Once the war in North Africa was over the Allies quickly agreed to invade Sicily; in Allied hands the sea route through the Mediterranean would then be open and well-protected. After that the US wanted to focus on the planned invasion of northern France, but the British saw the value in assaulting Italy, with the possibility of knocking that nation out of the war. Another option was the Aegean, where Allied successes could influence Turkey and perhaps pre-empt Russian advances into the Balkans. It was Allied sea power that opened up all these possibilities; but it was also the hard calculations of sealift capacity and numbers of available landing ships that constrained their choices.
Ultimately the campaign in the Mediterranean was shaped by four great amphibious operations:
Subsidiary operations also took place in the Aegean, hut those only gathered momentum after the Germans withdrew from Crete in September 1944.
As well as the big amphibious assaults, the Allied navies and air forces had to protect merchant shipping and supply convoys throughout the Mediterranean. German U-boats and Luftwaffe bombers (with fearsomely accurate glide bombs) continued to be a threat until mid-1944; E-boats and mines remained a danger until the war’s end.
Sicily
Operation HUSKY was a maritime enterprise on an unprecedented scale; 2,590 ships of all types landed in total 181,000 Allied troops on the island. The assault convoys had sailed from Egypt, Algeria, Malta, and even from Scotland. The vulnerable assault and supply ships had to be protected throughout their voyages. In fact only four ships were sunk before the convoys reached Sicily.
Kiwis were at work throughout the invasion fleet. Lieutenant Commander Palmer (Auckland) led a division of the 14th Minesweeping Flotilla; on 12 July they attacked and captured the Italian submarine Bronzo. Another submarine however hit and damaged the cruiser HMS Newfoundland. Two destroyers, including HMS Laforey with several Kiwis on hoard, counterattacked and they successfully depth charged and sank the enemy.
The crux of the amphibious operation was the successful landing of the troops; Lieutenant Chute commanded LCI (L) 128 and landed his troops under heavy fire. They disembarked without loss, then the LCI was hit in the wheelhouse, the coxswain was killed and others wounded. The little gunboat HMS Scarab, very useful for close inshore fire support, was commanded by Lieutenant Ewan Cameron (Christchurch). Joe Pedersen (Danevirke) was one of five Kiwis in the destroyer HMS Lookout.
Many Kiwis were in the fast Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) and Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) of Coastal Forces. During HUSKY they were tasked with entering the narrow Straits of Messina, to cut off German reinforcements. Lieutenant E.H. Lassen (Oxford) commanded MTB 404 in fast moving night encounters with E-boats and was awarded a DSC for his efforts. Lieutenant Newell (Napier) while in command of MTB 315 attacked an Italian warship one night; their sister boat MTB 316 was hit and sunk with all hands, and 315’s torpedoes missed.
Air defence for the fleet was vital - the lessons of Crete were still vivid. Aucklander Lieutenant J.W. Tattersfield was trained as a fighter direction officer and posted to the battleship HMS Valiant, which covered both the HUSKY landings and the Salerno landing two months later.
The battleships and fleet carriers of the covering force were required because while Italy was still an enemy, the Italian battle fleet posed a threat. Doug Park (Dunedin) trained as an Albacore pilot then embarked on the fleet carrier HMS Formidable - one of several Kiwi aircrew on hoard. ‘We were on anti-submarine patrol - two aircraft were up for three hours, day and night.’ On 11 July a dusk air raid by a single Ju-88 surprised the fleet; the carrier HMS Indomitable[1] was torpedoed and had to limp home.
Surrender of the Italian Fleet
The loss of Sicily had led to the overthrow of Mussolini’s fascist government in Rome; the new Italian government began secret negotiations with the Allies. On 8 Sept 1943 the armistice with Italy was announced and the Italian fleet instructed to sail for Allied ports. HMS Valiant was one of the ships which greeted the surrendering Italian fleet and escorted them to Malta.
Doug Park was flying from the carrier HMS Formidable when lie saw a surrendered Italian submarine heading south:
‘We noticed that there were some Italian sailors on the submarine.., lying back sunbathing. The fact that there was a dirty great war going on in their homeland was beside the point, they’d surrendered.’
The moment of Italy’s surrender also provided another opportunity. Several cruisers embarked a division from North Africa and hastily seized Taranto without opposition; this was the port where the NZ Division was to land some weeks later. Three smaller amphibious operations seized the east coast ports of Brindisi, Bari, and Termoli (after a sharp fight) to support the Eighth Army.
Lieutenant N.S. Prebble (from Marton and a distant cousin of Richard Prebble) commanded LCI (L) 101. After Husky he operated along the Calabrian coast, where his craft was sunk. For some weeks he had to keep his crew together in no-man’s-land (the Germans were retreating north) until they were picked up.
Salerno
The Anglo-American 5th Army landed at Salerno on 9 Sept. HMS Formidable and the ‘heavies’ of Force H covered the landing fleet, while five smaller aircraft carriers of Force V provided air cover over the beaches in conjunction with long range fighters from Sicily. Many Kiwis were among the Fleet-Air-Arm aircrew flying Seafires from Force V carriers.
Again, the focus of the operation was the landing craft. Lieutenant L.K. Donovan (Ngapara) commanding LCT 549, Sub-Lieutenant Ballinger (Woodend) in LST 319 and Sub-Lieutenant Homes-Edge (Dunedin) in LCT 445 were mentioned in dispatches for their service during the landing.
