The Sicily Invasion

My father Mr Ernest Mansell died just days before his 80th Birthday on 19th July 2003,in his paperwork was this little diary that he had started to complete but alas did not continue.

The Sicily Invasion

In this narrative I will deal as much as possible with the whole of the invasion, but the part I am interested in was the part in which I myself took part, the invasion of Avola on the east coast.

To begin at the beginning would make a long story so I will commence where we have the army on board, which by the way was the 50th division of the Durham Light Infantry, which consisted the men required for 11 Bren Guns, carried 2 Bruet Tanks, 1 Honey Tank, 1 Jeep, 2 Lorries carrying 6 Pounders and 2 lorries carrying 2 Pounders.

On the night of July 7th 1943 we formed up and sailed. By “formed up” I mean the rest of the ships, I think there must have been 36 of us. That night and the following day passed without a hitch. On the night of the 8th July I noticed a gathering of some of the army chaps round an officer, I stuck my nose in and listened. He spread out some photo’s taken from the air of the beaches on which we were to land, and gave a description of the land and the expected fighting. A few minutes later the crew were called into the wheelhouse and the “subby” read us a letter from some admiral or other. It told us the capture of Sicily was vital to us, that we were to expect casualties as we were fighting on his own ground.

Later on the following afternoon we came within sight of Malta, the sea was getting terribly rough and we were making slow speed. We had sighted earlier on, the rest of the invasion fleet which was a hell of a size. We had with us the Battle Fleet which sailed in front of us to the Messina Strait to intercept any of the enemy ships if they showed interest in battle. As we passed Malta which is only 55 miles from Sicily, the ships split up. The Americans were to land on the south coast, the Canadians to land on the peninsula on the south east corner. We were to land on the east coast at Avola and the rest to land at Syracuse a little higher up the coast from us. With us came Troop Carriers and a big escort of destroyers, ML’s, Cruisers and a few Minesweepers. The weather was now very rough, the ships were diving and bobbing up again but all the time they kept their stations. As it grew dark we could see a tremendous amount of flares hanging over the island and knew the R.A.F. were there. When at last it was dark and we could see the anti-aircraft fire it looked just a few yards away, it is a very queer sensation, and one I don’t want often. During action station on beaching stations my job is down in the engine room, so until about midnight I saw nothing, I was then called up to the wheelhouse and given my “tot”.

The zero hour for us was 4a.m. the infantry were to be put ashore one hour earlier in order to silence the shore batteries. There was stiff resistance and when it came time for us to go on the beach there were at least 2 heavy guns still shelling the beach. The destroyers opened up on them. The cover afforded the enemy was excellent the whole place was surrounded by hills rising to about an average 1000 feet. The beach itself ran back into orange groves in which you could hide a whole division. It was decided to send tanks ashore to silence these guns, so our ship beached with 2 Infantry craft. As we approached the shore the guns opened up on us and 1 craft was hit by two shells, one fore and the other aft, I don’t think there were any survivors, the other ship was also hit, and by this time we were alongside the first ship and unloading our cargo. We had 5 shells pretty close but were very lucky, he didn’t seem to get the right range, which considering he hit the two ships alongside of us was strange. We went straight alongside a troop ship and loaded up with troops and back we went to the beach, this time there was no resistance the lads we had put ashore had done a good job as they said they would. We had not finished yet, 3 German fighters came over and machine gunned the beach.

We spent 1 week at Avola unloading merchant ships of tanks and material and taking it ashore. It was the worst week I had ever spent. The first ship the enemy sank was a hospital ship which was anchored away from us and floodlit. I spent 5 weeks in Sicily unloading ships at Augusta and Syracuse. The land was very hilly and was very useful to his dive-bombers who used to come in using them as cover. I saw at least 10 ships sunk and consider myself lucky.

I consider myself lucky because I would not be here and I would not have known such a lovely man and dad.

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