The Commando and the Reporter: On the Road to Messina

The Jeep crept through what seemed to be deserted streets on the outskirts of Messina, the last great prize sought by American and British troops on the island of Sicily as a successful conclusion to Operation Husky in mid-August 1943. The three men in the vehicle—Lieutenant Colonel J. M. “Mad Jack” Churchill, commander of the British Number Two Commando outfit and a distant relative of Prime Minister Winston Churchill; the colonel’s driver, Trooper Bill Holmes; and American war correspondent Richard Tregaskis—had broken away from the main body of the Fourth Armored Brigade headed toward Messina.

Churchill had urged speed upon his driver, eager to reach the city and round up its mayor. “Be nice if we could sort of capture the city,” he had said, with enthusiasm, to Tregaskis. The reporter did not share the commando’s eagerness, telling him instead that it might be wise to show more concern for any mines or snipers left behind by the retreating German and Italian forces; after all, they were fully a half-hour ahead of the bulk of the British forces. Tregaski’s advice did not appear to disturb Churchill, who merely told Holmes to slow down a bit; he did, however, pick up a submachine gun that had been lying on the vehicle’s floor, ignoring, for the time, the sword and bagpipes he had stored in the rear.

Just hours before his drive with Churchill, Tregaskis at Cape D’Ali, part of an amphibious landing with Second Commando and the Fourth Armored Brigade, had stood on a cliff outside the town of Scaletta, located a few miles south of Messina, entranced by the sight of Italy appearing before him across the Strait of Messina. Peering through his binoculars, he could make out the white buildings in the town of Reggio and the gray alluvial fan of the Saint Agata River. “It was startling to realize that we were no so close to the mainland of Italy that we could see individual buildings and streets and rivers,” he observed.

Tregaskis’s reverie had been disturbed, however, by a heavy German shelling that had caused the ground to shake and had filled the air with the sizzling sounds of shrapnel “zooming by like hornets on the prowl.” It had made him skeptical, as he drove on with Holmes and Churchill, about tales he had heard that the enemy had abandoned the island to Allied forces.

Although Churchill had at last taken the precaution of putting on his helmet, Tregaskis, as they drove on, continued to feel “very conspicuous, sitting up in the high rear seat, unarmed, and looking into the empty windows of the myriad houses, each window seeming black and mysterious, like the eyesocket of a skull.” One grenade tossed from a house could kill them all, Tregaskis realized. Miraculously, he noted, when they reached the last bridge before Messina, he could see no mines hidden in the pavement, no German shot at them, nor did the bridge explode underneath their wheels.

Tregaskis’s relief only lasted a moment, for after they had crossed the bridge his heart stopped when he spied something moving about in a nearby building, which had been wrecked by heavy shelling. He could see the face of a human form stirring in the darkness, and came to realize it was an old Sicilian woman, her “gums barred in a snarl. It might have been a smile, but there was no mirth in it,” Tregaskis recalled. “Only strange animal sounds, which could not have been words in any language, came from the toothless mouth.” The first live person they had come across in Messina had been “shellshocked into insanity.”

Hoping to beat American general George S. Patton’s troops into the city, British general Bernard Montgomery had authorized an amphibious landing involving approximately 400 members, including a detachment from Number Two Commando, led by Lieutenant Colonel Churchill, as well as men and vehicles from the Fourth Armored Brigade, commanded by Brigadier John Cecil Currie, who was fated to die in combat in Normandy, France. The task force, which included Sherman tanks, Priest tank destroyers, artillery, and engineers, had been tasked with making its landing at Scaletta about ten miles to the south of Messina, cutting off Highway 114 (the actual landings occurred about three to five miles north of the intended beach.)

Tregaskis heard about the operation and received permission to accompany what was codenamed Operation Blackcock along with Evelyn Montague of the Manchester Guardian. The correspondents secured berths on Currie’s command ship, LCT (Landing Craft, Tank) 387, that set off from Catania’s waterfront on August 15. On board, Tregaskis noticed tanks and scout cars jammed together in the ship’s open hold and heard a briefing on the operation from a young lieutenant. Hearing about the plans, one of the soldiers noted that it sounded like “a damn bad show for Jerry. Hope he takes a lenient view of it.” As the sailors tossed off the ship’s bowline and it moved away from the dock, Tregaskis could see Currie waving his cap to the men still on the shore and heard soldiers begin to sing, with enthusiasm, “We’re Shoving Right Off.”  

