South Yorkshire Times, July 1st, 1944
Mediterranean
Mexboro’ Signaller’s Well-Earned Leave
Signaller Wilfred Lines, for 21 years before joining the Navy three ago, a well-known Mexborough hairdresser and now on leave after a long spell of service abroad, took part in the landings in North Africa and Sicily. He had found his two years foreign service in a mine-sweeper a big change but told a “Times” reporter “I wouldn’t have missed it.” Sig. Lines is the son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Lines, 11, Ruskin Avenue, Mexborough, and his wife lives at 47, Lorna Road, Mexborough.
In the North Africa landings, Sig. Lines’ ship swept a channel for troopships to disembark landings forces on a beach near Oran. “It was really very quiet, the actual landing.” he said.
Next morning a French destroyer tried to come in and shelled one of the “troopers,” but one of our destroyers went in and finished her off. We had quite a good view of it. Just before dinner they started shelling us with shore batteries. The “Nelson” and “Rodney” came up, stood a distance out and shelled the shore batteries, putting them out of commission for a bit and next day finished them off. We had no more trouble after that.”
At the port of Bone, Sig. Lines and his friend opened fire on an Italian mine-laying plane that swooped down low over the water. The plan disappeared in a smoke-screen that had been laid but later they heard over the radio telephone that it had crashed and the wreckage had been picked up. Sig. Lines’ souvenir of this bit of good shooting was a wheel plate from the plane.
Joining a Convoy at Malta, Sig. Lines later shared in the invasion of Sicily. “The first night we saw a hospital ship bombed. She was well out of the battle area and all lit up. Next morning we picked up seven empty lifeboats. We were patrolling through the wreckage of the hospital ship for a day or so. I pulled a Spitfire pilot out of the sea. He had been in the water quite a while and was certainly glad to see us.”
On the second day of the invasion, they were ordered alongside at Syracuse. “We had not been ashore for weeks,” Sig. Lines said “so in khaki shirt, shorts and a pair of slippers we went ashore. We had a good time among the houses and I picked up a wonderful Italian flag. The Italians were still fighting in one end of the town.” Enemy planes came over at night and dropped two bombs so close to the ship that Sig. Lines had to hang on at his post on the top bridge due to the steep angle at which the ship heeled over. An E-boat came out to attack them off Augusta and fire two torpedoes. “Luckily the skipper shoved her hard aport and they passed two or three yards to one side and exploded on the mole.”
A German plane, flying out of the sun and taking advantage of the smoke from the ship’s funnels, machine gunned the crew in one surprise attack. Sig. Lines helped to fight it off with a Lewis gun and the plane fell later to a “Spitfire.”
Sig. Lines ship left Sicily for Taranto and Naples among other places. We saw three active volcanos in 24 hours,” he said. “Stromboli, Etna and Vesuvius, Stromboli in the Lipari Islands, near Sicily is rather awe-inspiring. While on one side it is cultivated with fields and villages, the other side is a mass of molten lava running down to the sea.