The landing in Scoglitti and the fighting near Santa Croce Camerina

From the mouth of the Dirillo River to Braccetto Point, the beaches were defended by the men of the 178th Infantry Regiment of Colonel Tommaso Franceschelli, part of the 18th Coastal Brigade. The 178th was headquartered in Vittoria and deployed two infantry battalions on the beaches: to the west, from the mouth of the Dirillo to Cape Camarina, the 389th Battalion of Major Roccuzzo, headquartered in Scoglitti; to the east, between Cape Camarina and Braccetto Point, the 501th Battalion of Major Zotta, headquartered in Fattoria Randello. The 537th Machine Gun Company was scattered along the coast.

East of Braccetto Point began the sector of General D’Havet’s 206th Coastal Division, which between Secca Point and the mouth of the Irminio river deployed Lieutenant Colonel Milazzo’s 383rd Battalion (four companies and a cyclist platoon, overall 600 men) and the 511st Machine Gun Company with headquarters in Santa Croce Camerina, reinforced by a 81 mm mortar platoon with two mortars. The artillery in the sector held by the 178th consisted of two 75/27 mm batteries of Lieutenant Colonel Lauritana’s 21st Group (6th Artillery Group, Colonel Giustino Freda). From west to east the following batteries were deployed: the 451st was divided between Casa Strasattata and Zafaglione Point (southwest of Vittoria), the 288th was at Cape Camarina (mouth of the Ippari river, south of Vittoria), the 452nd at Braccetto Point (a little to the west of Santa Croce Camerina. In the sector held by the 383rd Coastal Battalion (123rd Coastal Regiment) the 73rd Battery was deployed, with four 149/35 mm guns (25th Artillery Group), part of the Cozzo Cappello stronghold, east of Santa Croce. A 75/27 mm gun, not part of a battery, was placed at Secca Point with a dual task, both anti-landing and anti-tank; a 47/32 mm gun was placed in Roadblock 451, between Santa Croce and Secca Point, and another was at Roadblock 452, on the Ragusa-Marina di Ragusa-Scicli-Santa Croce crossroads.

Soldiers of the 383rd Coastal Battalion.

When the American 157th Infantry Regiment landed, the captured the beach after overcoming a weak resistance. The Cape Camerina battery was captured, whereas the Scoglitti battery fought back; in this battery an artilleryman, who panicked at the sight of the huge enemy invasion fleet, tried to flee and was killed by his captain with his handgun. The battery opened fire on the landing craft and hit seven of them, until gunfire from the American ships hit and disabled it. The Braccetto Point, Zafaglione Point and Casa Strasattata batteries were neutralized after an hour of shelling.

Colonel Giuseppe Primaverile, in command of the 123rd Coastal Regiment with headquarters in Scicli (the regiment occupied the stretch of coast from Punta Religione to the mouth of the Irminio river, where no enemy landing took place), received a phone call from an outpost that had been captured by American paratroopers; the man at the other end of the line, who by his voice seemed an Italian American, flattered his military valor and suggested that he should better surrender, or else. Primaverile instead ordered a counterattack, which led to the capture of a hundred paratroopers, who were handed over to the Carabinieri of Scicli. Some hours later, the roles would be reversed, and it would come Primaverile’s turn to end in captivity.

“Before dawn on 10 July”, Colonel Primaverile wrote in his report, “the two battalion commanders reported that numerous enemy ships were in the sea off the coast, to the east and to the west. I informed the divisional command, then I ordered the group and battalion commands to open fire as soon as the enemy ships would come within the range of the guns. The first battery to open fire was the 74th, at 4:00, when the enemy ships had closed enought to the coast and had dropped anchor to commence the landing operations. The fire was very effective, as the sea in front of the beach of Scoglitti was packed with enemy ships, estimated to be about 800 [probably exaggerated]. Seven ships were hit, as reported by the Punta Secca naval observation post. The 74th Battery was targeted by naval artillery and silenced after a few shots. The emplacements, the guns, the ammunition depots were destroyed. Losses among the personnel were heavy, as I later learned in captivity; two officers and a dozen of artillerymen killed, many more wounded”.

Resistance in Scoglitti was scarce. The Italian soldiers who had survived the naval bombardment were stunned and discouraged, and many surrendered when the landing troops of the 45th Division arrived; the others were easily overcome. The Americans lost 27 men killed or drowned.

