Operation Husky

by Mark Zuehlke

  Initially, the battalion followed a sandy track wide enough for the carriers and towed 6-pounder anti-tank guns. Having got a later start, a Three Rivers tank, carrying an artillery FOO, also ground up the track. Major John Tweedsmuir had stationed himself on the tank’s front fender to serve as a guide, and the FOO was similarly mounted opposite. “The trail continued to climb through a pinewood that gave way to open sandy uplands. The moon came up clear and bright, and from our perch...we could follow the tracks of the carriers in the sand. We lost sight of them on some hard ground but picked them up further on. Somehow they didn’t look quite familiar and we stopped to examine them. It was lucky that we did; they were the tracks of a German Tiger tank. We scouted about until we found the tracks of the carriers and followed them until we found our anti-tank guns halted beside some scrub. Two hundred yards further on we came to the edge of the escarpment. No tank or carrier could hope to get on. It fell away in a steep rocky slope to vineyards below. The moon silvered the leaves in the great bowl below us and shone on two long ridges of hills running across the landscape. The tracks of the marching infantry were lost on the hard-baked side of the escarpment.

  “There was no sound except the distant barking of dogs, where we knew the battalion was pushing forward on foot through the vines. There was nothing for it but to return to our vehicles.”17 Tweedsmuir decided that the carriers and tank would continue along Highway 117 to a side road the Royal Canadian Regiment was going to try using to reach Valguarnera. It was a worrisome situation, because if the Hasty Ps tumbled the Germans, they would not be able to call on artillery support.18

  At the head of the infantry column, Captain Alex Campbell had realized that the mazelike countryside rendered the maps useless. Resorting to dead reckoning and a great deal of guesswork, Campbell led ‘A’ Company along a series of goat tracks. Sometime after midnight, word came up the line that the rest of the battalion was no longer behind it. The Hasty Ps had become broken into three groups, with ‘C’ Company having strayed off on a different goat track, and the rest of the battalion losing its way on yet another. Whether any were headed towards Valguarnera, nobody knew.19

  Sometime later, ‘A’ Company, groping its way along a track, turned a corner and bumped head-on into ‘C’ Company. Campbell and ‘C’ Company’s Captain “Rolly” Cleworth spent several minutes sorting the men into a single formation, and then they descended a steep slope in the pre-dawn light. At the bottom of the hill lay a paved road, but Campbell and Cleworth were unable to orient it with anything similar on their maps. On the opposite side of the road was a dome-shaped hill with stone-terraced slopes that would provide good fighting positions. The two companies darted by platoons across the road and scrambled up the hill, only to find it occupied by about a hundred Sicilian refugees. Travelling with ‘A’ Company was Lieutenant Pat D’Amore, an Italian-speaking British intelligence officer. He learned that the Hasty Ps were only a mile from Valguarnera but were unable to see it because of an intervening ridge. The refugees also said the town was teeming with Germans. The road below was the main lateral highway running from Valguarnera to Catania and a major route for German traffic.20

  Campbell and Cleworth kicked this information around for a few minutes. On one hand, they were within striking distance of the objective. On the other, they had lost contact with the rest of the battalion and the small-pack wireless sets were proving useless in this mountainous country. Unable to contact anyone, the two companies were effectively cut off inside enemy territory. Without supporting arms, the two officers decided an attack on Valguarnera would be “unwise.” If they heard the rest of the battalion engaged in a fight, the two companies would then move towards the sounds. In the meantime, they decided to dig in on the hill and await developments.21

  The plan to passively wait on events did not sit well with either company commander, and at about 0600 hours they asked for volunteers to go back and report their situation to the battalion’s rear headquarters. Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) Angus Duffy, who had ended up attached to ‘C’ Company during the night’s wanderings, and Company Sergeant Major (CSM)George Ponsford volunteered to make the eight-mile return trek. Armed with one of the questionable maps, they headed off. Pushing hard, the two men made the journey in just three hours and found Tweedsmuir there with all the battalion’s motorized vehicles—the track they had been going to use having also proved impassable. After learning that Tweedsmuir knew nothing of the other companies and, in the absence of wireless communication, could not support the infantry, Duffy and Ponsford loaded packs with all the ammunition they could carry and headed back.22