After catching some sleep while sprawled on the hood of a scout car, Tregaskis awoke at about 2:00 a.m. on August 16 with his “mental alarm clock” telling him he had about an hour left before the landing. The correspondent shared a brief conversation with Currie, who asked him if he had been on one of these landings before. Responding that he had, Tregaskis quoted the officer as cheerfully noting, “Stimulating, isn’t it?” To help pass the time, the correspondent went to the front of the LST and spent a “pleasant hour” talking to three enlisted men manning a scout car that would serve as mobile headquarters when the force landed. The men—named Adlington, Fincham, and Bowles—were happy to chat with the American, and even shared their civilian occupations, with one an automobile salesman, one an office boy in a stock brokerage firm, and one a store clerk.

As his LCT reduced its speed and turned toward shore, Tregaskis witnessed a “terrific explosion,” probably the work of the commandos that had already landed. They proceeded with caution under the guidance of blinking green lights on the beach and grounded itself on the sand. “A small group of Commandos came down the beach, escorting a crowd of Italian prisoners,” Tregaskis noted. “I talked to one of the Commandos, a captain, who told me that there had been only three British casualties in the landings; that the explosion had been caused by a Commando grenade which hit an enemy ammunition lorry on the bridge at the town, killing five or six Germans.” High up on the hillside came another tremendous explosion, scattering rocks along the beach and bellowing smoke over the ship. “It’s the wrong beach,” Currie announced. “Tanks can’t get up there.”

Finally locating the proper beach, located to the south, Tregaskis’s LCT and others came under German fired as they landed and unloaded a column of men and machines from within. Unfortunately for the correspondent, the scout car he rode in came to be stuck deeply into the gravelly sand and had to be pulled free by a nearby tank destroyer, all while under fire. The British mechanized column made its way to the town of Scaletta, where Tregaskis transferred to a scout car driven for the forward observing officer, who directed his vehicle through the town, where Sicilians shouted after them, “Viva Ingleterra!”

Eventually proceeding ahead on foot, Tregaskis and the FOO had to dash for cover to avoid incoming shells, careful to avoid the charred remains of a British soldier, as well as several German casualties. Fire from a tank destroyer, augmented by a Sherman tank, quieted the enemy shelling enough for Tregaskis to hitch a ride to the Scaletta railroad station, where Currie had established his headquarters for a time. “Somehow, the Germans had discovered the location of the headquarters, and put a concentration of shells into it,” he reported. “A blond private told us that ‘about twenty’ people had been killed or wounded.” A Priest tank destroyer had taken a hit, and although it did not look seriously damaged, Tregaskis quickly noticed that “the vehicle was spotted with wads of gore and smears of blood.”

Catching up with Currie, Tregaskis learned that reconnaissance parties had been unsuccessful in establishing contact with the main body of the Eighth Army behind them, and the Germans had blown out the coast road in several places. In spite of these difficulties, Currie remained undaunted, telling Tregaskis and Montague: “Our intention is to advance north and capture Messina.”

Churchill led the troops toward their objective, followed by the armored forces, and Currie gave his permission for the journalists to accompany Churchill. A graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Churchill had been battle hardened in the early days of the war, including fierce fighting at the Dunkirk evacuation and a commando raid against the Germans-occupied harbor of Vaagsø in Norway, where he had guided his men ashore by playing “The March of the Cameron Men” on his bagpipes. He also possessed a unique view for modern warriors, believing that any officer “who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed.”

As he dined on a mess kit containing soup, Churchill looked over Tregaskis and advised him to obtain a British helmet for the mission, as some of his men might mistake him for a German if he wore his American headgear. Unfortunately for Tregaskis, the only British helmet available was a charred one formerly worn by a Tommy who had been burned to death. “The discomfort of wearing it,” he noted, “was preferable to the prospect of being shot by a Commando.”    

For the next several hours, Tregaskis shuttled between the different vehicles in the British caravan headed toward Messina, frequently halted by German shell fire and mines that blocked the roadway until it could be cleared by sappers (military engineers), with Currie even lending a hand removing the rubble. In a broad valley north of the village of Tremestieri the British column came face to face with a giant gap where a bridge once had been. “Our column halted, for the drop to the stream bed was too abrupt to be negotiated,” Tregaskis remembered.