Near Villa Criscione, on the road between Santa Croce Camerina and Marina di Ragusa, Roadblock 452 was located, commanded by 24-year-old Lieutenant Giuseppe Saija from Messina (123rd Coastal Regiment) and armed with one anti-tank gun, two machine guns and some rifles. During the night and the following morning, the roadblock was first attacked by dozens of American paratroopers, and then by troops from the 45th Division; Saija’s men – a command platoon that had been hastily repurposed into a machine gun platoon – repelled several attacks, and the lieutenant himself was wounded in the action. Colonel Primaverile sent reinforcements to help this stronghold, but they were intercepted and destroyed en route by American troops; he requested the divisional command to send more troops, but he was told that there were no more reserves. Primaverile then turned to the Ragusa Military District and asked for help; the district sent a truck with fifty men led by a Captain, but they too ran into American soldiers, who inflicted serious losses upon them and prevented them from reaching Roadblock 452.

Lieutenant Antonio De Franciscis of the 383rd Coastal Battalion, 123rd Coastal Regiment (28 years old, from Noto), in command of a cyclist platoon who had been sent to reinforce the roadblock, was encircled with his men by American troops, but was able to break the encirclement; the cyclists reached their destination and joined the defenders of the roadblock, where they held out for several hours, until they ran out of ammunition. The anti-tank gun and the machine guns fired until the last bullet, then the defenders used hand grenades for the last defense; the attackers were supported by mortars and tanks.

After prolonged resistance, the soldiers of the 45th Division finally captured the roadblock at 13:00 on 10 July. Of the soldiers in the roadblock, three had been killed and a dozen wounded in the fighting; on the Italian side it was estimated that about thirty Americans had been killed, but this may be an exaggerated estimate. One of the defenders of Lt. Sajia’s roadblock, 31-year-old Corporal Rosario Granata from Castel di Judica (Catania), was awarded the Silver Medal for Military Valor for his behaviour: he personally fired a machine gun, inflicting casualties on the attackers who were trying to encircle the roadblock, until he was seriously wounded; even then, he refused to leave his weapon and had to be forcefully carried away to a dressing station.

The soldiers of Roadblock 452 with their chaplain.

More to the west, American paratroopers eliminated the command of the 501st Coastal Battalion in the Randello farm, owned by marquis Arezzo.

More American paratroopers were meanwhile operating behind the Italian first line; the Italian soldiers in the area, who expected that the enemy would come from the sea, were caught by surprise when they were attacked by the paras that came from the opposite direction. In Santa Croce Camerina, the command of the 383rd Coastal Battalion (held by the 53-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Francesco Milazzo, from Palermo), reinforced by some Carabinieri and about fifteen civilian volunteers armed with rifles and hand grenades (including a Giovanni Giannone and an old sea captain, named Marinelli), skirmished with the paras, killing or capturing several of them. Meanwhile the American troops of the 45th Division, supported by some tanks, advanced towards this town, whose defense mainly consisted of two roadblocks: one of them was located at Villa Comitini and was manned by 22 men, commanded by Captain Vincenzo Serra (commander of the 3rd Company of the 383rd Coastal Battalion); the other was located in the hamlet of Case Camemi and was manned by fifteen soldiers of the 511th Machine Gun Company (belonging to the "Guardia alla Frontiera", the Italian Border Guard, but attached to the 123rd Coastal Regiment), commanded by Lieutenant Giunio Sella.

The soldiers of "Caposaldo Case Camemi".

The American attack began at 7:30; both strongholds were overrun after a dogged resistance. Both Captain Serra and Lieutenant Sella were among the dead.

Lieutenant Giunio Sella, unlike most of the officers and men in the Coastal Divisions, was not a Sicilian. Aged 31, he hailed from the village of Quarone Sesia, in the Piedmontese province of Vercelli in north-western Italy: basically from the opposite end of the Italian peninsula.

On the morning of 10 July, some peasants who had gone to their fields to reap the wheat – as always, as if an invasion wasn’t underway – noticed two American paratroopers hiding below a carob tree. The peasants ran to Villa Spadola, where Lieutenant Sella had established the headquarters of his little unit, and informed him of their find. Sella rushed upstairs, looked out of the window and shouted “Halt!”, his gun aimed at some paratroopers; he was immediately shot, and tumbled down the stairs, mortally wounded. Members of the Spadola family carried him to a bed, where he first asked for water, then he asked them to write to his mother. He died shortly thereafter; the Spadolas wrapped his body in a bed sheet and was buried him in a nearby field, where they erected a simple gravestone.

