WW2 100 – 31 August 1944 – Death of a ‘Black Cat’ in Italy: Gunner Herbert James Skinner (1916-44) 113th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

Continued from 26 Aug 1944

DRIVER CYRIL JOHN LOCKYEAR (1918-44)     

143 Field Park Squadron, the Royal Engineers  

https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/03/ww2-75-26-august-1944-adopted-in.html

 

 

A news cutting from the 1944 Exmouth Journal 

It’s always helpful to come across a wartime newspaper cutting about people serving in the forces who had a link to Budleigh, so this item from the Exmouth Journal telling me about Herbert was a welcome find, sad though it was in announcing his death at the age of 28.

However I was puzzled by that mention of his ‘landing on the Aegean beaches’. Nowhere in the history of the Royal Artillery’s 113^rd Field Regiment have I read about its involvement in that area of the Mediterranean. Had he taken part in the Aegean campaign – an ill-judged attempt to capture Greek islands in 1943 – the chances are that he would have been killed or taken prisoner.

 

Budleigh Salterton's War Memorial at the junction of Coastguard Road and Salting Hill

Exmouth War Memorial in The Strand

It’s true that his family was well known in Exmouth and Budleigh. Herbert’s name appears on the War Memorials in both towns, and according to the news cutting he attended Exmouth Church Schools. Later, according to the same source, he was employed by a Mr Boxall.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) lists him as the son of Mr and Mrs Archibald James Skinner. Research by my friend Carolyn John told me much useful information about his family, including his mother’s name, Rosina Skinner.

The 1901 census shows that Archibald James and all but one of his eight siblings were born in Exmouth. They were the children of Exmouth-born mariner Harry James Skinner and his wife Ellen Ann née Williams, living at 6, Stafford Cottages in Littleham, on the outskirts of the town.  

So Herbert’s family background was very much linked to the local area, as was his wife, Joyce Gwendoline née Havill. Incidentally, the otherwise excellent Devon Heritage website confuses her with Herbert’s mother Rosina.

Joyce Gwendoline’s father is described in the 1939 census as a ‘journeyman baker’. Her mother, Ellen Maud née Symonds, is described as aged 28 and still single in the 1911 census, living at 2 Golf Road - now Links Road - in Budleigh where she was a cook for the Carmichael family.

 

Houses at Frewins, Budleigh Salterton

In 1939, the Havill family, including Joyce Gwendoline who was working as a shop assistant, were living at 17 Frewins. This is a cul-de-sac of Arts and Crafts-style houses on a side road off Bedlands Lane in Budleigh Salterton. Local history researcher Nicola Daniel noted in the Otter Valley Association newsletter of October 2015 that the houses were built on land bought in December 1911 by Miss Ethel Frewin Mathieson of Otterbourne on Budleigh’s Coastguard Road.  Miss Mathieson, Secretary of the Budleigh Salterton National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society, was a forceful character who intended that the houses should be for local people with a rent of no more than two and sixpence.

 

Formation badge for the 56th (London) infantry division and the 1st (London) infantry division c. 1940s. It depicts Dick Whittington's cat on a red background.

Image credit: Imperial War Museum, INS 5461  

The 1939 census tells us that Herbert was living at 13 Union Street in Exmouth, and working as a lorry driver. According to the news cutting above, he joined up the following year, and the CWGC record lists him as a Gunner in the 113^rd Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery. It was in 1940 that the 113^rd Field Regiment became part of the 1^st London Infantry Division, renamed on 18 November as the 56^th (London) Infantry Division.  It became known during WW2 as the Black Cats, its divisional insignia having been changed to an outline of a black cat on a red background.  

After 4 June 1940 and the Evacuation of Dunkirk, the 56^th Division became part of XII Corps, which was formed that year in the south-east corner of England, the area in the country most threatened by a German invasion.  From 27 April 1941 until 13 August 1942 when he was appointed to head the 8^th Army in North Africa, its Commander-in-Chief was Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Montgomery whose headquarters were at 10 Broadwater Down, in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

I do not have access to Herbert’s service record in the 113^rd Field Regiment, but it is possible to put together an account of his imagined travels and activities as a Royal Artillery gunner thanks to various WW2 websites, publications and other miscellaneous sources. Among the latter is a detailed personal diary by the 113^rd Field Regiment’s Sergeant Frank Penn. It is currently for sale from a Manchester bookseller, priced at £350.