  On the hill, ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies had still been digging in when six trucks, each loaded with about twenty to thirty Panzer Grenadiers, came along the road below their position. The Hasty Ps could see that most of the Germans were literally napping and from a range of about one hundred yards unleashed a torrent of rifle and Bren-gun fire. Captain Campbell—considered odd at the time by the rest of the Hasty Ps because he expressed an intense hatred for anything and anybody German—grabbed a Bren gun and powered his large body down the slope, firing from the hip. Clenched in his teeth was a spare Bren magazine, around which he roared incomprehensible demands at the Germans.23 One truck still had most of its complement in the back and Campbell raked it with fire, personally killing eighteen Panzer Grenadiers.24

  The carnage was unlike anything the Hasty Ps had ever witnessed. Lieutenant Farley Mowat was horrified to see badly wounded Germans sprawled around the trucks or hanging out of open doors and off the sides. A German medical orderly wandered about in plain view checking the men, but he seemed to lack any first-aid supplies and could do nothing for them. Neither could the Canadians, for they had little in the way of medical kits beyond what was needed to treat their own wounded.

  One German’s plight particularly haunted Mowat: a truck driver, draped over his steering wheel, coughing up foaming blood from a lung shot that gushed through the splintered cracks in the windshield his face pressed against. Each bloody cough was accompanied by a sucking heave and then a hissing expulsion, as the man tried desperately to clear his lungs of the blood relentlessly drowning him.25

  The ambush had stirred up a hornet’s nest. Although the convoy was decimated, with between eighty and ninety Germans killed and eighteen taken prisoner, what soon appeared to be an entire battalion of Panzer Grenadiers stormed towards their hill from Valguarnera. Heavy mortars behind the intervening ridge supported the attack, relentlessly hammering the exposed hilltop. The first German rush was thrown back with heavy casualties inflicted, but there was nothing that could be done about the mortar fire. At 1400 hours, with ammunition draining rapidly away, Campbell and Cleworth decided it was fight their way out or be overrun. Some of the more seriously wounded men were secreted away in a Sicilian peasant’s nearby shack, while litters were prepared for several others deemed strong enough to survive being carried eight miles or more cross-country.26

  ‘A’ Company left first, Cleworth’s men putting out a heavy fire to prevent the Germans realizing a withdrawal was under way. When ‘A’ Company was established in a position from which it could provide covering fire, ‘C’ Company leapfrogged through to where it could set up a similar position. The process was then repeated until the two companies broke contact with the Germans. Wearily the men marched back towards Highway 117. 27

  During the withdrawal, Captain N.R. Waugh of ‘C’ Company had spotted a wounded Canadian down the side of a ravine. Accompanied by a private, Waugh scrambled down the slope under fire, and the two soldiers carried the man back to safety. Waugh’s valour in this and other incidents during the course of July 18 earned a Military Cross.28

  Some hours after the two companies had made their getaway, RSM Duffy and CSM Ponsford slipped up to the hilltop and found it abandoned. The refugees offered the two men a little food, but seeing how little they had the sergeants refused. Ponsford saw some Germans approaching and shouted at Duffy th
at he was going to engage them. A bloody mad idea, Duffy realized, and ordered a fast withdrawal into the cover of a large cactus stand. From there the two men headed back to Highway 117—their fifth trip in one or the other direction, for a total of forty miles of hiking clocked in less than twenty-four hours.29

  Dawn on July 18 had meanwhile found the rest of the battalion on a hill about a mile south of Valguarnera, looking down on the main road running to the village from the junction that 3 CIB’s Van Doos had been trying to win. Lieutenant Colonel Sutcliffe and the commanders of ‘B’ and ‘D’ companies faced the same frustration of lacking supporting arms to back an attack on the village. When Sutcliffe decided to test the waters by sending ‘B’ Company forward, immediate strong resistance forced a quick retreat up a hill to the left of ‘D’ Company. From this position, it could provide covering fire for ‘D’ Company, which Sutcliffe positioned alongside the road to ambush any vehicles using it.30

