MANY LANDINGS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 17 November 1943, Page 5

MANY LANDINGS

DIEPPE WAS WORST Adventures Of New Zealand Telegraphist N.Z.P.A. Spccial Correspondent Rec. 1.30 p.m. LONDON*. Nov. 16. Dieppe. Oran. Sicily and Messina! Telegraphist R. D. Mitchell, of Christchurch. has taken part in all these landings. He rates Dieppe as "the worst of the lot." with Sicily taking second place. He went ashore in the latter landing with the Eighth Army at Marina Davola. "We went in just before dawn." Telegraphist Mitchell said. '"It was my job to help to arrange for signals back from the beach to the ships. As we went in coastal batteries fired at us, but put their shells over stern. There was also an Italian using a machine-gun, but firing 6ft over our heads. The Army soon fixed him. and once we landed tilings were not so bad. We scon got the signals working, and stayed there for about a week. "When we crossed the Straits of Messina to Reggio I went with the Canadians. We started a quarter of an hour before the creeping barrage stopped. Gun flashes lit up everything like daylight. We sat in a landing craft occasionally sipping rum and listening to the shells screech overhead. "We met no opposition when we landed. In. fact, the Italians had already bundled up their belongings ready to be marched off to prison camps. They haa to stay and help to clear up the beaches in order to get tanks and ttrucks ashore. "We did not see any Germans, but they worried us with mortar fire for a while. 1 spent a month in Italy, later going to Taranto. I also was with working parties helping to open the beaches to get in supplies. That was before the ports were opened up."

Mitchell is now in England. Also with him are Telegraphists W. J. Smyth (Ruatoria) and S. F. Speed (Auckland), who were in the escort carrier Attacker, which took part in the Salerno operations.

Smyth said: "It was a wonderful sight seeing the Fleet going through the Straits of Messina in bright moonlight. We stood,well out to sea at Salerno, and only saw German aircraft cnce. and they disappeared as soon as they sighted our fighter cover from Illustrious and Indomitable.