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It seemed that we had also miraculously achieved complete surprise. This was indeed an auspicious beginning for the Allied assault upon Hitler’s “Fortress Europa.” —Seaforth Highlander THE EIGHTH ARMY From the bridge of his flagship, the old Belgian cross-Channel steamer Antwerp, Adm. Sir Bertram Ramsay RN could see the first landing craft of the slow convoy struggling toward him in the choppy seas. This was the wartime debut of the landing craft (infantry), or LCIs, and Mother Nature had brewed up a northwest gale for their christening. By the afternoon of D-day Minus One, July 9, 1943, a fresh breeze had become a fifty-mile-per-hour gale producing short, steep seas that made even Ramsay’s flagship roll and caused the little LCIs, LCTs, and their escorts to pitch and roll uncomfortably. This sudden, unseasonal storm threatened to postpone Operation Husky, dependent as the invasion was upon small landing craft and overthe -beach unloading. Admiral Ramsay had reason to be concerned about both, as well as the ability of the numerous Sicily-bound convoys to escape detection and rendez-vous off the southeastern corner of Sicily on time in such rough weather. These Eastern Naval Task Force convoys , lifting some 115,000 troops of Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery’s British Eighth Army, were mounted in four locations. The Canadian army units sailed from the United Kingdom, LSTs and LCTs from Malta and the little harbors in Tunisia at Sousse and Sfax, and the remainder from Alexandria and other points in the Nile Delta area of Egypt.1 CHAPTER 7 OPERATION HUSKY l-Tomblin 07.qx2 6/30/04 1:11 PM Page 147 L.E.H. Maund, who sailed with the convoy at Port Said, recalled that it took forty-eight hours to embark the sixty-four thousand men at Suez bay. “It was inspiring sight to see the sixteen great ships of up to 30,000 tons pass up the Canal with trained and optimistic troops on board.” As in past operations, the element of surprise was considered vital, so none of the troops on board the transports and landing craft knew their destination . Col. Dick Malone, who sailed from the United Kingdom with the Canadians, recalled, “The secret of the attack was well kept, even unit commanders thought it was merely another exercise until only two days before we sailed, while company commanders wouldn’t know until the sealed orders were opened aboard ships three days after sailing.” Although, as Maund later wrote, it seemed “impossible that strategic or tactical surprise could be gained,” it was in large part achieved. Although U-boats were waiting for the convoy off the African coast, they found only one victim, HMS Shahjehan, torpedoed off Derna at 1100 on July 6, 1943 by U-453. The ship subsequently sank under tow by St. Monace and the fast convoy raced on with Shahjehan’s valuable cargo of LCMs and one dock company. Although the fast convoy was sighted by Axis reconnaissance aircraft near Derna, the most serious enemy attacks came, not on the Middle Eastern convoys, but on the first slow convoy coming from the United Kingdom. “We did lose three ships by torpedoing off Gibraltar,” Colonel Malone wrote. “Quickly we checked our loading lists to see what had gone down. We had lost some of our 25 pounders, some of our anti-tanks guns, the General’s caravans . . . but worst of all, included in those ships had been our entire complement of wireless vehicles. It was a bad bit of luck and left us with only small pack wireless sets as means of communication with our troops when onshore.”2 The loss of the vital communications equipment only increased the Canadians’ anxiety, especially that of Husky planners like Malone, who agonized, “Had any important details been left out of those hundreds of sealed orders? would all the sub unit commanders understand them exactly? Had any mistakes been made in the map references? At times we wondered if our planning was just a lot of theory on paper. This is not the sort of thing that makes for sound sleeping a few days before a landing.” The convoy continued on toward Sicily as if headed to Malta, “to fool any enemy aircraft into thinking our convoy was the regular Malta supply convoy due about that time of the month,” Malone recalled. South of Malta on July 9, D-day Minus One, the invasion forces—Force V coming from the...

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