Month: August 2017

This may be my last blog before the adventure truly begins.  I have still quite a bit of work to do and it won’t get done if I keep this natter up.  I do think I owe one last explanation of what I discovered that was so important to the trip.

As I was “browsing” and “searching” and just generally enjoying myself scrolling through tons of irrelevant but interesting historical material on the internet…I discovered the “war diaries” of a number of Canadian Second War units including the 2nd Field Regiment.   You can see some of this yourself at:

http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t15935/10?r=0&s=1

The material has been digitized and the picture below is almost as good as it gets.  I have printed copies of all of the diaries from September 43 to February 45 and most of them are a bit easier to read.

Any historian worth their salt will tell you that “popular” texts about history (even “official” versions) are interesting and generally quite accurate but they are an interpretation by the author of what actually happened, hopefully based on original sources.  The real material an historian wants is the original source.  This can be specific orders or letters, personal or official or any sort of documentation that was prepared in situ and which gives a better sense of what was happening.  I have my Dad’s pay books from the war and they are an example of original material and contain some interesting facts but they do little to advance the notion of where 10 Bty was in Italy.  On the other hand the “war diary” of a unit is just such an original document and quite a prize.

The war diary docket contains all sorts of material that describes organizational activity, specific orders, and for the 2nd Field…artillery “business”.  For example the “Return of Officers” was a sort of roll-call and often mentions individuals on leave or on training.  There are movement orders and fire plans in the form of diagrams showing  potential targets and for each gun position (GP) the officers would draw up a “defensive fire plan” that was intended to support the infantry and themselves in the event of an attack.

The most interesting part for me was the material below which provides an actual record of where they were and what they were up to on any given day…much like that diary you kept as a young thing and hid under your pillow from your older brother.

You actually can’t see from this image…but trust me…September 1st, 1943 the 2nd Field Regiment is still in Sicily at Scordia.  And on the 2nd they are at 183257 (which is a Grid Reference).  A grid reference is a fairly precise location on a specific map based on artificially created “grid squares”, which measure one square kilometer (km).  Grid References are useful for hikers and soldiers but are in no way related to latitude and longitude (lat/long).

I have a current Canadian Topographic Map on the wall in the cottage and it has grid squares laid out…as well as latitude and longitude (lat/long).  The difficulty with a grid reference is that you have to have the map that corresponds to where you are.  So if I’m at 579485 on my wall map at the cottage…you won’t know where that is unless I tell you which map to look at.  In this case it’s 31/C-10.  On the other hand if I give you the lat/long you can find my location using almost any map and especially Google Earth.

I hope you’re still with me.  I know this may be is a bit boring especially if you are not a map reader or rely too heavily on that other acronym GPS…but it has a bearing…yes that’s a MAP pun…on the journey as well as the fun part of the research.

Finding the GR of 2nd Field on any given day from September 1st 1943 to February 1945 is a huge bonanza.  It would potentially tell me more specifically where Dad and his cronies were during the entire campaign.  I still needed to figure out how to translate a 1940’s era GR to a current lat/long and I also don’t have the war diary prior to September which would cover the entire Sicilian campaign…it’s not in the collection of material that has been digitized.

I’m fairly quickly back to the internet searching for a means of converting the GR’s to something more useful.   I eventually discovered a piece on the Modified British System.  Although a grid system had been in the works since the First World War the Brits modified the system for use across the European theater of operations.  I found a specific site called “The Coordinate Translator” which shows me the grid squares for Northern and Southern Italy, allows me to select the appropriate grid map, identified by a two letter code, to which I add a GR and press convert.  You can take a look at this yourself at

http://echodelta.net/mbs/eng-translator.php#

Since the grid square is one square kilometer, the six digit GR will put you within 100 square meters of a given location.  With this in mind any conversion to lat/long is probably within 100 square meters of the actual spot.  So…I know from the September war diary that they are in Sicily and I can see that that map is wD so I select that letter combo, add the first GR of 183257 and press convert.  Wadda Ya Know…37.55.14 N  15.20.47 E.  If you check this out on Google Earth you will see that it’s at Roccalumera about 35 km south west of Messina.  It was probably a staging area as the next day, September 3rd they had landed at Reggio Calabria on the mainland.

