6397807 Serjeant Herbert Alfred DENNINGTON, 2/5th Queens Royal Regiment: 09/09/1943

Hi does anyone have the war diaries for 2/5th Queens from 1939-Sept 43 they can share with me?

I'm tracing my Grandfather who was killed on the 9th September 1943 and buried in Salerno cemetery.
I can see from their records that he was probably killed just south of the runway by a small bridge crossing a river.


Thanks in Advance

 

The Queens and East Surrey Regiment Second World War Diaries (queensroyalsurreys.org.uk)

Serjeant Herbert Alfred Dennington | War Casualty Details 208088 | CWGC

 

That's him, the grave registration gives him as being disinterred from GR 757235 which I make the river bridge WSW of the landing strip

 

Drat.

I was in Salerno War Cemetery the week before last guiding a group looking at the Salerno Landings.

I would have happily tipped my hat to him.

We drove passed GR 757235.

Montecorvino Airport is having its runway extended at the moment although it did not look like it would get so long as to reach GR 757235.

Regards

Frank

 

Thanks Frank he’s in the front row to the left, I’ve visited twice, once on the 60th anniversary.

I never had the detail I have now - so I’m planning a return to Salerno to visit all the GR mentions.
Plus some of the famous photos I’ve managed to geo locate.

The GRs in the War Diary don’t seem to line up with where all the 2/5th graves registration on CWGC have them. From the ones I’ve gone through it appears that whatever happened when they were attacked by16th Pz Pi they were all buried in penny packets along that road facing the runway.

Unless there is a mistake on one or the other?

 

16 Pz Div were the formation deployed along the Gulf of Salerno when Fifth Army landed. They were later reinforced by 15 Pz Gren Div, HG Pz Div and 29 Pz Gren Div.

Regards

Frank

 

I can’t remember where I saw this, probably German after action reports but the AFV attack listed was 16pz Pioneer battalion in Halftracks.

 

One platoon of 3./ Pz. Pi. Btl. 16 was with KG von Holtey, the divisional reserve. the rest of the company (the only company in the engineer battalion equipped with half-tracks) was with KG Dörnemann in the Salerno town area.






The half-tracked equipped battalion in 16. Panzer division was II./ Pz. Gren. Regt. 64. In the early afternoon of the 9th, three half-track platoons had supported an attempt by the Stugs of 10,/ Pz. Regt. 2, to attack towards the coast to try and relieve the Lilithenthal strongpoint on the coast, reaching as far as Picciola at 3pm. This puts them in the same area as the two companies of 2/5 Queens that were mangled up on the south-east corner of the airfield.

Incidentally, Brigadier Lyne, CO of 169 Infantry Brigade, was criticised after the battle for his handling of the squadron of the Royal Scots Greys assigned to support his brigade. Rather than using them as a squadron, he gave each of his battalions a platoon, with fatal consequences for his infantry battalions when they were counter-attacked by larger German armoured groupings.

 

Brilliant! Thank you for that detail.

So Kampfgruppe Stemple seems to be the unit in the vicinity at the moment. La Picciola looks to have been a battalion HQ or RAP I’m assuming judging by the number of casualties buried there. I saw that D company OC Capt Fevev was killed on the road leading to it and buried there.
Do you know where Lilienthal was exactly?

whatever it was I read suggested it was II pz.pi that attacked where he was I’ll see if I can find it.

 

The actual unit seems to have been II./ Pz. Gren. Regt. 64 - the division's only armoured infantry battalion. It could be some elements from 3./ Pz. Pi. Btl. 16 were also there, but they are not mentioned.

You can see where Lilithenthal is below. the majority of the troops holding it were able to extricate themselves, despite the counterattack not quite reaching them.



It is also marked but not named on this map of the 8/9th September (the top one in front of the Stempel KG.



FYI, the airfield area.

 

Amazing!

I think it was memoir in hindsight of a surviving officer.

My Grandfather was found by Graves Registation along with some other Queensmen and Cheshires who I’m assuming were their MG crew at the bottom left of the aerial photo exactly where the river crosses the road. SSW of the airstrip.

Im not sure why he was there as D company appear to be further NE, only mention I can see is that some went forward early on to machine gun the aircraft on the ground. I know he was D company from his last letter that I now have - but that was sent from India earlier in the year when he was a corporal.

Promoted to Sergeant some time around Enfidaville I think.

was Lillenthal a concrete emplacement of some sort?

 

None of the 16 Pz Div defensive positions were concrete. Everything just moved too fast.

Regards

Frank

 

Thanks Frank - so there’s nothing left to see there.

 

Each of the four German strongpoints in KG Stempel's area (named Moltke, Lilienthal, Scharnhorst, and Schlieffen) was a strongly reinforced single platoon position (Scharnhorst only had a rifle section) spread over a few hundred yards each. I do have a report on them somewhere, but for the life of me, I can't find it. They were trenches, wire, and mines from what I recall.

These were the garrisons for each. For Lilienthal it was: one officer (a Leutnant Erpel according to the divisional history), one rifle platoon with six LMGs, one 81mm mortar section and one heavy MG section, one 75mm light infantry gun platoon, one platoon of 2cm four-barrelled AA guns and one battery of four 88mm AA guns. So it had a lot of heavy weapons but not much in the way of infantry.

 

Thanks Gary these are amazing and just the sort of detail I'm after.
That artillery plotting diagram is superb, and disconcertingly where 2/5th Queens came ashore is dead centre.
I take it this is based from an OP that's sited on one of the heights near Eboli?

 

The range card is marked in mils so presumably some clever person on this site with a map and 6400 mils protractor can work out the OP location.

Not seen my 6400 mils protractor for years.

Regards

Frank

 

This might be useful for someone at a later date I have a rough image of the British war time map of the area involved. Which was how I translated the GR.