5th Recce Sicily - 5th August

I know my grandfather in the 5th Recce was injured on the 5th August in Sicily. Does anyone know where the regiment would have been on that day so I can try and understand where he may have been injured. Was it Catania which I know fell on that day?

Thanks

 

It was certainly around that area but your best bet is the war diaries for precise information or perhaps their history. "WHEELED ODYSSEY THE STORY OF THE FIFTH RECONNAISSANCE REGT., ROYAL ARMOURED CORPS", I think there is a member on here who may assist with the latter. Did you send off for his service records? 5th Recce
Where did the date come from?

 

Thanks Tony. The date comes from the telegram we still have notifying his wife of his injury. We do have a copy of Wheeled Odyssey but due to COVID have not been able to travel to my dads to read it! We have only recently applied for his records and would imagine there is a bit of a backlog at this stage. I believe the history of the 5th infantry might also have some details of what they were up to?

Liz

 

Liz, sometimes squadrons of recce were dispersed over quite a large area which is why you may need the diaries to pin down locations. There was a MM award around that time Decorations and Awards to Members of the Reconnaissance Corps

From the casualty lists these 5 Recce were wounded 5 August 43, BUT that is those on one particular list and may well be others:
6919148 BALDWIN
6919193 CHARMAN
10601042 DAVIES
6916471 HAMMERTON

Edit. Yes you are correct about the backlog!

 

Thanks Tony, that is really helpful to understand

 

From Doherty, it seems that the 5th Recce were delving west of the city in the foothills of Etna eg towards Paterno.. the front was moving northwards on both sides of Etna from 5th onwards.. Tony knows best, mind.

 

This is super helpful, great information. Thank you so much

 

2 pages of War Diary

 

Thank you so much for this. I am very grateful.

 

2 more War Diary pages dated 5th August

 

and picking out one of the map refs from RM's last post - 791838 - to give an idea of the area under discussion



The "Coordinates Translator"

 

thanks, this is really helpful and will share with family

 

As Richard explained in his post #12, the map references contained in the patrol report (provided by Recce_Mitch) give the positions of the various events that took place on 5 August '43, to add some more detail I have plotted these on a period map:-
1 = 783823
2 = 791838
3 = 791849
4 = 791835
5 = 790830
6 = 772821
7 = 787847

 

Thanks Tony, i'll have a good look at this, really helpful, thanks for taking the time

 

My Dad was wounded in the same action - this is an extract from 'Wheeled Odyssey' - thanks to the other posters in the thread, there's a lot of information I hadn't seen before