Lieutenant Giunio Sella, killed at Case Camemi (Santa Croce Camerina) on 10 July 1943.

Captain Vincenzo Serra, instead, was a Sicilian; aged 46, he hailed from Roccapalumba, a village in the province of Palermo. He had received the order to “resist on the spot” and carried it out; with his stronghold surrounded by dozens of paratroopers, he rejected several demands to surrender and fought back throughout the night, repelling attacks launched from three sides, until ten in the morning of 10 July. In the end, he was mortally wounded by a burst of machine gun while firing a submachine gun on the assailants. The owner of Villa Comitini, Giorgio Comitini, rode off on horse to look for the village’s doctor, but when he arrived on the site it was too late. It was Comitini who took upon himself the task to write a letter to Serra’s family, informing them of the fate of their relative. Serra’s body was dumped in a mass grave, but Comitini retrieved it and later delivered the remains to the family.

Captain Vincenzo Serra, killed at Santa Croce Camerina on 10 July 1943.

In the afternoon, the commander of the 383rd Coastal Battalion decided to retreat to the north, after being insistently urged to do so by the village’s parish priest, Don Vincenzino Di Quattro, who feared a massacre of the inhabitants if the village was to become a battleground. Lieutenant Colonel Milazzo would be later captured along with many of his men. At 15:45 the American troops entered Santa Croce Camerina.

The remains of the soldiers killed at Case Camemi and Roadblock 452 were buried by the locals in a mass grave in a nearby field. More bodies, strewn around in Santa Croce Camerina and its hamlets, were collected by garbage trucks and buried in another mass grave in the town’s cemetery. Others yet lay unburied for days in the surrounding countryside, half-devoured by stray dogs. An unknown soldier, killed by a hand grenade in a pillbox near the fence of Villa Criscione, was buried there at the foot of a dry-stone wall. The body of Private Giorgio Leone, a 31-year-old Sicilian from Modica, was found in the hamlet of Pianicella, near Camemi, and buried in the Ragusa cemetery; the body of Private Giuseppe Drago, 29, from Comiso (Ragusa), killed in action on 10 July at Kilometre 10 on the Comiso-Santa Croce di Camerina provincial road, was buried on the spot. The remains of Antonino Carnemolla, a 41-year-old guardia di finanza from Ragusa, were retrieved on 3 December 1943, nearly five months after his death; those of Corporal Enrico Gigliolini (from Ascoli Piceno in the Marche region, central Italy) were found in the countryside near the hamlet of Cozzo Telegrafo in 1947, four years after the invasion of Sicily. The body of 29-year-old Private Giuseppe Rinaldi, from Nissoria, who was killed in action at Roadblock 452 (he was a member of Lt. De Franciscis' cyclist platoon), was never found; his son Filippo, who was four months old at the time, only learned about the place and circumstances of his father’s death after seventy years.

Private Giuseppe Rinaldi, killed at Roadblock 452 (Santa Croce Camerina) on 10 July 1943.