I’m still in the process of converting.  I’ve got the war diaries up to February 1945 and at this point I’ve converted locations up to the end of April 1944.  I still have a ways to go.  As I convert each point I go to Google Earth and put in a red pin at that location with the date they were there.  Then I go to my Michelin maps and I find the same spot and paste on a marker with the same date.  I then use a yellow marker to trace a plausible route between these two points.  I will have a GPS and I can enter the points as needed but I do love maps and it’s much more interesting following a map than having some disembodied voice screaming at you to turn left when you can clearly see that it’s a goat track leading nowhere.  Although from what I’ve already seen some of the specific locations may require following a goat path that leads nowhere.

I’ve also discovered what happened to the war diaries for July and August.  It seems that a U.S. bomber was shot down and crashed into 8th Battery’s gun position on August 7th.  The Battery lost 7 men killed and 22 wounded.  The bomber also destroyed Regimental Headquarters (RHQ) with the resulting lost of all Regimental records up to that point.  The trek through Sicily will not benefit from any war diary entries during July and August.

I’m going to plod away at GR’s and Lat/Longs and while I’m at it I may just study a bit of Italian.  I do have a couple of other avenues of research but these are a bit obscure and I won’t bother reporting them if they don’t pan out.

But before I leave let me bring you up to date on the latest avenue of research that did pan out.  This occurred just days ago.  I showed you the picture of my Dad at a place called Castle Lauro and indicated that I wanted to find out where that was.  I did a lot of reading about the CMF School of Signals and the war diaries in January told me that an Officer and 2 OR’s left 2nd Field’s position southeast of Bologna for Colle Ferro and Eboli on the 15th.  February 10th all courses were cancelled.  A few days later 2nd Field received the first orders related to Operation Goldflake, which was the move to Northwest Europe.

I suspect that Dad was one of the 2 OR’s and was going to the CMF School in Eboli, which is southeast of Salerno and more in the Naples area.  The information from other sources suggests this is more likely than Colleferro, which is on the eastern outskirts of Rome.

Back to Google Earth and to make a long story short I discovered a village called Lauro which is about 50 km north of Eboli but more importantly about 35 km directly east of Naples.  There is no Castle Lauro but there is a Castello Lancellotti which has some similar towers.  Castello Lancellotti is very old, has apparently been in the Lancellotti family for years and is currently a tourist attraction as well as a restaurant.  I found there web page…what else.  I found a contact and sent an e-mail to the Superintendent Paulo along with a copy of the image.

Paulo wrote back on 2017-08-14 at 4:56:46 AM…and I quote…”Hi Ken  I am very pleased to be able to help you with your research.  And I immediately state that the one represented in the photo is our Castle of Lauro, the Lancellotti Castle.  Precisely this is a photo taken in the second courtyard of the castle.”

I’ve revised my schedule…sometime after the Monte Cassino area and before traveling through Rome…I’m going to go to Castello Lancellotti and see if Paulo can take my picture from the same point as Dad’s.

I am very excited…for an old guy…but the rest of you can…Stand Down.

Out.

 

I’ve been asked to be a bit more precise about where I’m going in Italy and I’ve also been asked whether this is part of an organized trip.  It’s not part of an organized trip, I’m doing this on my own with just yours truly as guide and interpreter.  As I’ve said I am planning to follow 10th Battery (10 Bty), 2nd Field Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Canadian Infantry Division during their sojourn in Sicily and Italy from July 1943 to February 1945.  Pinpointing exactly where that might take me has been one of the more interesting and time consuming parts of the getting ready exercise.

I’d like to explain a bit about that process since its all part of the research I’ve been involved in to make this trip both a personal reality and as historically accurate as possible.

If my Dad had been with the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR’s), Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment (Hasty P’s or Plough Boys) or The 48th Highlanders (The Glamour Boys) then the problem of where Dad was would not have been as difficult.  Most military history writing pays close attention to the Infantry Units…and properly so.  They are at the sharp end, they face the enemy and they take the ground.  Infantry Regiments mark their history in part by their “battle honours”.  These are usually displayed with pride on their “colours”. Check out the colours of the RCR’s, Hasty P’s or the Glamour Boys and you’ll see their “battle honours” displayed proudly and you’ll soon know where they’ve been.

