The battle of Gela, part one: the landing at Gela and the capture of the town

Aftermath of the battle of Gela, "LIFE" magazine. Original caption: "At the feet of the two American soldiers lies the dead body of an Italian sergeant. The piles of clothing and dark splotches of blood were left after most of the dead and wounded were taken away. In the background the flag flies over the Ranger headquarters. The stall ahead of the gaping Sicilian in a white suit is an outdoor bookstore"

Major Arnaldo Rabellino’s 429th Coastal Battalion, apart from the command company in Gela, was deployed on two lines of defense for the defense of the town: the external line, which included the beach defenses, was manned by the 616th Company of the G.A.F. (Guardia alla Frontiera, the Italian Frontier Guard) of Captain Domenico Mascherpa’s 112th Machine-Gunners Battalion, as well as Captain Ferdinando Angelini’s 3rd Company, deployed east of Senia Ferrata; the line ran up to the Castelluccio (the old Swabian castle that had been built for protection against the Saracen raids, placed on a hill in Contrada Spadaro, 7 kilometers north of the town and just under 3 km from the air bae). The 1st and 2nd Companies, commanded respectively by Captain Mario Rocchini and Captain Antonio Meschini, were deployed further to the north-west, until the Gattano river, whereas Captain Alfonso Della Minola’s 4th Company was further to the north-east, with two platoons to Villa Priolo and a third further to east in Feudo Nobile, in defense of a strategic bridge on Highway 115 on the Dirillo river.

The Airport Static Defense Command 502 was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ettore Zanoletti, and included an airmen unit, the command company (Lieutenant Santino Balsamo), the 13th Riflemen Company (Captain Giuseppe Correnti) of the 4th Battalion of the 121st Infantry Regiment "Macerata ", the 4th Motorized Rifle Company of the 501st Coastal Battalion (commanded by Captain Vincenzo Randazzo and detached from Mobile Group "E " in Niscemi), plus an autonomous 149/12 mm artillery battery of the G.a.F. (Lieutenant Eugenio Giusti), three anti-aircraft batteries of the 22nd M.A.C.A. (Milizia Artiglieria Contraerea, Anti-Aircraft Artillery Militia, a branch of the Blackshirt tasked with anti-aircraft defense) Legion (the 333rd and 334th 37/54 Battery, under Capomanipolo [Blackshirt rank equivalent to Lieutenant] Francesco Barbato, and the 523rd 75/46 Battery of Capomanipolo Pietro Galli), and one anti-aircraft battery of the Regio Esercito, the 320th 20/65 Light Autonomous Battery of Captain Salvatore Settineri.

The defenses were completed by Captain Napoleon Monaco’s 268th S (Solothurn) Anti-Tank Rifle Company (part of the 134th Coastal Infantry Regiment), placed in defense of Strongpoint no. 31; by the 105th 47/32 mm Anti-Tank Company and by the 106th Autonomous Mortar Company under Captain Pasquale Paolini, both stationed in Capo Soprano; by the Captain Achille Suarez’s 21st Sapper Company miners (belonging to the 12th Corps’ Engineers Group); by four 20/65 mm anti-aircraft batteries of the "Livorno" Division between Niscemi and Scoglitti; by four photoelectric sections; and by some anti-paratrooper squads (Nuclei Anti Paracadutisti, NAP) (the 552nd NAP at Poggio Lungo, the 352nd in Montelungo, the 455th in Case Priolo, the 456th in Niscemi, the 457th in Acate, the 458th in Vittoria and the 526th in Ponte Olivo), as well as Carabinieri, Guardie di Finanza (Italian Customs and Finance Guard) and Blackshirts of the local Militia.

The 17th Garrison Infantry Battalion, stationed in the rear, was judged as having little or no military value, being entirely composed of 30/40 years old Sicilians whom had been judged as unfit for first-line service, many of them married or even widowed with children.

The American troops landed in Gela at 03:35. Some landing craft of the 26th RCT were hit by gunfire from the coastal batteries when they were about 100 meters from the beach, some of them were set afire, but most carried on and landed their troops on the Red and Green beaches. There, they were immediately taken under fire from the Italian pillboxes; an entire platoon from the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion was virtually annihilated, and another platoon, from “D” Company, 4th Rangers (Major Murray), stepped on a minefield and found itself pinned down by machine-gun crossfire from two pillboxes. The platoon commander, Lieutenant Walter Wojak, was mortally wounded, and command fell on Sergeant Randall Harris, whom had also been badly wounded in the stomach. In spite of his wounds, Harris led the assault on the beach defenses; he and corporal Howard Andre climbed on a dike, about 15 feet high, where a row of pillboxes was located, then they attacked each pillbox, taking turns – one of them opening the door and the other tossing a grenade inside. They thus eliminated about twelve pillboxes.