The exact number of Italian soldiers who died in the fighting in the area of Santa Croce Camerina is not known; local researchers have identified many of them over the last years, especially among the soldiers who hailed from Sicily, but many others remain unknown. Among those identified, besides Captain Serra and Lieutenant Sella, are Corporal Enrico Gigliolini, Private Emanuele Lombardo (31 years old, a Sicilian from Vizzini), Corporal Alfio Abate (44 years old, a Sicilian from Bronte), Private Giovanni Cencic (33 years old, from Caporetto/Kobarid in the Julian March, now Slovenia), Private Vittorio Corte (also 33, a Piedmontese from Terzo), Private Angelo Del Bene (35 years old, a Campanian from Marcianise), Private Giuseppe Di Caro (31 years old, a Sicilian from Siracusa), Private Giuseppe Di Pietro (28 years old, a Sicilian from Buscemi), Private Giuseppe Drago, Corporal Giovanni Maglione (34 years old, a Piedmontese from Borgomasino), Corporal Vincenzo D’Addetta (46 years old, an Apulian from Carpino), Private Umberto Scaranto (20 years old, a Venetian from Baone), Private Ennio Buralo, all killed in Santa Croce Camerina; guardie di finanza Antonino Carnemolla and Salvatore Tribastone (47 years old, a Sicilian from Ragusa), killed while opposing the landings at Braccetto Point; Private Giorgio Leone (31 years old, a Sicilian from Modica) of the 361st Anti-Paratrooper Squad and Private Vincenzo Borcellato, killed in Marina di Ragusa; Private Gaetano Licitra (31 years old, a Sicilian from Acate), Private Franco Bovi (23 years old, a Lombard from San Benedetto Po), Private Arcangelo Cartiglia (31 years old, a Sicilian from Ragusa), Private Giuseppe Casiraro (31 years old, a Sicilian from Modica), Private Mario Cinnirella (35 years old, a Sicilian from Caltagirone), Private Pasquale Cocchiara (33 years old, a Sicilian from Vittoria), Private Primo Dell’Ospedale (35 years old, an Emilian from San Clemente), Private Giuseppe Denaro (31 years old, a Sicilian from Modica), Private Giombattista Di Martino (31 years old, a Sicilian from Comiso), Private Angelo Emanuello (34 years old, a Sicilian from Grammichele), Private Gaetano Laporta (30 years old, a Sicilian from Barrafranca), Private Giovanni Lentini (35 years old, a Sicilian from Vizzini), Second Lieutenant Salvatore Nicosia (49 years old, a Sicilian from Chiaramonte Gulfi), Private Biagio Occhipinti (31 years old, a Sicilian from Comiso), Private Giorgio Occhipinti (31 years old, a Sicilian from Ragusa), Private Amedeo Pieri (36 years old, an Emilian from Cesena), Private Sebastiano Pizzimento (31 years old, a Sicilian from Militello), Private Salvatore Sottosanti (30 years old, a Sicilian from Ramacca), Private Guglielmo Spadola (30 years old, a Sicilian from Modica), Private Giuseppe Terravazzi (31 years old, a Lombard from Caronno Pertusella), all killed on 10 July in Scoglitti. Private Giovanni Landro (30 years old, a Sicilian from Santa Domenica Vittoria), wounded in action, who died on 3 August in Field Hospital No. 5.

Many others were declared missing, their remains buried in unmarked spots of the Sicilian countryside: Private Giuseppe Rinaldi, Corporal Antonino Lorefice (29 years old, a Sicilian from Scicli), Private Nicolantonio Carrozza (35 years old, a Campanian from Campolattaro), Private Salvatore Di Francesco (26 years old, a Neapolitan from Calandrino), Private Vito Gravina (28 years old, a Sicilian from Chiaramonte Gulfi), Private Silvino Martinetti (33 years old, a Piedmontese from Camburzano), Private Angelo Ragaglia (a Sicilian from Lentini, who was killed just five days before his 30th birthday), all of whom became missing in the area of Santa Croce Camerina. Some others survived the fighting only to die in captivity in North Africa, such as Private Giuseppe Michele Bassis, Private Settimio Fiani, Private Giuseppe Gullotta, Private Giovanni Messina.

Around 18:00 a group of American paratroopers of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment occupied the village of Marina di Ragusa, a little to the east of Cape Scalambri; at the same time, the Secca Point stronghold and Roadblock 451, south of Santa Croce, that had been reinforced by Italian Navy personnel, also fell. At 19:00, after spirited fighting, naval gunfire finally silenced the 73rd 149/35 Battery. The Cozzo Capello stronghold (Captain Guglielmo Tarro), of which this battery was part, held out until eleven in the following morning, when Tarro and his men surrendered after destroying the surviving guns and burning some secret documents.

Fighting took place in Donnalucata between the 2nd Company of the 381st Coastal Battalion (reinforced by sailors and by 27 armed civilians) and American paratroopers. The Italian soldiers of the 389th Coastal Battalion had tried to oppose the enemy landing, but their resistance had been sporadic and ineffectual. After overcoming the coastal defenders, at 14:00 the Americans captured the village of Scoglitti and its anchorage, and the 179th RCT advanced towards Vittoria with a pincer movement, along Highway 115 on the left and along the Scoglitti-Vittoria road on the right. No more obstacles stood in their way now; at 14:00 the first troops of the 179th RCT entered Vittoria from Via Milano, where they fought a skirmish with a small group of retreating Italian and German soldiers. After capturing the town, they proceeded towards Acate.