The artillery, on the other hand, does not have “battle honours” as such and they also don’t have colours at least not as we usually think of them.  They are also very rarely mentioned as specific units in an official history.  The reason for this is that the artillery is considered to be “everywhere”.  In fact the motto of the Royal Canadian Artillery is Ubique (Everywhere) Quo Fas et Gloria Ducunt (Where Right and Glory Lead).  Ubique is their single battle honour.  And their colours…well their guns are their colours and they are respected as much as an infantry unit’s colours are respected.

Paying respect to the colours reminds me of the “ritual” that was required when entering the Lake Street Armouries in St Catharines.  At the end of the building was the “gun park” where our four 105 howitzers were parked side by side.  As each “gunner” (of whatever rank) passed the gun park it was “eyes left” and a smart salute to the guns.

But back to the story…the main reason why I thought I could actually find where my Dad’s artillery unit had been for 19 months came from a couple of sources.  The most important were two little known publications about 10 Bty.  “Stick to the Guns” was published in 1996 by Colin K Duquemin and related the history of the battery up to recent times.  “The Battery” was published by R. James Steel and Captain John A. Gill and emphasized more the Second War experience.

Captain John A. Gill was known to my sister and I as “Uncle Jack”.  He was one of my Dad’s closest friends since they had enlisted around the same time and continued after the war to serve the battery into the ’60’s.  He was one of the cronies who came to our house and told stories while I sat at the bottom of he stairs and listened.  Uncle Jack was the man who coerced my Dad into going on a double date in London around 1940.  The woman on the left is Joan and she married Jack and became “Aunt Joan”  The woman on the right is Janet Dunsmore Shanks.  She was my Dad’s “date” and she ended up being “Mom” for me and my sister.

As suggested these two small volumes where largely based on personal accounts related by the men who had been there.  They provided a bit of information about where they were in Sicily and Italy usually based on remembrances of town or village names.  The specifics were somewhat scant however as might be expected because OR’s (other ranks) did not have maps and did not often know exactly where they were, especially in a foreign country with relatively few English speaker.  Many times they weren’t even near a town or village but in the middle of a field or woods with just the direction of the guns to tell where the front line was.

I do have access to a few other sources which have been extremely useful in narrowing the field.  “The Canadian Army 1939 – 1945 published in 1948 and authored by C. P. Stacey, is Volume I of the “Official History of the Canadian Army”.  Interestingly it appears from the fly leaf that I presented this volume to my Dad as a birthday present in September of 1948.  That would have been his 28th birthday and I would have been  17 months old.  Wasn’t I just the precocious child.

The second volume of the official history is G.W.L Nicholson’s.  “The Canadians in Italy”, which was published in 1956.  A third source is a more recent volume, Daniel Dancock’s “The D-Day Dodgers – The Canadians in Italy 1943-1945” published in 1991.  This latter book  is of special interest since it has one personal account by my Dad related to 10 Bty activities prior to the assault on Monte Cassino.

These volumes all helped especially with maps and such that allowed me to sketch out a possible route.  In order to make it all more real I spent wads of cash on several large scale current Michelin road maps and tried to find sites mentioned in the aforementioned texts.

Armed with this information I can describe a rough trail of where they were and if I stay close to where the RCR’s, Hasty P’s and Glamour Boys where I’d at least be in the same general area.  Or at least within 12.25 kilometers since that was the maximum range of a 25 Pounder Field Gun.  I forgot to mention that these three infantry units were also part of the 1st Infantry Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division and that 10 Bty usually provided fire support to the Glamour Boys…(or so I understood from those discussions I overheard as a wee lad).

At this point in my research I have a reasonable idea of where I’m going.  Sicily is the first stop moving from Roger Beach north through Grammichele, Piazza Armerina, Assoro, Leonforte and Agira.  Then a ferry on to Reggio di Calabria and up the “instep” of the Italian “boot” along the Ionian Coast, then inland to Motto and Ortona, then west to Cassino, then north through Rome all the way to Florence then east again to the Adriatic and Pisaro, Riccione, Rimini and finally the Lamone River…just south east of Bologna.

I’m also going to visit the Canadian Cemeteries in Agira, Bari, Cassino and Gradara.  Five “gunners” of 10 Bty were killed in action in Sicily and Italy and I know where they are and I would like to pay my respects.