Also useful are the memories of veteran gunner V.C. Fairfield as presented in the excellent BBC People’s War series by his daughter Patricia.  A member of the 64^th (7^th London) Field Regiment which was also part of the 56^th Division, he would have shared many of Herbert’s experiences.

On the Wartime Memories Project at www.wartimememoriesproject.com we read that Lance Sergeant Leonard Leslie ‘Chalky’ White, a member of the 113^th Field Regiment like Herbert, was posted to Foots Cray and Dover, in Kent.   

 

British WW2 4x4 field artillery tractor, crew of one, plus capacity for five gun crew, powered by Morris EH 4-cylinder petrol engine. Designed specifically to tow a 25-pounder or 17-pounder gun and crew into action.  Image credit: Imperial War Museums

A final mention must be made of Justin Dorber’s detailed research on the wartime career of his great-uncle Lieutenant John Charles Milton, who joined the the 113^th Field Regiment on 2 November 1943. The research resulted in an impressive and highly readable biography, a worthy tribute to a brave WW2 veteran. It’s based on carefully gathered photos and documents as well as interesting and amusing anecdotes. But there is also much information of value to military historians.

You can read, for example, about the Regiment’s extensive organisation. It would have been comprised of three Batteries, each with eight 25 pounder field guns, along with 42 motorcycles, 10 two-seater and four-seater cars, nine armoured observation post transporters, 45 15cwt trucks (General Staff, personnel, water), one 30cwt lorry, 28 three-ton lorries, and 36 Quad tractors to pull the guns.

Each gun would have had 160 rounds of ammunition (90% High Explosive, 10% Smoke) and 12 rounds of armour-piercing ammunition. This would have been carried in the Quad gun tractor. Each Battery would have been made up of two Troops, each with four 25-pounder guns, and 60 enlisted men and three officers. 

Much of this detailed information comes from the Handbook on the British Army with supplements on the Royal Air Force and Civilian Defence Organisations, 1942, which is available online at https://archive.org/details/Tm30-410

 

 

The British Army in North-west Europe 1944-45 A soldier poses next to one of the German coastal guns at the Todt battery captured by the Canadians at Cap Gris Nez, 1 October 1944. Image credit: Captain E.G. Malindine No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit – Photograph B 10467 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums 

Many artillery units were moved to Kent in the post-Dunkirk period as fears grew of a German invasion. Coastal batteries were installed on both sides of the Channel. On 12 August shelling started from big guns like the one in the above photo, killing two people in Dover. Thereafter, shelling in the town became a frequent occurrence, along with raids by enemy aircraft.  The Todt battery alone caused 216 civilian deaths, and damage to 10,056 premises in the Dover area. 

 

A breech-loading (BL) 4-inch Mk VII gun mounted on a lorry, Littlestone-on-Sea, near Dungeness in Kent, photographed on 29 July 1940. Photograph H 2570 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums

This Kent-based mobile artillery unit looks impressively ready for action, but British home defences would surely have been outgunned by German forces had an invasion taken place.

Former gunner V.C. Fairfield, based in Kent with the Royal Artillery’s 64^th (7^th London) Field Regiment, recalled the situation in a BBC People’s War series recorded in 2004:   ‘At this time our regiment was armed with elderly 18 pounders and possibly even older - 1916 I believe - 4.5 howitzers. My battery had howitzers. They were quite serviceable but totally out of date particularly when compared with the latest German guns. They had a low muzzle velocity and a maximum range of only 5600 yards. Our small arms were Short Lee Enfield rifles, also out of date and we had no automatics. There were not enough greatcoats to go round and the new recruits were issued with navy blue civilian coats. Our transport, when eventually some was provided, was a mixture of civilian and military vehicles.’

 

Bifrons House, near Bridge, in Kent. Sadly it was demolished in 1948. Image credit: www.landedfamilies.blogspot.com

He was also fairly scathing about catering arrangements for the gunners. His unit was accommodated in Bifrons House, an empty stately home in very large grounds near Bridge, four miles south of Canterbury. Sadly, the food did not match the surroundings:

‘The food was quite appalling in my opinion. It was prepared in large vats by a large and grimy cook and by the time it was distributed was almost cold due to the unheated condition of the dining area. Breakfast usually consisted of eggs eaten in the cold semi darkness and the yolks had what appeared to be a kind of plastic skin on them that was almost unbreakable. Indeed all meals were of the same poor standard and there was no noticeable improvement during our stay here.’