The fighting in this area is thoroughly described in the book “La battaglia degli Iblei” by Domenico Anfora, who during his research cross-referenced Italian, American, British and German documents. On the American side, Samuel M. Mitcham and Friedrich von Stauffenberg in their book “The Battle for Sicily” brush off the fighting near Scoglitti and Santa Croce Camerina with the following description: “…meanwhile, despite the confusion on the beaches, Colonel C. M. Ankcorn got elements of his 157th RCT moving inland on the morning of D-Day. Advancing quickly, he captured his first objective, the town of Santa Croce Camerina, at about noon. It was not much of a battle because there were no Germans in this sector and the Italians (the 501st Coastal Defense Battalion) were putting up only perfunctory resistance. As the Americans approached the town, white flags began to appear. Five hundred Italians surrendered and others took to the hills. Ankcorn was joined in the village by a battalion-sized contingent of U.S. paratroopers, who had earlier captured the nearby village of Marina di Ragusa and frightened the defenders of Cape Scaramia (the Italian 383rd Coastal Defense Battalion, on the extreme right wing of the 206th Coastal Defense Division) into surrender or retreat. About two hours later, at 2 P .M ., the 1st Battalion of the 179th RCT finally captured Scoglitti from the rapidly disintegrating 389th Coastal Defense Battalion of Colonel Sebastianello’s 178th Coastal Defense Regiment”. Von Stauffenberg, a German, is hell-bent on showing that his countrymen successfully defended Sicily for weeks against overwhelming odds and despite the ineptitude and cowardice of their Italian allies – a common refrain among German historians, always seeking to blame any defeat on their allies (especially if Italian, but this has been historically extended to Romanians, Austro-Hungarians, Hungarians, and others, depending on the war Germany lost). Samuel W. Mitcham is one in many American historians enamoured with the Wehrmacht, always ready to take any German source as the Holy Bible and apparently not even aware of the existance of Italian sources. After all, in his “Blitzkrieg no longer” Mitcham goes on to describe how Italian deserters looted the Sicilian villages they passed through, while in reality anyone who will take some time to inquire – whether from official documents or from old Sicilians who can still remember – who carried out widespread looting, and to a lesser extent rape and murder of Sicilian civilians, will easily find the answer: enraged German soldiers. This is happened in Pedara, Castiglione di Sicilia, Mascalucia, Randazzo, Adrano, Biancavilla, Calatabiano, Pedara, Belpasso, Valverde, Trecastagni and other towns and villages, and is well documented; but Mitcham could never believe that his noble German soldier, fighting for the Fatherland and even his inept Italian allies, could ever do such a thing. He wasn’t a Nazi, after all.
Samuel Eliot Morison, in “Sicily-Salerno-Anzio”, is even more dismissive.

Letter from a seaman in Palermo

From a letter written by an unnamed Leading Seaman of the Royal Italian Navy, of Sicilian origin and stationed in Sicily, to his girlfriend, July 1943:

“…with this state of affairs ends my existence, and with it all my hopes, work and goal of so many years of sacrifice. I want you to know that never did I breach my duty as a soldier, I fought till today and I am still alive by sheer miracle. Everyone abandoned us and you can imagine how much death, destruction and despair. We are at the mercy of fate, without any hope except for our life, which we barely hold on to. We fell back due to lack of means to fight, not for cowardice on our part. We fought with rifles alone against tanks, we got slaughtered and now we are here for the last defense of Palermo, and like everyone I am waiting, abandoned even by the Italian soldiers, since all is left for us is the defense of the land. I have the possibility of escaping on the motor barges, but what would be the point? I have received no news from mother since May 25 and I was unable to see her when I was in Messina. I along with another two guys from Messina will try the last card, if I will succeed I will see our dear city, otherwise I will die. I will try to cross the enemy lines heading for Messina, last bastion in Sicily, I say last bastion because as I am writing you, my Italian-German comrades are destroying depots and military works. I follow the fate of my land. Forgive me, may God help you and protect you. Think of me every now and then”.

This letter was censored by military censorship at the time. Recently published by historian Fabio De Ninno.

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

The fall of Palermo and the story of Second Lieutenant Sergio Barbadoro

An American M.P. standing on a pile of Italian rifles and helmets after the fall of Palermo, July 1943.