The correspondent saw Churchill looking impatiently at his watch; it was 8:15 in the morning on August 17 and the colonel remained anxious that his troops beat the Americans into Messina. “Going to do a bit of reconnaissance,” he announced, according to Tregaskis, who asked, and received permission to ride along, with the colonel telling him to “Jump aboard” his Jeep.

Although Tregaskis kept worrying that at any moment German snipers would fire upon them or a squad of Nazi infantry would approach them from a side street and capture them, the small band made it safely into Messina. The first few civilians they came across ran away in fear, but, finally, a well-dressed man came upon them and indicated the Germans had left the city that morning; only a few snipers remained. The Sicilian, a doctor, said he was a friend of the mayor’s, and volunteered to guide the trio to him, sitting on the Jeep’s hood as they drove through the city’s battered streets.

Unfortunately, Churchill’s dream of capturing the city was crushed when they came upon an American soldier in the street. “Sure, we been in here two hours,” said the soldier, Sergeant Pet Sumers of Sturgis, South Dakota. “The general took the mayor and the police chief back to headquarters.” Tregaskis noted that there was at least some solace for the “energetic” Churchill, as he learned from the Italian doctor that about 500 Germans had been evacuated from the city’s southern beaches only an hour before Churchill’s Jeep had arrived. “The colonel, with his force of one driver and one correspondent, could not have arrived much sooner without being blown up or captured,” Tregaskis recalled.

Dropping off the doctor, Churchill, Tregaskis, and Holmes drove on through the city, looking for more Americans. They found them near a park, along with an unexpected participant in the celebration—Michael Chinigo, a colleague’s of Tregaskis from the International News Service who had been covering the American Third Infantry Division and served as an intermediary in the city’s surrender.

Chinigo had walked ten miles to Messina, part of an original five-man patrol that also came upon more Americans trying to reach the city before the British. “At 6:10 a.m. we crossed the city limits and met the pathetic scene of a semi-dead city, with rubble-littered streets, gaping holes in the buildings and the razed harbor,” Chinigo noted in his dispatch about Messina’s surrender. Twenty minutes later, the patrol had found the Italian military command headquarters, which also had within the city’s civilian officials. “Both groups agreed on unconditional surrender,” he reported.

The piazza at the center of the city became the place where the Allied forces mingled. After talking with Chinigo, Tregaskis heard the roar and clattering of Currie’s Sherman tanks arriving on the scene. “Commandos, smiling and shouting, sprawled over the exteriors of the tanks, and the little parade was made festive with many-colored flowers thrown by Sicilians,” Tregaskis recalled. “Some of the dirty-faced soldiers clutched huge bunches of grapes.”

At about the same time that Currie had dismounted from his tank, an American staff car drove up bearing Patton, who got out and shook hands with Currie. “We got in about ten,” Currie told the American general. “It was a jolly good race. I congratulate you.” Although Patton later believed that Currie had been “quite sore that we had got there first,” the British general, in a message sent after the Sicily campaign ended, seemed pleased with what his men had accomplished, writing, “We were a scratch force drawn from all quarters of the army, yet everyone worked together. The dash and determination shown by all ranks was beyond praise.”

Unfortunately for the Allied forces, while they had been preoccupied with the plaudits that would come for taking Messina, the Germans and Italians had been able to evacuate more than 100,000 troops and 10,000 vehicles to the Italian mainland in an operation codenamed Lehrgang (Instruction Course).  

Capturing Messina also did not translate into an immediate halt in the fighting. Wandering about the battered city, Tregaskis could hear the booming of Allied artillery firing from somewhere in Messina. Looking out over the wrecks of boats in the waterfront and across the Straits of Messina, he witnessed “spouts of shellfire leaping from the water and into the sand on the shore of Italy. Some of the shells were falling into the buildings of the mainland. We had reached the gateway to the European continent.”

The enemy did not remain silent; they returned fire, and Tregaskis, who had been mediating about the closeness of Europe, was reminded “how dangerous that closeness could be.” Shells started landing close by, and the correspondent headed for a nearby British scout car. As the vehicle’s driver frantically attempted to start its engine, Tregaskis managed to jump onto its running board as it sped away. He soon realized he had seen the car before—it was the car manned by the enlisted men he had met on the LST—Adlington, Fincham, and Bowles, who drove the correspondent to safety as two more shells exploded on the waterfront.