O'er the Hills of Sicily

DESCRIPTION: "O'er the hills of Sicily, up the toe of Italy, Came the Loyal Edmontons from over the sea, And they sang as the stuffed the bully in their haversacks, 'Who'll come a-marching to Berlin with me?'" About the Italian campaign in World War II
AUTHOR: Words: Maj. James Stone, Lt. "Duke" Kitching, Lr. W. Remple, Lt. Owen R. BRown (source: Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear)
EARLIEST DATE: 1944 (Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear)
KEYWORDS: soldier war
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
July 10, 1943 - British and American troops attack Sicily (Messina falls on August 17, but the Germans have evacuated)
Sept 9, 1943 - Allies invade the Italian mainland
June 4, 1944 - Allies enter Rome
June 6, 1944 - D-Day. Invasion of Normandy begins
FOUND IN: Canada
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear, pp. 36-37, "O'er the Hills of Sicily" (1 text, tune referenced)
Roud #24980
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Waltzing Matilda" (tune) and references there
cf. "The D-Day Dodgers" (subject: the Italian campaign)
NOTES [756 words]: Although titled "O'er the Hills of Sicily," that is the only mention of the Sicilian campaign; the rest is about the campaign in mainland Italy, and ends with a discussion of whether the troops will go to Burma to fight the Japanese.
The refrain about marching to Berlin is rather ironic: The troops fighting in Italy had no hopes of reaching Berlin (the Alps were just too much an obstacle to troop movement), and the whole Italian campaign had been a deliberate sideshow: The Americans wanted to invade France in 1943 (indeed, they wanted to invade in 1942), and Churchill knew they weren't ready for that, so they compromised on Sicily (Wheal/Pope, pp. 427-429). That went relatively well, so the Allies started into Italy -- and that did not go well at all; Italy, being long and narrow and hilly, is easy to defend, and the Germans took full advantage, and the Allies fought on a shoestring because they were trying to prepare for Normandy. The Italian campaign was probably the toughest fight in Europe for the Anglo-Americans. The officers who wrote this song had good reason to recall its difficulty.
It appears that Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King actually *wanted* Canadian troops in the invasion of Italy, to show that they were doing something (Milner, p. 126). Talk about a stupid political decision....
For background on the Italian campaign, see "The D-Day Dodgers."
The "Loyal Edmontons" of the song are the Loyal Edmonton regiment (no, as far as I know, there was no Disloyal Edmonton Regiment!), which Bercuson, p. 175, calls the "Loyal Eddies." They were part of the Canadian First Division that invaded Sicily (specifically, the 1st Battalion, along with the 1st Battalian of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, for which see "The Ric-A-Dam-Doo (Ring-Dang-Doo (III))"; Holland, p. 510)). n Sicily, they were part of the 2nd Infantry Brigade of the 1st Canadian Divison (commanded by Major General G. G. Simonds), which was part of Oliver Leese's 30 Corps, along with the 51st Highland Division (d'Este, p. 586). The Highlanders were the subject of "Banks of Sicily (The 51st Highland Division's Farewell to Sicily)," which covers the Sicily campaign; the 30 Corps seems to have been a musical lot!
From Sicily, they went on to Italy, and spent the rest of the war there.
Not only did the Loyal Edmontons not see Berlin, many of them never saw Alberta again. The fighting in Italy was hard, and the unit was already under-strength when the First Canadian arrived below the Italian town of Ortona (Bercuson, pp. 175-176). The division commander at that time was Major General Christopher Vokes, who came to be known as "The Butcher" because he was so fond of frontal assaults (Atkinson, p. 302). The fighting to reach the outskirts of Ortona was slow and bloody, and the Loyal Edmontons were one of two battalions (the Seaforth Highlanders being the other) that eventually led the attack on the town itself (map on p. 303 of Atkinson). There, they had to fight the Germans house to house. Casualties were horrid. "Two dozen Edmontons were buried alive when a booby-trapped building near St. Thomas's collapsed. Germans showered would-be rescuers with stick grenades."
Both town and division ended up in ruins. The December campaign cost the 1st Canadian 2300 men (including 500 dead), about a quarter of them lost in Ortona itself. And, after all that, the campaign (which was supposed to take Ortona then cross the Appenines to attack Rome) had to be called off; the casualties had been too high and the terrain was just too rough (Atkinson, p. 306).
The statement that the Loyal Edmontons went "o'er the hills of Sicily" is more true of them than almost any Allied unit in the invasion. The Canadian division was on the far left of the British part of the line, one of the few parts of the British force to be in the hills west of Mount Etna rather than the coastal valleys to the east. To be sure, there were American forces in the hills as well -- but the Americans quickly managed to land most off their transport, so they forces in the hills could often advance by truck. The British had only about 30% of their transport ashore (Holland, p. 404), so it was all the British could do to keep their men supplied with food and ammunition (indeed, at times they failed to manage even that). None of their troops -- especially the Canadians who were most remote from the supply dumps -- had transport; they climbed those hills on foot in the high heat. - RBW
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File: Hopk036

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