First Successful Amphibious Landing

Interviewer: So the landing happened on July 10th, 1943 at Pachino.

Pachino, that's right, yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: And I take it this was the first amphibious landing in the European theatre that was successful.

It was, yeah.

Interviewer: So there must have been a lot of nervous people before this began.

Oh, I didn't think, I thought for a while there when they were going in for that landing they were never gonna make it, because it was so rough, that water was just crazy. And I was talking to the Captain of that boat or Skipper or whatever it was and he, we were talking, and I said to him, " Are we gonna make it to land? " By this time we knew where we were going, we knew we were gonna land in Sicily, and, "Are we gonna make it? " He says, " I'll put ya there if I have to ground this ship." But it was, oh God it was rough.

Interviewer: What was the resistance like when you landed?

Oh, there was hardly any. I mean the, the Germans had drawn back, and the, the Italians were there and they were just giving up. I think in the Seaforth there was only, I think it was only two people killed in that landing. There was some wounded, you know, but there was only two people killed which is a pretty good percentage, you know. And as soon as we hit the shore we, well we got in there, as soon as everybody got there we just took off right straight ahead.

Interviewer: This was not into the town of Pachino that you landed?

No, no.

Interviewer: So a lesson was learned from Dieppe.

Oh yes. Oh, I think how, what we learned from there, not to go into place where there's a cliff.