Palermo, while having a great moral and propaganda value due to it being the capital and largest city of Sicily, held a low strategic importance for the control of the island. Consequentially, the forces allocated for its defense – codenamed Difesa Porto «N», «N» Harbour Defence – were scarce both in number and armament: four coastal battalions; a group (battalion) of dismounted cavalry; two machine gun companies; one 81 mm mortar company; one group of 100/27 mm guns from the 25th Artillery Regiment, "Assietta" Division. The city was also defended by four coastal batteries and seventeen anti-aircraft batteries, three of which could be used both in anti-aircraft and anti-ship fire.

Overall, these troops equalled about two regiments in number. Their commander was Brigadier General Giuseppe Molinero, a former Bersaglieri officer who had fought during World War I, when he had received a scar that disfigured his left cheek, but now he was 59 years old, his days of glory well behind him.

Molinero had been ordered by General Guzzoni, commander of the Sixth Army, to defend Palermo to the last, but the Navy, the Air Force and the Germans had cared to show him how much faith they had in his possibilities of holding the city: the Port Captaincy personnel left on a ship headed for Naples; the commander of the Boccadifalco air base had the fuel and bomb dumps set afire without even asking him; and at dawn on 22 July Colonel Mayer, in command of the 88 mm German batteries that had been deployed to Palermo to bolster the meagre Italian anti-tank defences, had his artillery pieces destroyed and left the city with all his men. As it happened almost everywhere during the Sicilian campaign, the Fascists were among the first to flee: the prefect and the federal secretary of the Fascist Party had quietly left the city on the night between 19 and 20 July, having sought permission to do so by Molinero right after hearing the news of the landing. The rumors had spread, and half of the personnel manning the anti-aircraft batteries – belonging to the Milizia Difesa Contraerea Territoriale, a locally recruited branch of the Blackshirt militia – had deserted on the same day and gone home.

After all of this happened, one may imagine what could be the state of mind of the ragtag defenders of Palermo.

The defense plan called for a series of roadblocks on the roads that led to the city from different directions; each roadblock was manned by an infantry company, plus one or more artillery companies with anti-tank functions.

General Patton’s corps, after overcoming the Italian resistance in the Agrigento area after a week of fighting, advanced along the road towards Palermo. The American troops converged on Palermo with a pincer movement, from the west and from the east. On 21 July they captured the commander of the 208th Coastal Division, General Giovanni Marciani, and his entire staff in their headquarters in Alcamo.

General Molinero had placed a company of infantrymen and a battery of artillery in Portella della Torretta, on the road to Montelepre, and had a few pieces of carriageway blown up.

The Americans were getting closer and closer.

On July 22, the Americans advanced on two columns. The first column, after noon, defeated the defenders of Portella di Mare and then proceeded from Villabate, rather slowly, towards the city. At five o'clock in the afternoon, it stopped in a coastal village.

On the other side, in the morning, the second column advanced on the road to San Giuseppe Jato, and was stopped for several hours on those turns by an infantry company supported by a 100/17 gun, commanded by Second Lieutenant Sergio Barbadoro, of the 25th Artillery Regiment, "Assietta" Division. They passed when they had killed almost all of them, a memorial stone forgotten by most recalls the heroic and useless sacrifice of Barbadoro and his men. Every year, someone puts a bunch of flowers next to the small monument, last year there was a red rose. Who is it? 
Dr. Salvatore Demma, a surgeon, has been wondering about this for years. From family history, he knows something more about Barbadoro than the fragments of history contained in some books. Dr. Demma says: "My father Antonino Demma, a doctor, in those years was, in additional to the political secretary of the Fascist Party in Monreale, also the orthopedic consultant of the Casa del Sole (House of the Sun), the institution that took care of polio children or other serious orthopedic problems. In the summer, the Casa opened the colony of Giacalone. On that morning of July 22nd, Second Lieutenant Barbadoro, a Tuscan from Sesto Fiorentino, (who knew him remembered him as an handsome young man), had gone to the colony.