We do not know where Herbert and the113^rd Field Regiment were based in Kent, but it is likely that, like the 64^th Field Regiment, there would have been moves to camps and training centres like the Royal School of Artillery at Larkhill, Wiltshire, during the two years in Britain.

And then, in 1942, as V.C. Fairfield tells us in the BBC People’s War Series, there came the last day that his Field Regiment would spend on British soil during WW2, recalled in a sombre tone, in contrast with the way in which he tells many of his amusing wartime memories: ‘Indeed many of the personnel from the Colonel down to the most humble gunner would never return. Sadly they would find a final resting place in Iraq, in Tunisia, in the military cemeteries in Italy or at sea.’

Herbert and the113^rd Field Regiment along with the whole of the 56^th Division travelled by troopship in August 1942 to Egypt via Cape Town, and thence to Iraq and Palestine, as part of the X Corps. Then came a move to Egypt in March 1943, and from there forward to Libya and the front, in April, joining the Eighth Army.

 

Portrait of Major-General Eric Miles.  Image credit: Berserker276; Wikipedia

This involved the Division, commanded by Major-General Eric Miles, travelling some 2,300 miles (3,700 km) by road, a notable achievement and testament to the organization of the Division and the ability of its mechanics and technicians.

At this point one can refer to summarised notes from the diary of Sergeant Frank Penn, who, as already mentioned, was a member of the 113^rd Field Regiment. On 7 April, he notes that they covered 150 miles travelling westwards from Cairo. Originally no more than a cluster of dwellings in the desert, their first stop was El Dabaa, now a city known for its projected nuclear power plant and served by El Alamein International Airport.  

  

Captured German equipment following the second battle of El Alamein, including Panzer Mk IIIs and Sd Kfz 135/1 self-propelled 150 mm howitzers stand collected in a motor park. Image credit: Terry Ashwood, No 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit; Imperial War Museums

Herbert, like Frank Penn, would have been struck by the reminders of the grim battle which six months previously had pitted Rommel’s Afrika Corps against Montgomery’s 8^th Army. The evidence was there in ‘plenty of wreckage still knocking about’ and ‘minefields miles deep’.

 

The original graves in El Alamein War Cemetery, of soldiers of the 2/48 Battalion, Australian Infantry Force. Image credit: Australian War Memorial

A significant victory for the Allies, but ‘a rather depressing site’, as Frank noted, ‘the war graves on both sides’ hinting perhaps that too often, in war, there are no winners. Onwards they went, the next day passing an enemy airfield with two dozen damaged aircraft and a German ammunition dump abandoned in haste as Rommel’s defeated forces had retreated westwards. By Easter Day, 12 April, the gun batteries of 113^rd Field Regiment were at the village of Enfidaville in Tunisia, where the last battle of WW2’s North African Campaign would take place.

Rommel believed that the Axis position in Tunisia was untenable, and he had recommended the evacuation of all German troops to Italy, where he believed they could be more useful. His advice was rejected by Adolf Hitler. Operation Flax was a major Allied air force effort to cut off Axis supplies to North Africa. The American II Corps, commanded by Major General Omar Nelson Bradley, cornered the enemy  against the coast at Enfidaville.

The village was captured by the Eighth Army on 19 April, but met strong resistance. Frank Penn’s diary on 29 April noted ‘has been a bad day for us. Jerry started shelling the track on the other side of the dunes’. His fellow-gunner Warrant Officer Class II George James Beck, a 33-year-old from Brighton, ‘was blown to bits’.

Shelling on both sides continued. On 2 May, Frank Penn’s diary entry noted that the 113^rd Field Regiment was facing ‘a Fascist Youth Division and a Division of German Grenadiers.’

The British 56^th Division as a whole suffered heavy casualties, including Major-General Eric Miles, its General Officer Commanding, who was wounded in the head by artillery fire.

‘Lots of hot stuff dropped near us again’ is something of an understatement by Frank Penn, who records on 8 May that his battery fired 300 rounds on that day. It was clearly a major assault by the Division. ‘The infantry attacked and gained The Hill,’ he continues. ‘What a noise’.