  They had been lying in wait only a short time when a dozen-strong convoy approached from Valguarnera. The lead vehicle was a half-track armoured personnel carrier towing an 88-millimetre anti-tank gun. A well-placed PIAT bomb ignited 88-millimetre munitions aboard and the half-track exploded, killing all the Germans aboard and consuming the towed gun. The rest of the convoy frantically turned about and withdrew under heavy small-arms fire from ‘D’ Company. Hoping to confuse the Germans into thinking his was a larger, better armed force than was the case, Sutcliffe led one platoon in a push towards Valguarnera, but was soon driven back by a hail of fire from the village. It also became clear that the convoy, rather than being in full flight, had only withdrawn a safe distance to unload a full company of Panzer Grenadiers. Methodically, these troops began closing on the ‘D’ Company platoon on the left flank. Although ‘D’ Company was deployed in a half-moon arc to face potential attacks from any of three fronts, the advancing Germans enjoyed numerical superiority, and ‘B’ Company was unable to bring fire onto them from its hilltop position. At noon, Sutcliffe realized the game was up. Ammunition was running low and the Germans were almost on top of the left-hand platoon. He and ‘D’ Company’s Major Bert Kennedy decided to “withdraw into the hills.” Because extracting the platoons as a unit was impossible due to the closeness of the enemy, Sutcliffe ordered each platoon commander to break clear independently and return by whatever route he wanted to the battalion’s cross-country start point on Highway 117.31 Sutcliffe had displayed cool-headed leadership and taken a “very active part in the fighting through the day,” also pausing at one point while under heavy fire to dress the wounds of a seriously wounded soldier and carry him to safety. His conduct garnered a Distinguished Service Order.32

  ‘D’ Company’s breakout was anything but smoothly executed. Platoons ended up fragmented into small groups, each out of touch with the rest. One section found itself on the wrong side of the road when the Germans moved into the abandoned position. Their ammunition exhausted, the men scrabbled into a culvert. Here they remained for twelve hours with German trucks and tanks rumbling overhead at regular intervals. With nightfall, they managed to get clear.

  Lieutenant Manley Yearwood ended up alone, except for a German officer he had taken prisoner. Suddenly the German jumped him, and the two men struggled desperately for control of Yearwood’s revolver for “long and savage minutes ... The German lost, and died where he had fought.”33

  After it had seen ‘D’ Company off, ‘B’ Company disengaged. Less hard-pressed by the Germans, the company was able to stick together and moved southwestward towards the supposed line of advance that the Royal Canadian Regiment was to have followed to Valguarnera. It would be fully twenty-four hours before the entire battalion emerged from the hills by dribs and drabs onto Highway 117. During this time, speculation ran that casualties were extreme, and it was feared up to sixty men—including Lieutenant Colonel Sutcliffe—had been lost. But by the end of the day on July 19, the majority straggled into the lines. Sutcliffe was among the last to appear. Total casualties were finally determined at four men killed, three captured, and fifteen wounded. In exchange, the Hasty Ps confirmed they had killed about one hundred enemy and more likely twice that number, wounded at least another hundred, destroyed fourteen vehicles and guns, and brought back twenty prisoners. More importantly, they seriously disrupted attempts by 15th Panzer Grenadier Division to reinforce the Germans engaging 3 CIB at Portella Grottacalda.34

  THE ROYAL CANADIAN Regiment had also played a part in 1 CIB’s blocking of enemy reinforcements. Carried on trucks from Piazza Armerina to a rough side road running north from a position just behind the embattled Royal 22e Régiment, the RCR companies had dismounted at 0100 hours on July 18. As had been the case for the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment to their right, the track proved too rough for use by carriers or the tank carrying their artillery FOO. An attempt to bring up the carrier with the battalion’s 3-inch mortars resulted in its overturning into a gully. The wireless sets failed to raise a signal in the mountainous countryside, and Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Crowe led the troops forward with no more support than Sutcliffe had enjoyed.35

