Joe Mantegna, drawing on his Italian roots, lends his support for the Sicily Peace, Security & Prosperity Conference

Italian-American actor, movie star, director and philanthropist Joe Mantegna says his Sicilian roots and the experiences of his parents’ generation in the Second World War are behind his support for The Sicily Peace, Security & Prosperity Conference at Catania’s Le Ciminiere Festival Centre on 7-8 July. “In my career I’ve portrayed many characters who dramatize…

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Countdown to Husky: Operation Mincemeat

Charles Cholmondeley (left) and Ewen Montagu with the van taking the body of Glyndwr Michael to Scotland on 17 April 1943 At 0415 on Friday 30 April 1943, the body of Glyndwr Michael was taken out of a sealed container on the deck of the Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph which had surfaced off Huelva on…

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Countdown to Husky: Canada joins the campaign

The sun was shining brightly on the afternoon of 23 April 1943 when Commander of the First Canadian Army Lieutenant General Andrew McNaughton (see left, below) strode into the War Office in Whitehall. It was St George’s Day and it had been more than two years since the last German bombing attack on Britain’s capital. The…

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Stars in the Sicilian campaign: Douglas Fairbanks Jr

The transition of Douglas Fairbanks Jr from Hollywood action hero to combat veteran was completed off the coast of Sicily near Gela in the early hours of 10 July 1943. Among those on the deck of Admiral Henry Hewitt‘s flagship USS Monrovia in the darkness before dawn, Fairbanks had spent the previous evening coaching Seventh…

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Stars in the Sicilian campaign: Alec Guinness

Famous as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, Oscar-winner Alec Guinness had a starring role in the landings in Sicily on 10 July 1943. Born to an unmarried mother in April 1914, Guinness left school aged 18 to work in a London advertising agency. Determined to…

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Remembering the dead of the Sicily campaign

The CWGC Catania War Cemetery, the largest in Sicily, has 2,135 graves The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries in Catania and Syracuse contain the remains of 2,410 men who lost their lives between the start of the Sicilian campaign on the night of 9 July and the end of August 1943. The overwhelming majority…

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