On the beach, American combat engineers sistematically destroyed other pillboxes and machine gun nests, manned by G.a.F. troops, with flamethrowers and hand grenades, while the coastal troops whom had barricaded themselves in the houses closer to the beach were taken out with fragmentation grenades.

Corporal Cesare Pellegrini, 34 years old, a Tuscan from Seravezza (Lucca), manned a machine gun in a pillbox near Porta Marina. He put up a stubborn resistance, hampering the landing on the beach for over four hours with the fire of his machine gun; the landing operations in the area that he kept under his fire had to be temporarily suspended. More American troops, however, had already entered other areas of Gela, and were already approaching Porta Marina; Pellegrini’s companions felt surrounded and fled, and he remained alone.

An American patrol, led by a non-commissioned officer, identified the source of the fire, worked around it and then the NCO penetrated the pillbox and stabbed Pellegrini in the back. Cesare Pellegrini was left clinging to his weapon, stiffened in death. In a corner of the pillbox, there was his open briefcase, letters scattered all over the place, and his dog tag on the ground near the machine gun. He was posthumously decorated with the Bronze Medal of Valor.

At 4:05 Colonel Altini reported that enemy troops were penetrating the town, and five minutes later Major Rabellino confirmed that the enemy landing had succeeded and that the enemy was entering Gela from the Belvedere side. All the available men from the 1st and 2nd Companies were sent towards the town, while the 3rd Company was desperately resisting the 16th RCT in Senia Ferrata and the 4th Company was engaged against American paratroopers near Abbeveratoio Priolo. Bitter fighting was already going on in the main street, between the Rangers and the Carabinieri whom had entrenched themselves near the Chiesa Madre (the main church, wrongly identified by many American sources as the “Cathedral”) and the former Trinacria Hotel. Other Carabinieri had entrenched themselves in the public gardens, joined by Guardie di Finanza (customs and finance guards), Blackshirts and some armed civilians.

People of all sorts died in those confused moments: the 36-year-old Blackshirt Tommaso Sanzo, from the 22nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Militia (M.A.C.A., Milizia Artiglieria Contraerea), was surprised by some Rangers as he was trying to reach his unit in Santa Maria del Gesù; he fired on them with his Beretta and was gunned down by their Thompsons. Another Blackshirt from the 22nd M.A.C.A., the 53-year-old Piero Mondarini, an old Fascist and a supporter of Mussolini since the beginning, was off-duty and in civilian clothes, taking a walk in the early hours of the day, when he saw some American troops entering his street; even when off-duty he carried a pistol with himself, and he immediately reached for it in order to fire on them, but was immediately shot and killed.

At the other end of the political spectrum was 33-year-old Rocco Tignino, a staunch anti-Fascist; when he saw the American troops entering the town, he left his house in Via Bastione and walked towards them carrying an Italian flag, to greet them as liberators of his country from Fascism. The American soldiers, however, did not understand; they only saw a man carrying a flag of an enemy country, and they shot him as well. Likewise, civilians without any political affiliation lost their lives when they were caught in crossfire; among them young mother Carmela Ferrara, 20 years old, with her two children Grazio and Lucia, one and three years old, respectively.

The Americans had already entered Gela.

In the city centre, fighting was house-to-house. In Via Butera, a Lieutenant shot with his sidearm a fleeing Sergeant, then led his platoon against an American company until he was killed and the platoon was wiped out. A few hundred yards away, Lieutenant Filippo Lempo, a 33-year-old reserve officer from Catania, was surrounded by the Rangers in Via Giacomo Navarra Bresmes, while he was trying to reach his command along with his men. The Rangers and Lembo’s men engaged each other in hand-to-hand combat until most of the Italians were killed, some of them in front of the steps of the nearby Cathedral. Lembo, who had retreated to a nearby depot with some survivors, had his throat slit while firing the last rounds of his Beretta.

