Evening star., 1944-01-16
and how 1 pitied any one who had int

into one port overnight, we reached
Tunis and disembarked, walking
about 4 miles in the hot afternoon
sun to our bivouac area-anothel
broad, open field. And with only
one blanket we had no way to make
any shade. The next morning We
hiked up to Carthage to see the
ruins, then I went to see the colone
in charge and told him that I hac
to take my men back aboard the
boat to protect it against possible
aircraft attack.
The next three days weren't bad
we had more room, could go swim
ming any time we wanted to: ]
knew the major in charge of rations
and we had gotten excellent rations
for this period, and the Navy al
lowed us to use their range to cook
them. But this period was only toe
short; three days later the rest OF
the men came aboard and the fol-
lowing morning we started out
again.
Now Part of Huge Convoy.
This time we weren't five ships
alone in the sea, we were part of a
tremendous convoy. including more
Let's, LISTS, Liberty ships, wal
ships, all types of craft. The original
feeling that / had had after the
practice run had long since dis
appeared; my usual feeling of "it
can't happen to me" had returned
and knew that my crew and ]
would come through with few if any
casualties. At this time the troop
commander gave us our mission
we were to invade the southern coast
of Sicily, and we were the floating
reserve" In the event that serious
trouble was encountered at any
beach we would go there, otherwise
we would make an invasion of our
own. In the latter event our boat
was to land at H hour plus As
minutes.
That night a storm came up and
water came all over the deck. It
even splashed up on the bridge. We
had a bunch of sick boys that night
and to add to the fun the boat
cracked and snapped under the
heavy load as though it would break
apart. The skipper admitted that a
Let wasn't built for that combina-
ton OF load and weather. However
somehow, I managed to get some
sleep, though it was pretty damp
sleep. The following day the sea
continued to run high, and that
night they were still rough. That
was the night of July 9.
We were up considerably before
dawn the next morning, manning
our gun. Ahead of us we would fire.
quently- see tracer streams going
into the air, but it was too dark
to see the target, all we could dc
was listen for aircraft over the
steady throb of our own motors
AS far as we could tell, none came
over before dawn. After dawn we
saw several targets, but they were
all beyond our range, most of them
not out of our range vertically, but
horizontally. They were fighter
planes, and were attacking the
beach and not the ships.
Lose Beach and Convoy.
The morning Of the 10th it. was
comparatively calm - immediately
ahead of us was land. with cruisers
and destroyers patrolling up and
down, firing inland, and around us
were ships of all descriptions. But
we had become lost-we could not
find our beach or our convoy. About
noon we found our convoy, but we
only circled around then until late
afternoon. The whole thing seemed
rather dull and unexciitng. I never
thought that would be reading q
book while on an invasion, but ]
Gid on this one. Late that after
noon we tried to land several times
but there was a sand bar in front
of the beach that prevented us from
getting in close enough, SO we finally
pulled out beyond artillery range
and anchored. For the first time
in three nights I got good nights
sleep.
At dawn the next morning we
again tried unsuccessfully to land
A duck (amphibious 2lh ton truck
came out to take of our ammunition
and went in on it to make arrange
ments with cat (tractor) to pull
us into position when we did get off
I found out then that we were ir
the right area, the Celia area, but
on the wrong beach. Our beach
was 2 miles away. I also heard that
they needed the mobile artillery on
our Let badly-German tanks had
broken through. However, I wasn't
in the least Worried understood
that there were three tanks IA miles
away. Later I found that I was
slightly mistaken. BY using pom
toon bridge they finally unloaded
our tracks and half tracks, which
went off ready for battle.
After unloading these vehicles the
boat was light enough to land and
at $50 am. my gun was pulled of
by a duck. This was H plus %
hours and As minutes instead of the
H plus As minutes that the schedule
had called for. We set up on the
beach, being told to keep an addi-
tional lookout to the landward for
enemy tanks, and I sent a runner
up to our battalion headquarters
which had landed as soon as we had
BY that time another of my guns
had landed and was set up nearby
(To Be Continued Next Sunday
II. Col. H.H. Rice Returning