The battle of Avola

Avola, British soldiers standing next to three Italian soldiers killed during the battle for the capture of the town

The two beaches between Cape Negro and Calabernardo were defended by part of the 374th Coastal Battalion, under the command of 49-years-old Major Umberto Fontemaggi, a Ligurian from Sarzana. These beaches were assaulted by the three battalions of the 151st Brigade, 50th (Northumbrian) Division, which captured them by 6:19, although Italian coastal guns remained in action, causing several losses among the British. Fighting in Avola had already been going on for some hours, since a group of American paratroopers of the 505th RCT, scheduled to land in the Gela-Niscemi-Acate sector, had mistakenly ended up there and were clashing against Italian soldiers in the hamlet of Archi.

In Lido di Avola, the strongpoint commanded by Lieutenant Salvatore Giardina, supported by a 75/13 mm battery, put up resistance and was destroyed after three hours of fierce fighting. In the hamlet of La Guardiola, the platoon commanded by Lieutenant Biagio Spina (32 years old, a Sicilian from Catania) resisted tenaciously; Spina was eventually killed along with many of his men. In Calabernardo, another strongpoint positioned on the crossroads between Noto, Siracusa and Marina di Noto resisted till noon, although surrounded, inflicting several casualties on the attackers before being overrun.

British troops and (apparently) Italian POWs on the beach of Avola

Avola itself was garrisoned by two platoons from the 374th Coastal Battalion, commanded by Captain Diego Burgio. The the town’s entrance was defended by a casemate armed with a machine gun of World War I vintage; a few Italian infantrymen in this casemate resisted doggedly for hours, falling one by one, until the only one left was Private Giuseppe Borbone (thirty years old, a Sicilian from Raddusa), who kept firing the old FIAT machine gun until a British soldier managed to work his way around the casemate and stab him in the back. About a hundred meters into the town, at the corner between the main street and Via Dante, another Italian machine-gunner, his name unknown, spiritedly fought back until he was killed as well. After overcoming this obstacle, the British soldiers reached the crossroads between the main street and Via Venezia, where they eliminated some Italian soldiers who had opened fire from a makeshift barricade placed at the crossroads between Via Venezia and Via Cavour. At about 6:30 the British reached Umberto I Square and started to concentrate there the prisoners that they were sweeping up, whom were then marched towards the ships. Other Italian soldiers were sheltered by the local population, who provided them with civilian clothes and helped them escape.

More sparse firefights were fought in various parts of the town. Around ten o’clock, the British assaulted Roadblock No. 458, placed along the highway to Noto, in the hamlet of Santa Venericchia, where Lieutenant Alfonso Passaniti (34 years old, from Butera), Sergeant Gazzetto and thirteen Italian soldiers were killed; the seven surviving defenders, all wounded, were taken prisoner. 

Luigi Adorno

Also killed in this clash was Second Lieutenant Luigi Adorno (25 years old, a Sicilian from Noto), who was wounded and captured but threw a hand grenade against a British vehicle, destroying it and being promptly killed in turn. This strongpoint had repelled, during the previous night, an attack by some American paratroopers.

By noon Avola was entirely in British hands; most of the population had fled to the countryside and to Avola Vecchia, in order to escape the fighting.

The last stand by the Italian troops was fought outside Avola, where Major Fontemaggi and about seventy of his men had barricaded themselves in the battalion headquarters. Among those killed in this last fight were Corporal Giovanni Inglandi and Private Salvatore Rao (29 years old, from Messina), who were both posthumously awarded the Bronze Medal for Military Valor. Lieutenant Calogero Cammarata (31 years old, from San Cataldo, Caltanissetta province), Fontemaggi’s aide, fought back with hand grenades after firing his last bullets. Fontemaggi and his men surrendered at 17:00, when they ran out of ammunition.

The 102nd and 224th Artillery Groups, located respectively south and west of Avola, remained in action throughout the morning; continuously shelled by naval artillery, they were eventually overrun by the British infantry, supported by tanks. The command of the 102nd Group, attacked in Villadorata, retreated to Villa Petrosa in Noto. British motorized patrols cut the links with Vendicari, garrisoned by the 542nd Machine Gun Company of the Guardia alla Frontiera (G.A.F., the Italian Frontier Guard).
In the defense of Avola, the 146th Coastal Regiment had lost some dozen men killed (overall, more than a hundred were killed between Avola and Noto) and a hundred soldiers seriously wounded.

Avola also suffered in civilian deaths: forty-nine of its inhabitants were killed by the heavy bombing raids that preceded the landings, in the night between 9 and 10 July. Another civilian, Salvatore Piccione, died because of an absurd misunderstanding: early in the morning of 10 July, he was walking past the town’s cemetery with his hunting rifle shouldered, when he met some British soldiers who ordered him to drop the weapon. Confused, and not understanding English, he did not comply; he was shot and killed on the spot.

British soldiers and American paratrooper in Avola, 11 July 1943 (IWM)

(main source: Domenico Anfora, "La battaglia degli Iblei")