The town of Augusta in Sicily did not fall easily, despite half its garrison having fled.
On the day of the landings, 10 July, the 6th Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders led the landings and the attack on the nearby town of Cassibile, which they captured. Syracuse was then taken by the Northants and Royal Scots Fusiliers, with help from the glider troops of Operation Ladbroke. The next day, the 11th, the Northants and the accompanying Sherman tanks of 3 County of London Yeomanry were held up south of the town of Priolo, north of Syracuse. Here, for the first time in Sicily, the British encountered German forces. The Germans were equipped with first class anti-tank weapons and armoured vehicles, and several Sherman tanks were knocked out.
By the morning of the 12th, the Germans had pulled out of Priolo. It seems they withdrew because they guessed that the British were planning to use maximum firepower against them, including the much-feared heavy guns of the Royal Navy. The German plan presumably did not include being annihilated pointlessly. Instead they were fighting delaying actions while strong reinforcements gathered further north in better defensive positions. Their decision to evacuate Priolo was wise – the British plans did indeed include a barrage by all the divisional artillery, and also a bombing attack by 36 Kittyhawk fighter-bombers. The barrage was cancelled just in time, but it was too late to cancel the air attack, which went ahead. Two planes collided and fell in the sea, with only one of the pilots surviving.
Both 15 and 17 Infantry Brigades now entered the town, which was soon crammed with British troops and vehicles heading north along the narrow coastal plain. The congestion made a perfect target for enemy artillery, which could fire blind, by the map, and still have a high chance of hitting something. The 6 Seaforths suffered some minor casualties in the crowded streets, although other battalions fared worse. But capturing Priolo town was little in itself. Just north of it was a river that made a natural anti-tank obstacle [map], and it was covered by enemy troops ensconced on a small ridge or knoll. They were supported by guns firing on the British flanks from the slopes of the foothills of the plateau further inland. It took until nearly 2pm to drive the defenders from the knoll, after a hefty artillery barrage supplemented by naval gunfire, followed by a three-company set-piece attack by the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
Battle on the Marcellino
At this point the 6 Seaforths again took over the lead. They were finally in the open country north of Priolo, and for some miles they met no opposition. However after crossing the Marcellino River they entered the area behind Cugno Point, which faced the town of Augusta on its peninsula across the bay. The area was overcast with black smoke from scores of burning fuel oil tanks, set on fire by retreating Italians (there are still oil tanks there today). The Italian command, control and communications seem to have been in chaos. The oil tanks had been blown on the first day of the invasion, when the rumour spread through the local Italian garrisons and militias that the British were already at Priolo. Many of the Italians abandoned their positions and gun batteries and fled north. In fact the British did not enter Priolo for another two days.
Now that the British really were at Priolo, the Italians sent a regular army unit, the 2nd Battalion of the 76th Regiment of the Napoli Division (2/76), into the void vacated by the militias and the Germans, and told them to face east, towards the sea off Cugno Point, in case the British attempted more amphibious landings. It seems incredible that the Italians did not know that the threat was from the south, from the land and almost upon them. Perhaps they were distracted by the numerous Royal Navy ships off Augusta, which were liberally shelling the coastal defences and towns, and also attempting to enter the harbour.
What followed next was like an encounter battle, when two opposing forces marching towards each other bump into one another, and then feed units ad hoc into the fray as fast as they come up. The Italians were still deploying to face the sea when the leading company of the 6 Seaforths, presumably preceded by Bren carriers in their reconnaissance role, hit the Italian “right” flank. Even then, the commander of the Napoli troops did not suspect a major advance from the landings two days before, but thought that the British must have made a landing on the nearby beaches earlier that day, and that his men had arrived too late to stop it.
This was the first time that a British battalion in Sicily had met an Italian regular army battalion on almost equal terms. The 2/76’s sister battalion in the Napoli Division, the 1/75, was encountered on 10 July south of Syracuse, but then it had been up against three or more British battalions, and was effectively destroyed. Now the 6 Seaforths, deployed in single file along the road north, came under machine gun fire from both sides. Italian mortars and artillery plastered the road and the approaches south of the Marcellino.
