I have located a map reference of 917643 Sheet 270 for an area south west of Catania in1943, where my father, Alan Walter Woods (267935) was injured on 11th Aug 1943. This map is available on line and I have located this position, but I have been unable to convert this location to latitude & longitude so that I can find it on a modern map. Can anyone help please?
Excellent, thanks very much. We have very recently come back from a holiday in Sicily and we hoped to visit this specific area, but as we could not locate it exactly we didn't go to it. However as I can now see the road my farther was working on as part of 425 Tipper Company, RASC is now part of a quarry, so a visit would have been pointless. We did visit the 'Museo Storico dello Sbarco in Sicilia 1943' in Catania, which was really excellent, and they thought the German air raid on the 11th Aug 1943, which injured my father by an anti-personnel bomb, occurred to delay the Allied advance to give more time for the Germans to evacuate Sicily. All very interest stuff and like many people, I wished I had asked my father more question whilst he was alive. Thanks again for your help. Richard
Richard, Good stuff - nothing much to add apart from re-highlighting that following the cutting of the Etna lateral road on 5th August 1943, there would be a continual fighting retreat of all German defensive forces until they finally evacuated from Messina to Calabria on 17th August. By 11th August, the fighting on the west side of Etna had reached the Bronte area and to the east of the mountain had reached the Giarre area, while the Americans were advancing towards Randazzo and along the north coast.
