Yes Marion, I have that book in fact you reccomended it to me some time ago and I obtained a copy from a s/h bookshop in the USA. I would not be without it and it is a great research source. Now that I'm concentrating on the US 7th Army 1943 it is even more important.

Colin.

Great. In my correspondence with everyone, I sometimes forget who I adviced on what! My friend Nancy just picked up this book too! I think I have sold more books for the Army Corps of Engineers than anyone else combined!

Well news on many fronts (so to speak) today. Colin I am just beginning to peruse approximately 1000 pages of documents that I received today from my private researcher, Carolyn Billups. The section I just got to is yup you guessed it, information on Sicily. These particular docs are day-to-day journals from the landing and onward. I'm only a few days into them currently, but already found some interesting paragraphs. The journal is set as follows. Here is an example from Thursday, 15 July, 1943.

Station: Port of Licata, Sicily

Events: Col Marvin, Capt. Fizdale visited 1300B to 1430B. Major General Ridgeway, 82nd Airborne Division visited dock 1730B.

Work Done: Co's D & E:

Unloaded Vehicles / Troops Loaded Casualties / Prisoners

1-LCT)

6-LST) 308 3479 103 264

10-LCI)

1-Navy

Ponton

Barge)

Co's F & E:

Interior guard, Port area, cleaning up and misc. usual details, rations, water, sign painting, general maintenance of Port area.

Enemy Action: None

Weather: Clear, Warm.

--------------

It's hard to make the numbers line up here, but the 4 numbers next to the LST's refer to the Unloaded Veh/Troops, then Loaded Cas/Prisoners

As you know I visit here every day Marion and with your last entry I am hoping you will later have some details of General Patton's 'reconnaissance in force' to Palermo.

Carlo D'Este mentions that Patton likened his objective to the making of 'rock soup'.

A tramp once went to a house and asked for some boiling water to make rock soup. The lady was interested and gave him the water, in which he placed two polished stones. He then asked if he might have some potatoes and carrots to put in the soup to flavour it a little, and finally ended up with some meat. In other words in order to attack we first had to pretend to reconnoitre, then reinforce the reconnaissance, and finally put on an attack... *

*Carlo D'Este "Bitter Victory" page 418.

Is this an American tale?

Colin.

An interesting tale! I was not familiar with the rock soup story. I do not know if it is American or not, but it sure sounds like it might be. Maybe someone else can shed some light on the history of the tale.

When doing my quick persusal through ALL the docs yesterday, I did see some refereneces to Gen Patton. One mentioned him visiting the 540th. As I said I read through all this very quickly yesterday when I was just trying to get a feel for what was there.

Right now it looks as though most of the journals are in regards to the 2nd Battalion, Co's D, E and F. 2nd Bn was the one who landed at Licata.

Here is part of an email that Colin sent to me today. He is planning another trip to Sicily in 2006. Here's some info he recently found:

...My research into the US involvement in Husky has bought some results. I found by contacting the American Battle Monuments Commission that there are no official US memorials on Sicily. But the ABMC office in Rome has given me a list of four private memorials around Gela/Licata/Ragusa which I hope to visit and photograph.

1. 3rd Inf Div. Licata, downtown park.

2. 503rd 82nd Abn. Gela, near Il Castelluccio.

3. 505th 82nd Abn. Ponte Drillo (Gela).

4. 61st Troop carrier Group. C47 crash site. Ragusa.

I will of course put anything I find on the VI Corps website.

Regards,

Colin