 

British troops advance warily through Bizerta, Tunisia, 8 May 1943. Image credit: Sergeant Frederick Wackett, No 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit. Photograph NA 2733 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums

The British push clearly worked. On 11 May, Frank noted: ‘At about 09.00Hrs an Italian and German officer were observed holding a white flag’. Two days later he recorded that all resistance had ended, and on 14 May, the final collapse of the Axis presence in North Africa: ‘150,000 Men, 250 Tanks, 30,000 Vehicles, 1,000 Guns Food Clothing Captured!!!’ 

Frank Penn’s diary notes that the 51^st Division was rewarded with four months’ rest before it was back in action again, this time in Italy, and according to the British military historian Eric Morris, in his book Salerno: A Military Fiasco, stinking of coffee!  It seems that among the items captured in May at Enfidaville were tons of poor quality Italian coffee. The general staff had decided that the soldiers’ khaki drill uniforms, bleached by the North African sun, would be effectively camouflaged by being dunked in cauldrons of the boiling dark brew.

 

Map showing the Allied invasion of Italy Image credit: Wikimedia

Operation Avalanche was the code name given to the invasion of Italy. X Corps and the 56^th Division under Lieutenant-General Sir Richard McCreery were part of the American Fifth Army under the command of Lieutenant General Mark Clark.

The 113^th Field Regiment embarked from Tunis on 1 September and after a wait of four days joined a naval group of 627 warships, landing craft and other vessels. The 190,000-strong Allied force landed near the port of Salerno, about 50 miles south of Naples, on 9 September.

 

Salerno, 9 September 1943 (Operation Avalanche): British troops and vehicles from 128 Brigade, 46th Division are unloaded from LST 383 onto the beaches. Image credit: Captain Richard Felix Gade, No. 2 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit Imperial War Museums   

The landings were carried out without previous naval or aerial bombardment in order to achieve surprise. Surprise was not achieved. As the first wave approached the shore at Paestum a loudspeaker from the landing area proclaimed in English, ‘Come on in and give up. We have you covered.’ The Allied troops attacked nonetheless.

Salerno veteran Graham Swain in a 1996 article that he wrote for the Italy Star Association called it ‘a mis-managed affair which almost ended like another Dunkirk’.   

 

Artillery being landed during the invasion of mainland Italy at Salerno, September 1943.  The military policeman (MP) in the foreground is ducking from a near-by German shell hit. The LCVP is from USS James O'Hara (APA-90). Note the use of chicken wire to stabilize the beach sand. Official U.S. Navy Photograph

Like Sergeant V.C. Fairfield in the 64^th Field Regiment, Frank Penn and Herbert in their 113rd Field Regiment would have experienced an unpleasantly hot reception as their landing craft brought them to the beach. Graham Swain in his account writes of a German officer who was at Salerno claiming after the war that his side had three clear days’ warning of the site and timing of the landings.

‘One thing was already quite obvious, that the Germans had no intention of letting us remain onshore if they could possibly help it,’ notes Sergeant Fairfield in his account.

Allied artillery positions were a target both for German dive-bombing aircraft and for their enemy equivalent. ‘The Germans in the not so distant hills could undoubtedly see and had pinpointed our position by firing shells, plus and minus of our guns from which they could calculate the exact range from them to us.’ 

 

A gun crew of 267 Battery, 67 Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery prepare a 17 pounder Pheasant anti-tank gun for action, 9 September 1943.  Image credit: Sergeant Mott, No. 2 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit; Imperial War Museums

In the two days following the landings, the strength of German resistance steadily increased. But the Field Regiment’s gunners were not unsupported. Sergeant Fairfield recalled how, all day long, American B-25 Mitchell aircraft bombed the enemy especially around the town of Battipaglia, inland and south-east of Salerno. ‘There was not a great deal for us to do. No doubt the enemy decided to take cover with so much air activity. At night the battleships out at sea fired their big guns over our heads and on to the German positions and from time to time we could see the huge red hot shells streaking across the sky. Many years later I learned that they really shook the enemy troops.’

He recalled another very different enemy: ‘A night-time hazard so far as we were concerned was the mosquito. This nasty little insect appeared in profusion and took no notice of the barrier cream we had been issued with to smear on our hands and faces. This area of Salerno was reclaimed marshland and clearly little attempt had been made to kill off this malaria carrier.’

