ABSTRACT
While the Allies remained stuck in the central Solomons, they were poised to move vigorously forward in the Mediterranean. British and Canadian forces began gearing up for their attack on Calabria (Baytown) by using a mix of vessels to batter the coast around Reggio di Calabria and soften up the Italian defences for the invasion to come. In truth, there was little to soften up. Badoglio’s representatives were in the final stages of secret armistice negotiations with Eisenhower’s command headquarters and Italian soldiers in the area were not spoiling for a fight even on home soil. This much became clear in the early hours of 3 September when the first troops of the British Eighth Army were ferried across the Straits of Messina in masses of landing craft and came ashore between Villa San Giovanni and Reggio di Calabria to the accompaniment of a deafening barrage of fire from shore batteries and the assorted guns of several monitors, cruisers, destroyers and gunboats. It was an impressive artillery fanfare but not much more than that. It didn’t quell resistance to the invasion because there really wasn’t any. Lacking any military threat to the repeated sailings that took place over the next few days, the Allied sailors involved in the operation quickly dubbed Baytown, the ‘Messina Straits Regatta’. It proved to be the lull before the storm of Salerno.1
