agents for Lufthansa and Italy’s Regia Aeronautica were spies. They would immediately alert the Luftwaffe in southern France whenever a flight by an Allied commercial carrier took off. Several such planes had been intercepted and shot down. Finally, in the middle of the night, the passengers were hustled aboard and the plane raced into the dark. Despite extreme turbulence that rendered almost everyone aboard airsick, the passage was made at low altitude to avoid detection by German radar.20
WITH THE OFFICERS back from Cairo and less than sixty days until Canadian troops were expected to splash ashore on Sicilian beaches, preparations quickened. Previously, hardly anyone in 1st Canadian Infantry Division aside from the approximately fifty officers at Norfolk House had possessed an inkling that their long wait in Britain would soon end. Now the sudden announcement that the division and 1st Canadian Army Tank Brigade would move from “Sussex by the Sea” to Scotland signalled that something was up, and the nature of the training, with its emphasis on amphibious landings, indicated the task ahead. But there were still no hints as to the division’s ultimate destination.
In early May, the three rifle brigades started training at Inveraray for “an opposed landing” and “subsequent land operations including mountainous countryside.” First, eight days of route marches, cross-country runs, cliff scaling, rope climbing, and tumbling down scramble nets, all while burdened with full packs. Next, the brigades boarded ships for a series of landings on “hostile” beaches defended by squads of Royal Marine commandos posing as the enemy.21
During one such landing, Lieutenant Colonel Bert Hoffmeister led his Seaforth Highlanders of Canada off landing craft into icy three- to four-foot-deep water. “We struggled ashore, weapons all full of sand and everything else, and we had to rush up to the positions we were to occupy and strip our weapons down. With rifles it wasn’t quite so bad, they could force the actions, but my Tommy gun wouldn’t work. I couldn’t pull the bolt back, it was just full of sand, my pouches were full of sand and the revolver wouldn’t work, although it was protected a little better with the holster ... [We] got into our positions and dug ourselves in. It’s a wonder we didn’t lose half the battalion from pneumonia because every staff officer in the British Army had to come around and look at our positions. We crouched down there while we were just freezing in a high wind, low temperature and soaking wet in this cold water, but it certainly gave us a good idea of what is involved in getting down scrambling nets over a ship’s side with all your equipment, while the craft is bobbing up and down and so on. This was a very fortuitous exercise for us to have done.”22
Hoffmeister’s .45-calibre Thompson submachine gun was one of a variety of new weapons and equipment supplied to accord with that of Eighth Army’s other divisions. Despite its tendency to jam when exposed to sand, the gun’s terrific stopping power made it a hit with the troops, particularly w
hen compared to the lighter 9-millimetre Sten they had been using. With its easily disengaged safety catch, the Sten had been notorious for accidentally discharging and was more jam-prone than the Thompson.
“No. 1 novelty,” as the weapon was designated on a top-secret British ordnance list to mask its true purpose, was the newly developed Projector Infantry Anti-Tank (PIAT) gun. Weighing thirty-two pounds and firing a 2.5-pound hollow-charge explosive bomb, the PIAT provided Commonwealth troops with a hand-held weapon capable of disabling tanks.23 Difficult to load, prone to mechanical failure, and complicated to operate, it was more often cursed than praised by the soldiers assigned to use it. That its bomb was too light to penetrate anything but the thin side and rear armour of German tanks was another bone of contention the soldiers raised after trying it out during training exercises. They were told it was the PIAT or nothing.
Not only were new weapons introduced, but some battalions faced major reorganization. The Saskatoon Light Infantry (MG) Regiment, which numbered about five hundred men, was completely reorganized into three Brigade Support Groups. One group retained the Vickers .303 Machine Gun, Mark 1, that the entire battalion used to provide heavy machine-gun support to the infantry brigades. The second group received 4.2-inch mortars to give the division heavy mortar support, and the third was issued single-barrelled 20-millimetre Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns for air defence.