Along the way I plan to spend a few days with Cat (my youngest daughter) in Florence.  I’ll have three weeks and I’m optimistic that I can retrace the route, take some half decent photos, drink some vino rosso and eat a bit of pasta.

I’m not finished researching though and I also hope to find out where Dad was between February and March of 1945.  Some of you may know that the 1st Canadian Division left Italy in February and March in order to join the rest of the Canadian Army in Northwest Europe.  My Dad didn’t go with them…in fact he appears to be the one of the very few 10 Bty men who doesn’t have the Northwest Europe Star.

The reason for this is called “Operation Penknife”.  The Allies did not want the Germans to know that the Canadians were heading to southern France.  The Division was battle hardened and a force to be reckoned with.  Knowing they were traveling from Ligorno to Marseilles, through waters that were still somewhat controlled by the enemy, was an open invitation to try and stop them.

So…Operation Penknife in which men from various units but primarily signalers were detached from their units and sent south to the Naples area.  From there they kept up daily radio transmissions concerning the more mundane activities of a division in a rest area.  The ruse was so successful that it wasn’t until April that the Germans were finally convinced that there were no Canadians in Italy.  I think by then Dad was back in England…with only a month or so to go before VE Day.

This photo of Dad is labelled on the back:

Castle Lauro,  C.M.F. School of Signals (Central Mediterranean Force), Feb-Mar 1945

I don’t yet know exactly where this is but I’m continuing the search, primarily for a possible Castello Lauro somewhere in the Naples area.

But I should also tell you…during my research I found something very relevant and important to the trip and I’ll tell you what that is in the next installment.

Welcome to my blog in which I’m hoping you will accompany me on a journey that I’ve been hoping to have for some time.

But first from the beginning…when I was just a young lad I used to sneak downstairs and sit at the bend in the stairs and listen to my father and his friends talk about their own adventures.  All of these men had been members of 10th St Catherines Field Battery a part of 2nd Field Regiment, 1st Canadian Division.  For those of you with a bent for military history and Canadian involvement in the Second World War you may know that the 1st Canadian Division was in England by December of 1939…just months after the declaration of war in September.

10th Battery was a reserve unit and my Father, along with some of his cronies, had actually enlisted in the battery years before the war…in fact by the time September ’39 rolled around my Father, at the tender age of 19 was already a Bombardier and an accomplished signaler.  When war was declared there was no question…10th Battery was mobilized and my Dad was off to war.

Many of the stories I heard involved their lengthy stay in England in such places as Aldershot and Croydon.  Lots of training in Scotland and the English countryside.  A few mishaps with his motorcycle…as a signaler and dispatch rider he had a small Norton and was able to find lots of ways to get into trouble with it.  There were also lots of visits to London on leave and lots of opportunities to meet women.  (One of them being my mother).

The stories that always stuck with me though were the ones that began around July of 1943.  This was when the 1st Division, then part of Montgomery’s famous 8th Army, invaded Sicily and later in September (4 years after leaving home) Italy.

Most soldiers don’t talk to others about their experiences.  It’s impossible for others to understand what they went through or for many to even care.  But put a bunch of these brother’s in arms together, with no one else to hear and a beer or two at hand…and you just might hear a story or two.  And I did.

Years later…and I…like my Father lied about my age and joined 10th Battery at 15.  By the time I was 19 I was a Bombardier and an accomplished signaler.  During those years I heard other stories about the Battery, including exploits in the First World War and the adventures of a few of the gunners who went to Korea.  I also got to know a few of the Sicily/Italy veterans from another perspective…that of competent and confident citizen soldiers who were eager to pass on their lessons to others.

As the years have passed I’ve been able to travel a bit and had some opportunity to indulge in a bit of my own military history interests.  I’ve been to Vimy, Juno Beach and Dieppe and I’ve even travelled to a few U.S. Civil War sites…but I’ve never been to Sicily or Italy where my Dad spent 19 months of his life.

And Sicily and Italy are where the stories are that I remember most.

So…on October 11th, 2017 I’m boarding an Air Canada flight to Rome and on the 12th I’ll be landing in Catania, Sicily.  There’s a car waiting for me there and my first stop will be on the west side of Pachino, at a spot known 74 years ago as “Roger Beach”.