NEW ZEALAND TELEGRAPHISTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 November 1943, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND TELEGRAPHISTS

EXPERIENCES DURING' LANDING

(N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent)

LONDON, November 16. Dieppe, Oran, Sicily, Messina —a Christchurch telegraphist, R. _ D. Mitchell, has taken part in all these landings. He rates Dieppe as “the worst of the .lot,” with Sicily taking second place. He tvent ashore at Sic--ily with the 'Bth Army at Marinadavola.

Mitchell .said: “We went in just before dawn. It was my 'job to help to arrange for signals back from rhe beach to the ships. As we went in the coastal bateries fired at us, out put the shells- over the, stern. There was also an Italian using a machine-gun, but it was firing six feet above our heads. The Army soon fixed him and once we landed things were not so bad. We soon got the signals working and stayed there for about a week. When rve crossed the Straits of Messina to Reggio, I went with the Canadians. We started a quarter-hour before a creeping barrage stopped. Gun flashes fitup everything just like daylight. We sat in the landing-craft, occasionally sipping rum, 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, but many found they had to stay to help clear up the beaches in order to get tanks and trucks ashore. We did not see any Germans, but they worried us with mortar fire for a while. I spent a month in Italy, later going to Taranto. I also was with, the working parties helping to open the beaches in order to get m supplies. That was d before the ports were opened up.” Mitchell is now in England. With him are Smythe (Ruatoria), and S. F. Speed (Auckland), who were telegraphists 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. Wo stood well to sea at Salerno and only saw German aircraft once, and they disappeared- as soon as they sighted our fighter cover from the Illustrious and Indomitable.”