  Hearing intense gunfire from the Van Doos’ position, Crowe thought it likely the Germans were putting their main effort into holding the Highway 117-Valguarnera road junction. If true, his battalion stood a good chance of slipping through to Valguarnera by following a ridgeline that paralleled the road. Crowe also hoped to link up with the Hasty Ps to the south of the town around dawn, so the two battalions could attack together. He could not, however, hear any sounds of fighting from the direction where the “Plough Jockeys,” as they were nicknamed, were supposedly located. Nor was he able to establish any wireless contact with Sutcliffe.36

  Like most plans in war, Crowe’s fell into trouble a few yards beyond the start line. Germans there were in plenty, and the RCR worked its way through the wild country in a pitch blackness cut only by the darting flash of tracer rounds, which helped the German machine guns range on the Canadians from their positions on rocky outcrops. Snipers also worked from the flanks, firing a couple of shots before slipping away to another hide. This resistance inflicted only a few minor casualties, but each position had to be assailed in turn by platoons closing on it with fire and manoeuvre tactics that ate away the minutes. Invariably, when the platoon gained the position, they found nothing but spent cartridges. Soon another MG 42 machine gun, or just as likely the same one, started firing on the column from another position and the process started anew.

  Still, the RCR were able to keep pushing forward against this harassing fire and by 0800 hours were on a ridge a mile and a half southwest of, and overlooking, Valguarnera. Just before reaching the overlook, Crowe had passed ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies through to the front. At the head of ‘B’ Company, Captain Strome Galloway was crawling along the crest of the ridge to gain a vantage within some scrubby undergrowth from which he could examine the town. His batman, Private Harry Armitage, was right behind. Since landing on the beach, Galloway had realized the awkwardness a company commander faced trying to pack a Thompson submachine gun and its ammunition plus his map case and binoculars. So he had Armitage dump his rifle and gave him the Thompson. Over the ensuing days, the captain had trained Armitage to be his bodyguard—there to protect him from the enemy and leave Galloway free to study his maps or the ground ahead. It seemed a good arrangement, the batman taking to his protective duties with a keen interest. As was his wont, Galloway wore his army cap that morning rather than a helmet. When he had put it on before the RCR started its move forward, Galloway had noted with satisfaction how Armitage had shone his “cap badge until it glittered like the Star of the East.” That was typical Armitage, meticulous about spit and polish even when the battalion was operating in the dust of Sicily.

  Parting some brush, Galloway peered into the valley towards the town. He could feel Armitage’s breath on the back of his head as the man pressed close to also get a look. Suddenly the batman jerked, let out a loud gurgle, and bega
n gasping for breath. Galloway spun around to see blood spewing from Armitage’s throat and realized a sniper round had struck him. The battalion’s medical officer, Captain Jake Heller, came running up. He “dropped beside the wounded Armitage and applied his skilled fingers to the gushing throat. He bound it with a first field dressing, but it was only his skill and speedy response, despite the bullets now whizzing about, that saved Armitage’s life. My poor batman, unable to speak, looked at me with the eyes of a dying stag.” Some weeks later, Galloway received a letter from Armitage advising that he had indeed survived.37

  Galloway had no time to dwell on Armitage’s fate, for within ten minutes he had completed organizing Company ‘B’ and was leading it into the attack behind ‘A’ Company. As he moved into position, Galloway caught the eye of Major Billy Pope, the battalion second-in-command. Pope “was wearing a beret and had a tommy-gun slung over his shoulder. With his flashing smile and his bare knees he looked awfully young.”38

  Captain Slim Liddell was at the head of ‘A’ Company, which “deployed like an exercise in section leading, walking down the forward slope...with the enemy M.G.s supplemented by a couple mortars, kicking up the dirt around them. A few yards in their rear came the leading platoons of ‘B’ [Company], and in between, eager to keep the action rolling, walked Lieutenant Colonel Crowe, his signaler [Private A.J.] Wiper, and Lieutenant J.B. Hunt [battalion intelligence officer].”39