After the garrison at the farmers’ cooperative was overrun as well, the situation deteriorated steadily for the Italians; at 4:25 Brigadier-General Orazio Mariscalco, in command of the 18th Coastal Brigade, reported to General Alfredo Guzzoni, the commander of the Sixth Italian Army, that in the hamlet of Case Priolo the 4th Company of the 429th Coastal Battalion, led by Captain Alfonso Della Minola (37 years old, from Stresa in Piedmont), after coming to the rescue of the 455th Anti-Paratrooper Squad which was under attack, had been itself surrounded by a hundred paratroopers (these belonged to “A” Company of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under Captain Edwin B. Sayre). At 4:57 Major Rabellino reported that there were many ships and boats off the shore, apparently ferrying troops and supplies between the larger ships and the beaches, and that there were already many dead and wounded among his men, although the population of Gela remained in its houses and appeared calm. At 5:35 Blackshirt Lieutenant Giuseppe Messina of the 22nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Militia Legion, who had established an information-gathering centre, reported that fighting was going on inside the town, and at 5:50 the command of the 18th Coastal Brigade phoned to the command of the XVI Corps to report that the command of the 429th Coastal Battalion was surrounded. At dawn the strongpoint in the cemetery, consisting of two Breda machine guns under the command of Second Lieutenant Giuseppe Gentile (31 years old, from Melito Porto Salvo in Calabria), capitulated; at 6:28 Colonel Altini reported that the entire garrison was surrounded and that the 181st Battery in Manfria had suffered many casualties, only had one functional gun and was under heavy naval gunfire, while the 49th and 330th Batteries, between Montelungo and Cape Soprano, had three working guns each and had many dead and wounded among their personnel, requiring ambulances to evacuate the many men who were seriously wounded.

The battle between Captain Della Minola’s 4th Company and Captain Sayre’s paratroopers was still raging: the Italians had barricaded themselves in a farmhouse. After several hours, they eventually surrendered, and the paratroopers thus captured Piano Lupo’s “Y” road intersection. Fifteen Italians had been killed, Della Minola among them; fifty were taken prisoner.

At 7:10 Colonel Altini reported that enemy warships had begun interdiction fire against the rear of the Italian strongpoints; that the 181st Battery had lost its last gun and was fortifying itself with machine gun nests; that the 49th and 330th had overall four gun left, were still firing on the landing craft but were in turn being shelled by American warships. At 8:00 three Ranger companies were firmly established in the town, and Colonel William Orlando Darby established his command in the former Trinacria Hotel. At 8:02 the command of the 429th Coastal Battalion radioed its last message: “We are surrounded”.
Shortly thereafter the local Carabinieri garrison, surrounded near the Cathedral by American troops coming from Corso Vittorio Emanuele, surrendered after running out of ammunition. One Carabiniere had been killed, many had been wounded. Positions in the municipal gardens were overcome by the Rangers after strong resistance. Major Rabellino barricaded himself with his command in a house; they surrendered around 9:00.

At 9:20 Colonel Altini reported that the 330th Battery had blown up its guns and that the 49th at Cape Soprano had been forced to surrender because the Americans had advanced towards it using captured Italian soldiers as human shields. At 9:57 news came that the 526th Anti-Paratrooper Squad had moved from Castelluccio to Niscemi.

Thus had ended, after four hours of fighting, the resistance of the 429th Coastal Battalion. Five of its officers had been killed, twelve had been wounded; 180 of its enlisted men had been killed or wounded as well, approximately 45% of the battalion’s total strength. Two hundreds men had been captured, the few who had escaped death or capture had retreated to Monte Castelluccio. Gela was firmly in American hands.

Captain James B. Lyle’s Rangers soon put the guns captured at Cape Soprano back in working order, and created several defensive outposts as well as an observatory along Highway 117. Darby placed the mortars from the “A”, “B” and “C” companies of the freshly landed 83rd Chemical Battalion around the north-eastern outskirts of Gela, but was then informed that there were snipers on the bell tower of the Chiesa Madre. Darby went to the spot and found two platoons of Rangers in front of the church, along with an Italian American NCO who was shouting in Sicilian dialect to those in the bell tower to come down from that sacred place. When the Rangers broke into the bell tower, however, they found nobody inside; only an empty case of hand grenades was laying at the top of the tower. This little mystery would be explained more than sixty years later to the local historian Rosario Medoro by Francesco Zafarana, one of the “snipers” that had been in the tower back in ’43. During the battle of Gela Zafarana, who at the time was a teenager, had retrieved some SRCM. 35 hand grenades from some dead Italian soldiers, together with fellow teenager Rosario Cacciatore, the son of the keeper of the Parco delle Rimembranze (Remembrance Park), and 20-year-old Ferdinando Incardona, son of a grocer, the “oldest” of the three. The trio had then climbed up the bell tower, unnoticed, thrown three hand grenades at the American soldiers below them, and then fled from the tower’s rear door. A very dangerous stunt.

The three boys had been captured by American paratroopers half an hour later and temporarily imprisoned in a cinema, but had been handed back to their families after a few days.

(Main source, "Nel corso della battaglia di Gela" by Nuccio Mulè)