The landing and the battle for Cassibile and Casanuova

The Acid North and Acid Center subsectors, between Cape Ognina and Cape Negro, target of the British 5th Infantry Division, were defended by four strongpoints manned by soldiers from the Italian 430th Coastal Battalion. From north-east to south-west, these strongpoints were: Santa Teresa Longarini, Torre Cuba, Fontane Bianche (“White Fountains”), and Foce del Cassibile (mouth of the Cassibile river). These strongpoints were covered by three artillery batteries belonging to the 27th 149/35 mm Artillery Group (Major Giuseppe Mineo), the 79th, 80th and 81st, located in their rear. The battery that most concerned the British was the 81st, the one in the highest position, located in the Cafici farm in the hamlet of Spingallo, north of Fontane Bianche.

This battery was one of the two objectives of the No. 3 Commando. At 3:00 in the night of 10 July, 180 British commandos from the No. 3 Commando, led by Lieutenant Colonel John Durnford-Slater, landed near Scoglio Imbiancato (“Whitened Rock”, between Cape Ognina and Fontane Bianche).

They silenced an Italian machine gun position, that had opened fire on them, and then they moved inland, running into a peasant who unwisely fired on them with his double-barreled shotgun and was promptly gunned down in response. They entered the Mortellaro valley, where they could see the 81st Battery firing against the beach; the commandos surrounded the battery and attacked hit with mortar and machine gun fire. Some of the defenders were killed or wounded, many others started to flee towards the 80th Battery (many of these were captured, some discarded their uniform and tried to go back to their homes or sought shelter among local families); in the end only one was left, 29-year-old Private Salvatore Occhipinti, a Sicilian from Ragusa. A small cheese vendor, Occhipinti had been conscripted in the Army in 1940; originally part of the small garrison of Santa Croce Camerina, he had been transferred to the 80th Battery – away from that village – as a punishment for his repeated unauthorized absences, as he often left his post to visit his wife and infant son in Santa Croce Camerina. Now that his battery was under enemy attack, while so many others were fleeing and urging him to do the same, this ‘absentee’ father-soldier remained at his post and stubbornly fought on with his machine gun, for patriotic pride, for fear, for a sudden surge of sense of duty, for reasons that only he knew. Salvatore Occhipinti fought till death; the British later buried his body in a shallow grave behind the farm. The same authorities that had punished him for his ‘excessive’ parental concern now awarded him a posthumous Bronze Medal for Military Valor.

Some ammunition reserves in the battery were hit and caught fire, at which point the commandos assaulted the battery with hand grenades, bayonets and submachine guns, capturing it. The fighting had lasted eighty-five minutes since the moment of the landing; the commandos had lost three men.

The 80th Battery, under Captain Giuseppe Di Lorenzo, was located more to the north-east, in the Platania farm, 4 km from Cassibile. This battery was attacked by about twenty British glider troops from the 1st Airlanding Brigade, led by Colonel Osmond Luxmoore Jones (deputy commander of the brigade). These troops had landed near the farm during the night, had remained hidden until daytime and then attacked the battery at dawn, capturing it at 11:15. Among the defenders, Sergeant Salvatore Duminuco (28 years old, a Sicilian from Sperlinga), whom had been mortally wounded while defending his gun, kept encouraging his men until he succumbed to his wounds; Private Stefano Palminteri (30 years old, also Sicilian, from Ribera) was posthumously awarded a Bronze Medal for Military Valor for his action during the defense of the battery. Lieutenant Luigi Pappalardo, from Palermo, deputy commander of the battery, was seriously wounded in the fight and later awarded a Silver Medal for Military Valor, and Second Lieutenant Ruggerini and artilleryman Sgarlata were also decorated for their spirited defense.

Not much is known about the fate of the 79th Battery, except that it was also taken out during the morning of July 10.

The 1st Squadron of the 2n SAS Regiment, meanwhile, had landed at the mouth of the Cassibile river, circumvented the strongpoint that was located there and captured the important and undamaged bridge on Highway 115, that led to Syracuse.

At the far left of the Italian defensive line, the S. Teresa Longarini stronghold was located, north of Cape Ognina; it was garrisoned by Captain Domenico Valle’s 3rd Company, which held out for the entirety of July 10 and part of July 11, until finally overrun by tanks. The strongpoint was initially assaulted by glider troops, who engaged a fierce battle in the attempt to free some of their men who had been captured by the Italians; the command of the 430th Coastal Battalion sent its cyclist platoon as a reinforcement. Lieutenant Giuseppe Ferrari (a 30-year-old Ligurian, from Genoa), in command of the cyclist platoon, fought his way towards Santa Teresa Longarini and once he got there he managed to stabilize the situation for some time, repelling the attacks for some hours. As several of his men had been killed or wounded and were thus unable to fight on, he armed the civilian workers who had been digging an anti-tank ditch near the strongpoint so that their rifles would not remain unused; he spurred his men to fight on until he was mortally wounded. The last to fall, Colonel Cancellara wrote in his report, was 20-year-old Sergeant Giovanni Cicchetti, an Abruzzese from Pereto, who “defended himself to his last breath, he was found by the military chaplain, don Silvagno, with his throat slit with his own bayonet, which he had used to fight on after running out of ammunition”.