 

An Otter light reconnaissance car crossing a Bailey bridge over the Volturno river. Image credit: Sergeant Mott, No 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit. Photograph NA 7854 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums

After Salerno, the 113^th Field Regiment had as its objective the Monte Stella, a good observation point 953 metres above sea level. The 56^th Division was involved in the battles to recapture Naples and in the Volturno river crossing near Capua on 17 October.  After a break for rest away from the front line between 3 and 11 November the Regiment resumed battle at Conca dei Marini, a town situated on a hill close to the coast.

 

A 25-pounder and crew in a waterlogged position. The photo is of the 113^th Field Regiment in action in October 1944, but shows some of the adverse weather conditions that they had to face. Image credit: www.wikiwand.com

It’s worth noting V.C. Fairfield’s observations about the demands faced by gunners in battle conditions.  ‘Being a gunner, that is a member of a gun crew of six was sheer hard work when in action,’ he wrote. ‘They had first of all to dig the gun pit, a hole in the ground some 2 feet 6 inches deep with a circumference to allow for sixty degrees of traverse, thirty degrees to left and right, then a shelf for ammunition, stack up the shells, clear away empty cartridge cases, restock and all in addition to the basic work of loading and firing the guns. During enemy shelling they could find themselves in a fairly exposed position and not always able to take cover quickly enough. And of course those of the crew on duty were always exposed to the elements.’

Conditions were particularly bad for the gunners in the winter rain and snow as vehicles broke down and men were forced to carry ammunition in what the official War Diary described as a sea of mud from the stores to the gun pits.  

 

German prepared defensive lines south of Rome. Image credit: Stephen Kirrage; Wikipedia

In early December, the Regiment, along with the rest of the 56^th Division was involved in the attack on the German defensive Bernhardt Line at Monte Camino, also known as Hill 963 in the Central Apennine Range. Like Monte Cassino, it  was crowned with a monastery.  The description of the assault, as published on the website of the London Irish Rifles Association, is a good illustration of the role played by units like the 113^th Field Regiment:

‘The attack opened with a tremendous shoot by the gunners, which was the biggest bombardment since El Alamein. Everything passed overhead on to known enemy positions. The night was lit up by Bofors tracer and the cannonade from six hundred guns brought a lurid glare to the sky. General Mark Clark subsequently observed that Camino should be called the “Million Dollar Mountain” as so many shells were fired at it. The total was estimated at one thousand three hundred tons, an amount of explosive equivalent to a major air-raid on Berlin or other large German city.’

 

German paratroopers at Monte Cassino. Image credit: Wikipedia

In January 1944, the Regiment was also involved in supporting attacks on the great Monastery of Monte Cassino.  Several men were killed following a move to the town of Lauro later in the month, when the Regiment was attacked by German fighter-bombers.

 

The 113^th Field Regiment’s arrival in Naples, showing a convoy of Morris C8 Field Artillery Tractors, along with their towed 25 pounder field guns, standard equipment of the Regiment. Image credit: www.dorberhistory.wordpress.com

Operation Shingle, an Allied amphibious landing at Anzio took place on 22 January, but faced heavy fire from a German defensive ring around the beachhead. On 12 February the 113^th Field Regiment’s Commanding Officer warned that a move to Anzio with the whole of the 56^th Division was needed to support a breakout from the beachhead.

 

British landing ships unloading supplies in Anzio harbour, 19–24 February 1944. Image credit: Sergeant Radford  No 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit. Photograph NA 12136 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.

Two days later the Regiment arrived in Naples, to be transported by landing craft to the beaches at Anzio. It seems likely that this event in Herbert’s service with the Regiment was confused with the ‘landing on the Aegean beaches’ mentioned in the local newspaper article about his death in August 1944.

If Salerno was, as Graham Swain described it, ‘a mis-managed affair which almost ended like another Dunkirk’, Anzio was an even grimmer experience for the men who took part. Lieutenant John Milton’s testimony, as presented by his great-nephew, is sufficiently vivid and detailed to give us a picture of what Herbert and the entire Regiment endured for about a month.  

