Sea Lane, Pagham - Sunday 5th September 1943

Postcard written on Sunday 5th September

W/242328

Pte Chalkley BE

OFC ATS

462 Hy (M) AA RA

Portishead*, Nr Bristol, Glos.

 

Chotie Darling,

            Sorry this will be a little tardy for your Birthday, but anyhow, all the best.  Am now at home and go back tomorrow (Monday). Will write you when I get back.                                             

                                                Love Dicker

* The postcard is addressed to Portishead, near Avonmouth on the coast east of Bristol (and close to Easton-in-Gordano) so Chotie’s unit appears to have moved again.

© Chotie Darling

 

6^th September 1943 – Winston Churchill gave a speech, now famous for the quote “the empires of the future are the empires of the mind”, at Harvard University in America. 

 

8th September 1943 - Italy’s unconditional surrender to the Allies is announced. German reserves are rushed into Italy as the Italian Navy sails to surrender at the Maltese port of Valetta. En route the Luftwaffe sinks the battleship Roma using one of the new radio-controlled Fritz X guided bombs.  All Italian forces within German controlled areas are disarmed without opposition and made prisoners of war. By September 10^th the Germans have occupied Rome – the King and Marshal Badoglio just manage to escape.

On 8^th September moves began to arrange the deportation of Danish Jews. However, the Jews were warned and the Danish authorities undertook a mass operation to move the Jews into hiding or temporary sanctuaries before the order was implemented on 28^th September. (See United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.)

 

9^th September 1943 – Operation Avalanche begins wit h the main Allied invasion force landing at Salerno to the south of Naples, on the Tyrrhenian (western) Italian coast.  Lt.General Mark Clark commanded this US Fifth Army (Patton was withheld from combat duties have slapped a soldier suffering from combat fatigue in Sicily), including the US VI Corps and British X Corps. They were surprised by the strong German defensive presence already there – the German 10^th Army had moved rapidly to secure the hills surrounding the bay in preparation for the Allies now trapped on the beachhead.

 Operation Slapstick also commenced on 9th September with British forces (including Dick’s former unit, now 1st Airlanding Reconnaissance Squadron) landing on the ‘heel’ of Italy to take Taranto.  On 11^th September the British 1^st Airborne Division took the ports of Bari and Brindisi.

9^th September 1943 – in Corsica the resistance rises up against occupation and from 14th September were joined by Free French forces landing on the island at Ajaccio. They harassed and disrupted the German evacuation through Corsica to the Italian mainland from Sardinia (heavily defended when the Germans were duped by Operation Mincemeat) and from 21^st September were joined by Italian forces, formerly in occupation. Liberated on 4^th October 1943, Corsica provided a critical Allied base for Mediterranean operations.

12^th September 1943 – Mussolini is rescued from Gran Sasso in the Abruzzi Mountains of central Italy in an audacious German raid led by Otto Skorzeny.  Taken to Germany he signs an agreement with Hitler annexing the German-speaking areas of northern Italy to Greater Germany. On 23rd September he proclaims his return to power with the re-establishment of a fascist government in northern Italy. All Italians carrying arms in German occupied areas face the death penalty. (From WW2-net Timelines.)

Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, Vladimir Dekanozov, arrived in Stockholm on 12th September 1943 . Although German foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop interprets this as a sign that the Russians may be open to discussing peace with Germany, Hitler refuses to send a German envoy to Sweden.  (From WW2-net Timelines.)

 

13^th September - at Salerno the Germans launched a counter-offensive that almost defeated the Allies’ beachhead but withdrew on 18^th/19^th September after the arrival of the British warships HMS Warspite and Valiant and the US 82^nd Airborne.  Montgomery’s 8^th Army forces from Operation Baytown in the south were also rapidly approaching.  However, on 16^th September - the largest mutiny in British military history took place at Salerno when 191 men refused to follow orders. 

13^th September 1943 – Churchill’s ill-fated attempt to take the Aegean islands began with a landing of the Special Boat Service on Rhodes. However, the Germans arrested all Italian troops on the island before they could consider joining the British. Kos, Samos and Leros were briefly occupied by the British but Kos and Leros were lost in battle in October and the Germans held all the Dodacanese islands by 18^th November. (See The Aegean Campaign.)

 From 13^th to 18^th September 1943 61^st Recce and the rest of the 61^st Infantry Division were involved in Exercise Link with the 1^st Polish Armoured Division and HQ 2 Canadian Corps.  This was a full scale exercise including live firing by the Royal Artillery to test out liaison as well as battle performance. (From ‘No Holding Back’ by Brian A. Reid, Stackpole Books 2009.)