Elgin Regiment A Squadron_Sicily
Elgins Left Old Syracuse
In Big Hurry on the Night
of Their Sicilian Landing
Too Many German Bombs Falling for Comfort; Mad
Scramble Through Tall Cactus Plants When Natural
Grandstand Is Made Target One Night
By Major Wilfred D. King
Commanding "A" Squadron, Elgin Regiment
The Elgins - or some of the Elgins - first got into action in
Sicily. There are incidents - highlights and
lowlights - connected with that campaign that I am sure few of the
boys will ever forget. Time has a tendency to make them amusing but
there weren't so funny when they occurred.
That 18-day and night trip on the old
Cameronia, which had been torpedoed the
previous trip with the crew decidedly jittery, wasn't especially
funny, with none of us knowing just where we were going, but we
were on our way. The night landing off Syracuse is
something that do doubt will be remembered long and vividly.
Soldiers usually are anxious to get into a town, but I never saw a
gang so anxious to get out of a town as that night of July 15, 1943
when we hit the beach and sort of spewed out of that landing-craft
into Sicily with Heinie doing his
darndest to knock us and everybody else out of existence. The
bombers really were laying it on that night.
One of the crew on the landing craft said:"You're a nice bunch
of fellows, but get the hell out of here!" And we got. It was sort
of a case of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.
Every man was carrying two kit bags and the night was dark, except
for the illumination when the bombs and our guns let go.
"FAT" LOST TEN POUNDS
I don't think any of us ever walked so fast before in our life
as we did that night getting out of Syracuse. I
remember Fat Campbell, of Dutton,
puffing along. I figure he must have lost about ten pounds in that
walk. I didn't see him until two hours after we arrived at our
camp. A lad named Whaley from
Union went two miles past the camp, he was walking
so fast.
We had no idea where we were to camp until some chap struck a
pistol in my ribs and wanted to know who we were. I told him we
were Canadians and he said we could camp in the field nearby, as
his bunch was moving out. I leaned against a picket fence the rest
of the night directing stragglers into that field. Nineteen of our
outfit came along the next morning travelling in an Italian cart,
drawn by a puffing donkey, which they had borrowed. That camp in
reality was only about four miles from Syracuse,
but it seemed like 100 miles that night.
We weren't called the Elgins in Sicily. We
weren't designated as a squadron of the Elgins. We were the
T.D.S., No. 1 Tank Delivery
Squadron.
IN THEIR BARE FEET
We got another taste of Jerry's bombers near
Scordia a couple of nights. There was an advance
landing strip for Spitfires there and a bunch of the boys,
Driver Johnson, Sergeant
Vidamour, Frank Chatten, Sergeant
Pat Harris and others, decided to watch the
German bombers work on that strip one night. We
didn't have any slit trenches, but believe me, we had them the next
night. And the next night Jerry bombed the knoll
instead of the airstrip. You should have seen those Elgins take off
through the tall cactus plants - in their bare feet. A lad named
Funnell was well in the lead, but Sergeant
Pat Harris wasn't far behind. There were some sore feet in
camp the next day from encounters with those cactus plants.
Another thing I don't think the boys will ever forget is the
ancient Italian truck they commandeered to go to baseball games.
There were no axles on that truck; each wheel was independent of
the other, and the truck was equipped with hard rubber tires. That
didn't discourage the boys. They'd pile on that truck, even on the
top and the sides - 40 or more of them - and go rattling and
banging to the ball games. Just about everybody took a turn at
driving that truck - even Sergeant Major Phillips
from Aylmer and Quartermaster Sergeant George
Gale.
WOE TO FRUIT EATERS
The fruit in Sicily was tempting, especially the grapes, but woe
betide the person who ate it. Dysentry followed - and how! Just ask
some of the boys who were with the No. 1 Tank
Delivery Squadron if they remember those eight
pills every four hours, for 48 hours, they had to take for
dysentery - pills like oversized aspirin tablets. And that was just
part of the dope we had to take to guard ourselves against malaria
and other sickness.
We left the British Isles on June 25, 1943 and finally reached
Algiers - and still we didn't know where we were
going. Then the invasion was on and we were taken down near the
island of Pantellaria. Every morning, for three
mornings, we'd wake up and see some island out in front of us. We
seemed to be going around in circles. The next thing we knew we
were in Malta, and sat there for a day. Then on
the night of July 15 we started for Syracuse and were going to
land. We knew where we were going then.