PART IN LANDINGS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 304, 18 September 1943, Page 7

PART IN LANDINGS

N.Z. Naval Men In Italy And Sicily

LONDON, September 16 "It all seemed' so unreal. Everything was so quiet, unlike anything I ever thought an invasion would be. Somehow I always imagined it would chiefly consist of lots of 16-inch guns on the beach ail pointing toward me personally, said Sub-Lieutenant T. "Wiren, R.N.Z.N.V.K., of 'Wellington, who took part in the invasion of Sicily. He was in an intautry landin'’ craft, which was commanded by Lieutenant K. Chute of Waipawa. Their part was to land British infantry at Avola. _ . , "We left Malta on July 9 m the middle of the morning and set out to join a convoy,” said Lieutenant Wiren. "The sea was rough all day and remained high after nightfall. It was a clear starlit night. We saw the invasion begin while we were going inshore. That was the bi" moment of the whole show for us, for we did not know whether the beach was mined. It was not, but there was an Italian six-inch howitzer in action, and we saw two other landing craft hit, so the skipper—Lieut. Chute—decided to go further up the. beach. “We found a cove just out of sight of the howitzer, which plunked shells behind and in front of us, but it could not actually see us. It was when we were leaving that we collected a packet. "We were about 40 yards out when a shell hit the wheel house and immediately set the ship on fire, killing the coxswain and wounding others. The explosion stopped the port engine, and put the starboard engine slow astern. As a result, we drifted among the rocks for a while. The howitzer was soon hit by a destroyer, so we got the pumps going, and five or six hours later we put the fire out. -Three days later we were towed back to Malta. We did not know how the other New Zealanders fared, as they were all landed at different places, but they camo out safely. We should not be surprised if they arc taking part in the present operations on the Italian mainland.” Lieutenants Wiren and Chute are nowon leave in London. They said that othei members of the R.N.Z.N.V.R. who were in the Sicilian invasion included Lieutenant K. Fletcher; of Palmerston North, Sub-Lieutenants K. Todd and N. 101lard. of Auckland, T. Bourke, -ot Lower Hutt, W. Prebble, of Whangarei, and A. Herbert, of Wellington. Several other members of the Rojal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve are in action in Italian waters. Lieut. H. W. Larson, M.8.E.. Wanganui, and SubLieut L. Powell, Christchurch, are believed to have taken part in the landing near Pizzo. Sub-Lieut. J. N. Broad, Dunedin, was recently operating a motor tor-pedo-boat in the Straits of Messina. Broad joined the coastal forces at the time of the chase of the Scharnborst, and then went to Alexandria. He was in the motor torpedo-boat which attacked Tobruk in September, 1942. when the Luftwaffe attacked them all the way back to port. Broad manned the Oerhkon gun after the gunner had been wounded and hit at least two aircraft. Sub-Lieut. Broad says: "Alter that we took part in diversionary attacks behind the enemy lines when the Eighth Army attacked.'After a stay in Malta we went to Bone, attacking a merchantman on the wav, but without result. We did a lot of patrols from North Africa to cut off supplies to Tunisia and bad some clashes with E-boats. Once we drove off a force coming in to lay mines. "Another time our flotilla attacked an Italian convoy of three merchantmen escorted by four to six destroyers and Eboats. We attacked at midnight and hit with torpedoes two merchantmen, which blew up. Lieut. Leu Newall, Wellington, landed the one E-boat. He did a grand job.”