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 m
y 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.