The Seaforth mortar platoon was ordered forwards to lend weight to the attack, but it could hardly move along the narrow and heavily congested road. Part of the blockage was the large Sherman tanks, which also could not get forwards quickly. The RAF was not available for on-call close air support, and the Royal Navy was by now fully occupied with trying to get its ships into Augusta. In any case, the ships would have had the same problem as the British artillery – the opposing forces were too closely intermingled to allow for safe shellfire. So ‘A’ Company attacked without support. As a single company facing a whole battalion, progress was slow. James Stockman later described the fighting as “grim”.
Then the British Bren carriers, showing great dash and courage, decided to charge madly down the road and see if they could break through what they hoped was a thin crust of disorganised Italian defenders. Disorganised it may have been (from facing the wrong way), but 2/76 was not a thin crust. Also, its commander had the foresight to bring one of his artillery pieces down to the road to act as an anti-tank gun. Here it did exactly what it was supposed to, and knocked out the one of the carriers. Three men were killed. The other carriers now came under a hail of hand grenades. The carriers were open-topped and only lightly armoured, and they were forced to withdraw.
By now the Sherman tanks had come forwards, but they were withdrawn again because of the anti-tank guns. The Sherman crews had shown their courage the day before at Priolo, and would do so again the next day, when they lost six out of seven tanks attacking a strongpoint. But warfare is like a game of stone-paper-scissors. In a case like this, simplistically: machine guns kill infantry, tanks kill machine guns, anti-tank guns kill tanks and infantry kill anti-tank guns. So ‘A’ company of the 6 Seaforths bore the brunt.
The fighting went on in spurts for several hours, as each side assembled enough forces, or reformed for another attack or counterattack. ‘A’ Company was relieved by ‘B’ Company. At one point the Seaforths were bombed and strafed by a dozen Italian fighters. These planes were then called away to escort aircraft carrying those strong reinforcements that the Germans were planning to use further north. The reinforcements were elite German paratroopers, who were about to be dropped near the Primosole Bridge over the Simeto River south of Catania. The plan worked, and the British, following the capture of Augusta, were held up south of Catania for many days.
Meanwhile, back on the Marcellino, the British mortars finally came forward to tip the scales in favour of the 6 Seaforths. In any case the Highlanders were battle-hardened troops, while the Italians of 2/76 were green. By the time the battle was over, and the Italians had retreated, it was early evening, and the sun was sinking. On the other side of Augusta, the men of Britain’s elite SAS Regiment were landing under intense fire to seize the town itself, which had been almost completely evacuated by the Italians.
Fight for the Seaplane Base
One final phase of the battle for the approaches to Augusta remained for the 6 Seaforths – the battle for the defences around the Italian seaplane base. This was located in the armpit of the bay that curves round and connects with the peninsula town of Augusta itself. The area was (and still is) immediately recognisable by its huge airship hangar, which towers above the shore. It was protected by a variety of defences including pillboxes. It was probably dark by this time, with a crescent moon providing enough light to fight by.
The Sherman tanks of the Yeomanry were now working hand-in-glove with the infantry, and had come up with a way of dealing with blockhouses that might harbour anti-tank guns, without unnecessarily exposing the tanks. Their new technique involved the commander of the tanks walking forwards with the infantry. When the heavy machine gun of a pillbox opened fire, he called forward the leading tank and briefed it. It then fired three armour-piercing shells, followed by three high-explosive shells, then pumped long bursts of machine gun fire at the pillbox. Since the concrete in most pillboxes in Sicily did not use steel reinforcement, and the coastal troops manning them were mainly older reservists with poor morale, this usually had the desired effect. However, near the airship hangar, a pillbox resisted. It was taken by 10 Platoon of ‘B’ Company supported by tanks. Six Italians died inside it, three outside. No prisoners were taken.
Not long after the fighting for the houses and pillboxes near the seaplane base, the 6 Seaforths stopped for the night. In the last three days they had made an assault landing, marched many foot-sore miles in stifling heat and dust plagued by flies and malarial mosquitoes, been shelled and bombed, and fought in gruelling conditions. Their sister battalions now took the lead, and in the small hours of the morning they marched past the isthmus of the Augusta peninsula and occupied the high ground north and north-east of the town. Italian civilians who had been evacuated from Augusta onto the heights of Monte Tauro were astonished to wake up and find the Royal Scots Fusiliers camped nearby. The Northants connected with the SAS in the town in the morning. Apart from the mopping up of bypassed enemy positions, the battle for Augusta was over.