Not very far from there, at a level crossing, 43-year-old Carabiniere Francesco Cascone, from Santa Croce Camerina, who had been sent on patrol in the area where the landings were taking place, engaged a solitary fight against the incoming British troops. He was shot repeatedly and badly wounded, but refused to surrender; he continued to fire back until he was killed by a burst of machine gun.

The Italian strongpoint at Cape Ognina, commanded by 30-year-old Lieutenant Giulio Tartarelli (another Ligurian, apparently like, curiously enogh, more than a few officers in this battalion where most of the rank and file were Sicilian), was quickly destroyed by superior forces of the 17th Infantry Brigade. Seven of the Italian defenders were killed by flamethrowers; Lieutenant Tartarelli, badly wounded and left alone with his orderly, was captured.

The Fontane Bianche beach was assaulted by two battalions from the 17th Brigade. The Italian strongpoint there was manned by 26 men, commanded by 32-year-old Sub-Lieutenant Delio Bertolini, a Tuscan from Apuania; they resisted for several hours, and were finally overrun after fourteen of them had been killed, including Bertolini, and most of the survivors were wounded.

The third echelon of the 3rd Army Commando, led by Major Peter Young, had been mistakenly landed in Fontane Bianche and started its march towards its designated objective, Torre Cuba, to the north-east. This consisted of a well-fortified strongpoint, located in a commanding position and defended by 53 men with four machine guns, one at each corner. This Italian garrison had already repelled an attack by two patrols from the 17th Infantry Brigade, that had also come there from Fontane Bianche, and captured some dispersed British glider soldiers. Major Young deployed his men and then assaulted the position with Bren guns and hand grenades, under fire from the Italian machine guns. Within fifteen minutes, Young’s commandos burst into the strongpoint and captured it; in the brief struggle eight Italians and one commando were wounded, as was a British glider soldier, prisoner of the Italians, who was hit by a stray shot. The commandos then proceeded towards Torre Ognina, where they demanded the surrender of the small Italian garrison of 17 men, who laid down their arms without resistance.

Major Federico’s 430th Coastal Battalion fought rather doggedly in Cassibile and Casanuova.

These two towns were attacked by three battalions of the British 17th Infantry Brigade: the 2nd Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers; the 2nd Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment; and the 6th Battalion, Seafort Highlanders, that had overcome the resistance on the Fontane Bianche beach.

For a change, the Italian resistance is acknowledged even by the British side, in the memoirs of a Scot soldier who was there and was evidently uninformed, unlike some armchair historians, that the wops were supposed to have come out with their hands raised, eager to be taken out of the war. Then-sergeant James (Jim) Stockman, of the 6th Seaforth Highlanders, later recalled the battle for Cassibile in his book “Seaforth Highlanders 1939-1945: A Fighting Soldier Remembers”. In his memoir book, Stockman recalled that immediately after the landing his battalion had headed towards Casanuova, east of Cassibile, where it was met with strong Italian resistance. The Seaforth Highlanders managed to break this resistance with the help of a company from the 2nd Northampton, which carried out a converging manoeuvre in order to cover the Seaforth’s attack. Once they had stabilized the bridgehead and overcome a number of clashes with Italian infantry and artillery, the three battalions readied themselves for the assault, that would be carried out with the light of the day. Stockman considered it unlucky that Cassibile and its adjacent crossroads were located within his battalion’s landing area, as both of them were tenaciously defended by an Italian machine gun company, supported by tanks, howitzers and high caliber guns, all of them directly pointed at the beaches; this initially caused considerable losses, while they (the Seaforth) were frustrated by the apparent absence of their own artillery. Not even the Navy could help them, as naval guns risked to hit them as well, besides the enemy. It took three bloody hours for the Seaforth Highlanders to take Cassibile and silence those guns, which costed the Scots 40 casualties, including three officers killed.

So far, Stockman’s memoirs.

Damocle Marcuccetti, a Ligurian from Rivarolo Ligure, was a 42-year-old Lieutenant called back from the reserve; his strongpoint was attacked by paratroopers and fought back till annihilation. His corpse was found still holding his machine gun, at the mouth of the Cassibile river; sprawled around him were the lifeless bodies of seven of his men.

Corporal Bruno Agosti, a 29 year-old Venetian corporal from Caprino Veronese, was killed in action along with another six men while stubbornly defending the Cassibile roadblock against superior forces; many others were wounded, several of them seriously.

By 10:00 British troops had captured Cassibile and a considerable part of the state highway, as far as a few kilometres south of Syracuse. At 10:08 Admiral Troubridge was able to tell Montgomery that all the beaches had been captured and that enemy fire had ceased, save for some small pockets of resistance. The 151st Brigade was advancing towards Noto, the 17th towards Syracyse, whereas the 15th garrisoned the bridgehead. The 13th Brigade would be landed in the afternoon, with the task of taking Floridia.

Despite the fact that after the war the new Italian government recommended, for political reasons (as if the soldiers could be faulted for obeying their commands and government, which at the time, and until September 8, 1943, were still at war with the Allies), “special parsimony” in awarding decorations for actions that had taken place during the Sicilian campaign, a total of six Silver Medals and six Bronze Medals for Military Valor were awarded to men of the 430th Coastal Battalion; all but two of them were posthumous.

(Main source: Domenico Anfora, “La battaglia degli Iblei”)