In Memory of
CHARLES FREDERICK ROBERT NUTLEY
Warrant Officer Class II ( (Company Sergeant Major) , C/4713
Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, R.C.I.C.
who died 31 age
on 10 July 1943
Remembered with honour
AGIRA WAR CEMETERY, SICILY
AGIRA WAR CEMETERY, SICILY
Born 15 Ago 1911, Mount Pleasant, Hastings County, Ontario, Canada;
Killed by machine gun fire as A Coy hits sandbar 10/07/1943, age 31.
Sebastiano Giannitto, 2014-04-21
Charles was posted to Scotland where he spent many months training with the Canadian Troops. The local opinion was that the Canadians were not doing very much and when they set off for Sicily, some of them had become so unworried, that they had no idea where they were going. On 10th July 1943, following the successful conclusion of the North African campaign in mid-May, a combined allied force of 160,000 Commonwealth and American troops invaded Sicily, as a prelude to the assault on mainland Italy. The Italians, who would shortly make peace with the Allies and re-enter the war on their side, offered little determined resistance, but German opposition was vigorous and stubborn.Charles was the first man of the Regiment to die on the beach in Sicily.
His landing craft docked in around eight feet of water and the men found
themselves fully submerged, holding their rifles aloft, as they descended the ramp. Charles was seen holding his nose as he entered the water heading for the shore. Ivan Gunter, a veteran survivor and Military Medallist of the Sicily landings, recalled his thoughts in the hours before the onslaught : - "The night before, I laid there in my bunk and thought about it. I actually prayed that I wouldn't be yellow ...
that I'd stand up to whatever was coming. After that, I never panicked in my life. I was scared, but I never panicked."
Though many of the invading Allies went ashore at night, Gunter said, his landing craft came ashore just before daylight faded. On shore, he saw two wounded 'Hasty Ps' and the body of one of his friends, Charles Nutley, the Sergeant-Major of 'A' Company. Gunter later learned Charles Nutley had been told to retrieve some forgotten explosives when he fell under enemy machine gun fire.
"He turned and got hit right in the back of the neck," said Gunter.
DATE AND CLASSIFICATION OF DEATH 10th July 1943 killed in action.
PLACE OF DEATH Agira, Sicily.
AGE AT DEATH 31
GRAVE & CEMETERY DETAILS
Grave C. D. 303.
Agira War Cemetery, Sicily.
Agira was taken by the 1st Canadian Division on 28th July and the site for the war cemetery was chosen in September for the burial of all Canadians who had been killed in the Sicily campaign. Agira Canadian War Cemetery contains 491 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.
KNOWN WAR MEMORIAL LISTINGS Page 199 of the on-line Canadian Book of Remembrance.
FAMILY INFORMATION
NAME OF PARENTS Albert Edward Nutley and Clara Agnes Nutley nee Cato. DATE AND PLACE OF PARENTS MARRIAGE 29th September 1900 in Brighton, Sussex. NAME AND BIRTH DATES OF SIBLINGS Albert Alfred Edward 1900, Agnes Clara Rhoda 1902, Doris Matilda 1903 (died 1904), Hugh Reginald 1905, all born in the Brighton area in Sussex. Stella Mary 1908 (died 1908), Violet 1909, Pearl 1910, Allan 1913, plus two stillborn babies, all born in Picton, Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada.
SIBLINGS NOTE Most of the info on Charles's siblings has been obtained from Ancestry Family Trees.
CENSUS 1921 Age 10. Charles was living with his parents and siblings in Picton, Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada. DATE & PLACE OF MARRIAGE 1938 in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada. NAME OF SPOUSE Eva Dearing.
OTHER SUPPORTING FAMILY INFORMATION Wife Eva was the niece of Private Wilfred Cockerill, who died of wounds, aged 20, on 14th August 1918, while serving with the East Yorkshire Regiment. He is buried in France. She was born in Patrington, East Yorkshire and emigrated to Canada in 1924. She married William Harold Insley after the war. They had at least one child together who died in infancy in 1947. Eva died in Picton, Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada, aged 79, on 22nd September 1996. She is buried locally with William, in Cherry Valley United Church Cemetery.
Father Albert was born in Brighton, Sussex, but he emigrated to Canada with his wife and children in 1905, where he became a Farmer. He served with the Allied Forces in the First World War, but he was discharged as medically unfit in 1917. He was still alive in the late 1930's but it is not known what became of him.
Mother Clara died in Picton, Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada, aged 57, on 14th April 1934. She is buried locally in Orser Cemetery.
This story comes from the Hasty P Facebook group.
Warrant Officer II/Company Sergeant Major Charles Frederick Rupert Nutley, Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. Born on the 15th of August 1911 in Mount Pleasant, Ontario and killed in action on the 10th of July 1943.
Charles was the first Canadian to get killed during Operation Husky. He was killed in action on Roger Beach, one of the Canadian landing beaches near Pachino. Farley Mowat wrote the following in his book "And no birds sang":
"Then I turned with some faint thought of shouting a warning to my men, and was in time to see Sgt Major Nutley go off the end of the ramp with rifle held at arm's length and the fingers of his free hand firmly clutching his nose. He looked like an oddly outfitted little boy jumping into a swimming hole... Most of my platoon had now joined me, lying half in and half out of the surf.
This was clearly no place to linger, but the way ahead was barred by a thicket of barbed wire which undoubtedly was mined. Sgt Major Nutley flopped down beside me, yelling; Somebody blow that wire! Where the hell's the bangalores?
I turned my head, looking for inspiration, and saw Alex come charging ashore like an enraged monster rising from primeval seas. He bellowed something and pounded past me to slide a bangalore torpedo under the wire. It went off with a smashing crack, then we were on our feet following Alex through the gap.
I did not notice, but Sgt Major Nutley was not with us. He remained lying at the water's edge.... dead, with a bullet through his throat. He had been lying within arm's reach of me, and yet did I not know..." (brief summary of the book text) Charles was initially buried a bit further inland and later reburied at Agira Canadian War Cemetery.
Charles lived in Picton, Ontario with his wife Eva Nutley-Dearing and together they had one son, Roy Alvin who was born in May 1939. His father , a WW1 veteran, also lived in Picton, while his mother passed away in 1934. He had three brothers and three sisters. His youngest brother also served overseas in the Canadian Army.
Charles served in the Hasty P's Active Militia from July 1925 and officially enlisted on the 2nd of September 1939 in Picton.
Find Grave, 2024-12-22
Information courtesy of the 