The Canadians in Sicily: Sixty Years On

C anadians know very little about the role played by their countrymen in Sicily sixty years ago.In their popular history of the Second World War, historians Brereton Greenhous and W.A.B. Douglas summed up our performance this way:The Canadians were beset by problems of command and control.Some of their inexperienced regimental officers responded uncertainly to the concentrated pressure of battle, maps were read wrongly, and their radios too often failed them at vital moments.On the positive side, however, they had courage, tenacity, and the hard-driving energy of their commander to carry them through, plus an enormous weight of fire power… 1 Such an assessment resonates with the tone of the army's official historian, C.P. Stacey, whose judgments on the performance of Canadian army officers in Normandy were strikingly similar. 2 In both theatres, it seems that inexperienced regimental officers were saved by General Guy Simonds and lots of artillery.The Sicilian campaign takes on a very different hue when viewed from those who actually did the fighting.Memoirs, after-action reports and regimental histories reveal a host of challenges faced by the Canadian army even before it landed on the beaches near Pachino.In the daunting terrain and climate of that Sicilian summer, it is equally clear that firepower was not enough.Leadership mattered and, despite their inexperience, Canadian officers demonstrated it.In May 1943, after three and a half months fighting in North Africa with the British 8th Army, Captain Strome Galloway rejoined the Royal Canadian Regiment, (RCR) then training in Ayrshire, Scotland.It was a far different unit than the one he had left: "New equipment was much in evidence, new weapons caught the eye."Galloway took command of the RCR's "B" Company.Captain Charles Lithgow was his Second-in-Command and a friend, but he knew none of his three subalterns, "two recent RMC products direct from Canada and a very unmilitary but comical chap who had been some sort of man-about-town before the war, and was also a new arrival."3 New battalion establishments only added to the confusion of the Canadian units overseas.In January 1943, the 31 (soon to be 33) infantry battalions lost their anti-aircraft platoon and one of the four rifle companies.The news in late January that "D" Company of the 48th Highlanders was to be disbanded "stunned" and outraged the men for whom their company was such a source of pride.Three months later came orders to reintroduce the fourth rifle company.This reversal increased the battalion establishment to 37 officers and 811 other ranks.The first parade of the 48th Highlanders' 'new' "D" Company came just hours before the unit's departure from Eastbourne for Scotland.A new company march, Donald's Return from the War, helped soften the impact of yet another change in establishment. 4 The new battalion establishments came in April 1943 at the same time as Canada accepted an invitation to take part in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.The 1st Division and 1st Armoured Brigade were soon to become part of the British 8th Army.Time was short.The units of 1st Division had been in England since lateThe Canadians in Sicily Sixty Years On

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