‘There was not an inch of the whole beach-head that could not be shelled by the German guns,’ was the principal memory of Anzio. ‘The answer was to get into the right position as soon as possible and then to dig.  Dig for your own protection, dig for the protection of your vehicles, guns and wireless sets. Then there was a feeling of permanence and security, but not before’. But the soil was not very suitable for trenches: men had to seek cover wherever they could. They not only had to contend with German artillery, but the Luftwaffe regularly bombed and strafed them, visiting the gun areas every night to bomb them. During one such bombing attack, John Milton made a decision and ran, and jumped into one of two slit trenches, only for the other trench to receive a direct hit, killing every man in it.

 

Wireless operator Bombadier S Williams operates his radio from a shallow dugout on Anzio, 28 February 1944 Image credit: Sergeant Dawson, No. 2 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit; Imperial War Museums : © IWM NA 12374

He described counter-barrages, where the German artillery would duel with the British artillery – both trying to knock the other out. There was the experience of coming under sniper fire – when people standing next to him were killed.

Lance Corporal R. Davies with a 6-pounder anti-tank gun in the Anzio bridgehead, 11 March 1944 Image credit: Imperial War Museums

German targets were so close that the guns were often horizontal – firing at targets which were in eye-sight. The situation was such that a ‘direct-aim’ of the guns by sight made sense rather than by calculating direction and elevation.  By 26 February, the gunners were involved in ‘heavy close fighting’ defending their guns with the use of small arms. Things were so desperate that even batmen and cooks were brought up to use small arms to protect the guns.  

SS Cameronia  Image credit: www.dorberhistory.files.wordpress.com

On 11 March, the 56^th Division was relieved and the 113^th Field Regiment handed over equipment before a welcome return to Naples and some weeks of relaxation. On 26 March the Division, including the whole of the 113^th Regiment apart from 228 Battery, embarked at Taranto on the SS Cameronia troopship. It was part of a convoy of nine other troopships and merchant ships, escorted by nine warships, and arrived at Port Said in Egypt on 2 April.

On disembarking, the Regiment moved firstly to Quassassin – the modern day El Kasasin – about 70 miles north east of Cairo. John Milton recalled how periods of leave in Cairo were allowed, with transport provided, and various activities including sport were organised to occupy the men.  

 

Mena military camp in Egypt. Image credit: State Library of South Australia

A second move to Cowley Camp in Mena, west of Cairo, came on 24 April. The camp was not far from the Pyramids of Giza as seen above. The photo was actually taken in 1915 and shows how the site was well established as a military base. It was where the Australian Infantry Force trained prior to embarking for Gallipoli in WW1. For the 113^th Field Regiment it was also a training base, with talks and exercises including specialist artillery courses and advanced driving courses.

V.C. Fairfield, as a Sergeant in the Royal Artillery, was tasked with delivering some of the courses at Mena.  Perhaps Herbert shared the Sergeant’s feelings of excitement at the camp’s location, allowing the distant view of ‘those famous and ancient pyramids’. He may even have visited them: ‘I joined a small party in the charge of a little old lady who was, I believe of English origin,’ the Sergeant recalled.  ‘She took us to Saggara to see the Imhotep step pyramids, the site of ancient Memphis and various other excavations including the part of a temple considered to be one of the oldest in the world. Also an underground burial chamber for the sacred bulls of ancient Egypt. The entire visit was fascinating and so far as I was concerned one of the most interesting days of my tour of duty abroad.’

However interesting Sergeant Fairfield found such visits he was conscious of the serious purpose of the classes, which he described as very practical occasions.  

‘Each one was an exercise covering some aspect of what had to be done when in action,’ he stressed. ‘We had been going over and over our particular skills ever since the war started but it was still essential to keep finely tuned. To keep in that state of mind where everything became almost automatic.’  

 

Men of 478 Battery, 113^th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery Image credit: www.dorberhistory.wordpress.com

On 14 June, the day was spent at Helwan camp, south of Cairo, where more training took place using gunnery ranges. It was here that the above photo was taken.

It shows John Milton among the 60 men of ‘F’ Troop, one of the two Troops which made up the 113^th Regiment’s 478 Battery. Could Herbert be among them? Perhaps there is somewhere a similar photo, definitely showing him, in a family album which may emerge one day.

On 1 July, the Regiment’s training period came to an end with a move back to Italy. Transport by rail was arranged to El Amariya transit camp near Alexandria, and on 13 July the journey continued by sea. The troopship SS Staffordshire carrying the whole of the 56^th Division, along with nine other troopships and escorted by six warships, arrived at Taranto on 18 July. John Milton recalled that the men were unimpressed on finding that no transport had been arranged and that they had to route march to yet another transit camp outside Taranto in the hot Italian summer sun.  