But the land battle didn’t go well and by the 14th it seemed that the German defenders might break through to the beaches; naval gunfire was all-important. The battleships HMS Warspite and Valiant joined the bombarding ships, their 15-inch (378mm) shells wreaking havoc among the German troops. ‘The effect of the heavy ships’ bombardment and…the far superior enemy air force has cost us grievous losses’ noted the German naval staff. But intense German air attacks were directed against the fleet, this time with new radio-guided glider bombs. Warspite was hit and badly damaged; however she would be repaired in time for D-Day.
But the crisis passed, the 5th and 8th Armies linked up and Naples was taken as the Allies’ main supply port; between them the two armies needed over 300,000 tons of supplies each month.
The 8th Army fought up Italy’s Adriatic coast. Naval forces were in action on their flank:
A big push was beginning... to assist, the destroyers HMS Loyal, Lookout and Laforey were moving up the coast each night to bombard the enemy’s flank from seaward. Minesweepers were keeping a channel clear for them, but Jerry had been laying mines from low flying aircraft and E-boats, and so we [the MTBs and MGBs] were detailed for a series of patrols to deter the E boats. We weren’t very happy to see an ML towed hack to Ancona with her bows missing. Mines were added to our list of worries - the Adriatic was reported to be thick with them.
Meanwhile the Germans evacuated the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.
The minesweeper HMS Cromarty, commanded by Lieutenant Commander C. Palmer (Auckland) through the Eighth Army’s advance along North Africa and in the Sicily landings led the first attempt to sweep the Straits of Bonifacio. Lt. Cdr Palmer recalled:
We were preceded by a captured Italian shallow draft sweeper. It was not long after ‘Out Sweeps’ that the Italian cut a mine. Suddenly I saw my forward lookout point ahead, turn and shout. I ordered ‘Hard a starboard’ hoping to clear the mine. We actually struck the mine at 11.23. I remember no more. I lost about 20 dead [of the ship’s company] and many others were badly injured. I spent many months indeed years in various hospitals and eventually returned to NZ by hospital ship in March 1945.
Cassino & Anzio
The answer to the winter stalemate on land seemed to be an amphibious left hook, which would cut off the German forces massed at Cassino, and open the roads to Rome. The landing at Anzio during 22 January 1944 Operation SHINGLE was successful, taking the Germans completely by surprise. But they responded faster than the Allied VII Corps could move out of the beachhead. For many weeks Operation SHINGLE looked like a disaster. ‘I had hoped we were hurling a wildcat on to the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale’ British PM Winston Churchill said angrily.
The new beachhead wasn’t even big enough for a fighter airfield; air cover for Anzio had to compete with air support at Cassino. Again naval gunfire support proved essential; cruisers and destroyers operated on the gunline close to the beach. But there they were vulnerable to glider bombs. The new cruiser HMS Spartan was hit and sunk, the Kiwis among her crew surviving. Later the destroyer HMS Inglefield was hit; even as it was sinking, Sub-Lieutenant J.S. Rumbold (Reefton) kept the ship’s after guns in action while two more glider bombs approached, the continuing AA fire is credited with making the bombs miss.
The main naval task for Anzio was the safe arrival of supplies - the beachhead required nearly 100,000 tons per month. Then the Germans mounted a coastal gun battery between Anzio and the Gustav Line, causing the vital supply ships to divert further out to sea where the U-boats waited. The cruiser HMS Penelope was sunk and Laforey was torpedoed and sunk by U-223 even as the destroyer led the hunt which ultimately sank the U-boat.
In May General Alexander launched a fresh offensive; Cassino fell and the Anzio forces broke out. Rome fell on June 1944 and the Allied armies pushed north. But there was still a year’s fighting ahead; the Allied navies continued to support the armies’ flanks with shore bombardments, while the succession of supply convoys were escorted to the main ports.
After the invasion of Southern France (August 1944) HMS Meteor was one of the destroyers supporting the land forces along the French Riviera. Petty Officer Stoker Norman Sim was in charge of the destroyer’s boiler room, when during March 1945 Meteor and HMS Lookout encountered three German-manned destroyers; it was the last ever destroyer action in the Mediterranean.
I was down in the boiler room and the rev counter started to go up and I started putting burners on. Then the engine room rang to say they were opening the throttles wide and it was up to me to see that steam went through them. It was the hairiest time I have ever had in a boiler room. There was 185 lbs oil pressure on and what the air pressure was I wouldn’t have a clue…but they reckon it was the fastest the ship had ever travelled. Well, the Italian boats were pretty fast and we were able to catch one! Lookout sank one, we sank one, damaged the third, but it got away into La Spezia, inside a minefield. We went back and picked up 129 survivors - a lot of Hitler Youth.
The naval war went on to the very end. Petty Officer Harry Vincent was one of three Kiwis serving in the cruiser HMS Orion[2]. They arrived in Trieste:
The day after VE Day, where the New Zealanders had moved in. Freyberg actually came aboard; Orion earlier in the war had taken off NZ troops from Greece and Crete. He came aboard to thank the ship. While there he was told that three of us Kiwis were amongst the 700 Poms. We got down to the Quarterdeck and met up with him and had a yarn and he invited us out to his HQ which was in a castle out on the point of Trieste.
[1] Sister ship to HMS Formidable.
[2] Sister ship to HMNZS Achilles, Leander and HMS Neptune.