The last day

The wreck of the Italian ferry Reggio, sunk by bombers in Messina, in a color picture presumably taken by American forces

World War II in Sicily ended on 17 August 1943, after thirty-nine days of fighting. Until the last day Messina, initially the entrance through which almost all the reinforcements and supplies for the defenders passed, then the only exit for the remains of the Italian-German units, was hammered by the bombers. The continuous raids failed to paralyze military transport, but devastated the city and massacred its surviving inhabitants.

At 8:30 am on the morning of 17 August 1943, there was no longer any fighting unit of the now former Italian–German Sixth Army left in Sicily. The last to leave the island had been a delayed patrol of eight Italian soldiers, transshipped to the other side on a German assault vehicle. Shortly before them, Brigadier General Ettore Monacci, commander of the ground forces of the fortress of Messina, had departed, after blowing the mines to destroy the port. General Hube, commander of the 16th German corps, left with the last ferry.

After thirty-eight days, General Patton had finally entered Messina, precedine an irritated Marshal Montgomery.

The entire German contingent and much of the Italian one had managed to pass through to Calabria, with all the equipment that had not been swallowed by the long and fierce battle.

The 16th German Corps transferred more than fifty thousand men on the continent,

fifty-four tanks, almost thirteen thousand vehicles, one hundred and sixty-three artillery pieces, about three thousand tons of fuel and ammunition, more than twenty thousand tons of equipment. Indeed, the vehicle fleet of its three divisions had more vehicles than it had at the beginning of the fighting. The reason – they had taken them from the Italians.

As for the latter, they had also gone out of their way to save the saveable.

With only one still floating ferryboat and a small fleet of motor barges and boats of all kinds, Admirals Barone and Parenti, respectively the head of the Autonomous Naval Command Sicily and commander of the Naval Fortress of Messina, in a week had managed to ferry to Calabria almost sixty thousand soldiers, three thousand sailors, the two hundred and twenty-seven vehicles and the forty-one artillery pieces saved from the battle and from the Germans, and twelve decrepit tanks. And twelve mules, a detail that none of the Anglo–American historians have omitted to mention. Troops and materials were also evacuated from Taormina, on the Ionian coast, without interference from the Royal Navy.

Admiral Pietro Barone, senior Italian naval commander in Sicily

Sincerity was in short supply in those days. Everyone was lying to everyone. Those who did not lie outright, hid the reality. The Germans were lying to the Italians, and the Italians to the Germans, and both were lying to their commands in Berlin and Rome, Mussolini, Badoglio and Hitler. Despite the orders with which the Duce, when he was still such, and Hitler ordered not to give ground, both the German and the Italian commanders, each hiding it to the other, organized and implemented the retreat. A retreat that the two armies, still allied only in name, planned and carried out separately, with their own means, which they generally denied to the ally. Naturally, there were some cases of collaboration: but they were an exception. Colonel Emilio Faldella, the chief of staff of the 6th Army, later reported that his German counterpart, Colonel Bogislaw von Bonin, "intentionally", did not report to Kesserling about the anti-Italian measures he had taken (stealing Italian vehicles, preventing the Italians from using the roads where the Germans were retreating), because he knew he would not approve them.

"The Allied air forces refrained from doing anything that resembled a determined air effort until the last three days of the evacuation. There was at first an imposing night raid carried out by more than 70 Wellington medium bombers, which dropped 139 tons of bombs without producing any effect. Two large raids carried out in the light of day on 15 and 16 August by 95 bombers and 485 between fighters and fighter-bombers dropped 154 tons of bombs without sinking a single Axis ship - wrote American military historian Carlo D'Este - From July 31 to the evening of August 10, the Allies sent 528 bombers missions to targets on the Strait and launched 1,217 tons of bombs. The fighter-bombers made 759 missions, 198 tons of bombs: in the end, they destroyed one Siebel ferry, a landing craft, a small boat and two tank barges."

The two shores of the Strait were defended by rather effective anti-aircraft and anti-ship batteries: at least five hundred guns between fixed and mobile ones, some of them mounted on Siebel ferries. A dense barrage of balloons, towed by the boats that shuttled between the shores, seriously hampered low-level air strikes.

The Germans trusted in Anglo–American punctuality: they always arrived at the same hours, the British never at teatime. Therefore, Commander von Liebenstein, responsible for the German transports across the Strait, concentrated departures in the intervals. His task was greatly facilitated by the evacuation plan - codenamed Lehrgang, “education course” - prepared by General Hube since the end of July.

Colonel Faldella was very concise in describing the evacuation of the remains of his former Army. A far more exciting and participated reconstruction, sometimes even over the top, was written by Marc'Antonio Bragadin, who was the commander of two MAS flotillas in the Sicilian Channel and later attached to the Naval Operations Command: "Epic operation of a myriad of ships ... The ferry Villa San Giovanni and the fifty miniscule units of all sorts had undertaken the rescue through the Strait of the remaining Italian forces ... commanded by old non-commissioned officers or very young ensigns carried out a literally "impossible" task ... Under a hellish air carousel, the sailors of those boats wrote pages of authentic heroism: with the hulls riddled with holes, the engines running only through miracles of ingenuity, the few weapons made red-hot by the continuous shooting. The price was the loss (not counting the German units) of the ferry boat Villa San Giovanni, fifteen motor barges, six tugs and countless smaller vehicles, almost all by air attacks: none of the little vessels that "worked" under that hail of fire came out unscathed."

The command of the dissolved 6th Army was transferred to the North. When Italy split in two, on 8 September 1943, General Guzzoni was arrested by the fascists of Salò, who were looking with self-absolving anxiety, as ruthless as vile, scapegoats and "traitors": he was freed almost immediately by the intervention of Marshal Kesserling and General Hube, who peremptorily testified about his valor and loyalty.

What happened to all the Italian soldiers brought to safety? They were sent to various collection centers, many of which were located on the Aspromonte massif. In those isolated places the troops, deeply shaken and very low in morale, physically tired, undernourished, militarily inefficient, were left without orders, waiting for their fate to fulfill itself…

The mangled wreck of the Scilla, another ferry sunk in Messina during the bombings