Another rail journey in what John Milton described as ‘cattle trucks’ took them to Salerno. V.C. Fairfield, still serving with the 64^th (7^th London) Field Regiment, more graphically writes about them as ‘not unlike those shown in the many pictures of people in Nazi Germany being sent to the gas chambers although of course we were not packed in to the same extent. I believe the density was about twenty-five men per waggon’.

The transport may have been on the primitive side, but Sergeant Fairfield’s comparison was hardly fair. He recalled how, a number of times, the train came to a halt among orchards or groves of peach trees. ‘The lads then swarmed out of the waggons, gleefully collected as many ripe peaches as possible and scrambled back on board. And as far as I can remember, no one was left behind!’

At Salerno, transport was provided to take the Regiment to Tivoli, 19 miles east of Rome, where it arrived on 26 July to collect guns and other equipment.  

 

Visit of King George VI to Umbertide, Italy, July-August 1944. Image credit: National Army Museum [Image number: 84127]

Four days later, on 30 July, King George VI visited the 56^th Division and the Regiment lined up to cheer him as he drove past.  

 

Members of the Canadian Royal 22nd Regiment in audience with Pope Pius XII, following the 1944 Liberation of Rome Image credit: Wikipedia

Roman Catholic members of the Regiment were allowed to have an audience with the Pope and to attend a special Mass at St Peter’s. Others took advantage of the fact that the opera season had started.

The news on 5 August that the Regiment’s next engagement would be an assault on the German Gothic Line must have come as somewhat unwelcome after all that excitement.

 

Leese receiving his knighthood in the field from King George VI. Image credit: Wikipedia

V.C. Fairfield remembered hearing the news together with the officers, warrant officers and sergeants of the 64^th Field Regiment as they were addressed by Eighth Army commander Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese, who had received his knighthood from King George VI on 26 July during the royal visit to Italy. He reflected ruefully on the occasion. ‘The one item I still remember is that we were expected to reach Bologna, some twenty to thirty miles from our start lines and the other side of the mountains in which the Germans had built their “Gothic Line”, in three days. In fact it took eight months and thousands of casualties before it finally fell! So much for all the plans of mice and men.’

 

 

A 5.5-inch gun crew from 75th (Shropshire Yeomanry) Medium Regiment, Royal Artillery, in action in a camouflaged gun pit in Italy, September 1943. Image credit: Lieutenant Chetwyn, War Office official photographer;  Imperial War Museums © IWM (TR 1402)

Twelve days later, on 17 August, came a move to Tollentino, closer to the German lines, where the focus was on camouflaging vehicles, digging in the guns and avoiding detection by enemy aircraft by instigating a blackout policy. Two more moves followed, on 21 August to Sassoferato, and on 25 August to Isola Difano.  The Regiment went into action against the Gothic Line defences around the River Metauro in support of the 4^th Indian Division and the 46^th Division.   It then moved to the town of Monte Calvo, captured by the Allies on 31 August.  

Herbert’s wife Joyce was reported in the local newspaper as having received on 29 August a letter from him telling her that he was ‘quite well’.  Two days later, another letter arrived, telling her that he had died as the result of an accident.

 

Montecchio War Cemetery.  Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

According to the CWGC, Herbert’s death is recorded as taking place on 31 August. Along with 579 Commonwealth casualties, he is buried in Montecchio War Cemetery, about 12 kilometres from the town of Pesaro.

There is no doubt however that the tragic news would have been greeted with great sadness in the local area where, as the newspaper reported, he had many friends in both Exmouth and Budleigh and where he and Joyce were well known and greatly respected.  

Four years later, in 1948, Joyce married again. Her second husband was William Edward Pyne, who died in 1998. She died in 2004 and is buried in the graveyard of St Margaret and St Andrew’s Church in Littleham.

 

 

The next post is for PRIVATE LEONARD THOMAS LEY, who was killed in action on 5 October 1944 in Italy, while serving with the 1st Battalion, The King's Own Royal Regiment (the Lancaster Regiment). You can read about him at 

https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/04/ww2-75-5-october-1944-grave-on-adriatic.html