He was engaged to a nurse. The poor girl tried in every way to convince him not to go away, in tears she asked my father for help, to help convince him. My father, even if he had been a Fascist since 1923, had not willingly accepted the alliance with Germany and the war had seemed to him a senseless adventure. All the more so now that the impossibility of resisting the tide of men and tanks of the Allies was evident. “Stay here with your men, take off your uniform, I'll give you a white coat, it's easy to pass you off as nurses. What's the use of going to die?” The Second Lieutenant shook his head and left. His men followed him. They went to die. In Giacalone we have a house, in the country, we go there in summer. I always go to Portella della Paglia, visiting the memorial stone: in memory of my father, who by coincidence strangely died on July 21 ten years ago, sometimes I even bring his daughters. Every year, those flowers. Who knows who brings them. 
Perhaps the fiancée of that time, of which I never knew the name and I would not know who to ask, those who worked at the Casa del Sole, are almost all dead. After overwhelming the post of Barbadoro, the Americans passed by the barracks of the Colony. They could be mistaken for a military camp and gunfire started from the leading tank, which crossed the entire field without doing too much damage. The Americans remained bewildered when the children came out of the barracks. When they left, they left a lot of presents... ». Lieutenant Barbadoro was posthumously awarded the Silver Medal of Military Valor. The soldiers taken prisoner were taken to Giacalone, where they were seen by the war correspondent of the “Life” magazine, Jack Belden, who in his article on those events he wrote: "Amid the cheering and welcoming, a column of Italian soldiers marched up the side of the road with their arms raised on their heads. I saw one violently cursing as a civilian joyously threw a watermelon in my lap. Another soldier walked with tears streaming down his face. Other soldiers dragged their feet uphill toward our rear, with dumb and stupefied expression on their faces as they saw the people acclaiming the invaders and conquerors whom a few moments before they had been trying to keep out of this town. Never had I seen a more pitiful sight. The Italian soldiers, as they marched through ranks of their countrymen who were cheering for soldiers of another nation, must have felt bitter indeed." (It is of note that, in Belden’s article, Barbadoro’s gun and its defender become “German” – evidently Allied wartime press could not concede that such a spirited resistance could come from Italians). The same concepts, in an unadorned military – bureaucratic prose, were read by General Badoglio on the report that the Supreme Command submitted to him at the end of August: "Object. Morale of the troops ... The news on the far from proud and patriotic behavior of some fractions of the Sicilian population, brought by the units that escaped from Sicily, have spread. It is also in the public domain that some units made up of Sicilian elements dissolved before meeting the enemy (among others, an entire Blackshirt battalion, commander included)".

The first American patrols entered Palermo in the afternoon: they came from different directions, so they challenged each other over the “conquest” of the city. Around seven o'clock in the evening, General Keyes accepted the unconditional surrender of the Commander of Defense Port "N", General Molinero. "Go," Patton had told him, in an impetus of magnanimity, "take it..."

General Molinero, right, surrenders Palermo to General Keyes, left. Photo by Robert Capa

In Palermo, as in all of Sicily, the truths were many. There were the soldiers who, doing their duty, fought the Allies and there were those who, doing a specular and opposite duty, did something to stop the already troubled Italian-German war machine, which for them was Nazi - Fascist. One of them was Franco Grasso, a professor and art critic and at the time a young leader of the clandestine Sicilian Communist Party. In addition to going around the countryside riding a horse to distribute a flyer signed by the Liberation Committee - "Sicilians, welcome with friendship and dignity the Allies who come to free us from the Fascist dictatorship" – he had prevented the destruction of the quays of the harbor. A shipyard worker had been instructed by the Germans to transport and bury some very heavy and very suspicious crates in the port area. He was certain that there was explosive: he spoke with the trade unionist Aurelio Attardi. Attardi spoke to Grasso who, together with his companion Ignazio Dell'Aira, decided to act. They had learned that the Germans had passed a system of electric cables, which ran from the Boccadifalco airport, into a railway tunnel that connected the harbour and the Lolli station. From the balcony of his apartment on Piazza Amendola, Franco Grasso pointed to the place where the tunnel led, a few meters after the intersection of Dante Street with Sammartino Street. Grasso and Dell'Aira waited for the two Germans to go to dinner, entered the tunnel and cut the cables. Of course, it was not just that cable that connected the destruction system for the port area, the fuel depots, the infrastructure. The destruction had been planned since July 15: the south pier, the breakwater and the north pier had been mined; and the Navy had been requested to block the entrance by scuttling ships. A swarm of orders, as peremptory as unheard, for «the immediate destruction» was branched out between July 21st and 22nd by the Army General Staff and by the commander of the 6th Army to the various sector commands. Some orders did not arrive, others perhaps yes. The fact is that no mine was detonated. The Americans found the docks of the port intact, apart from the damage caused by aerial bombardments. After the last skirmishes with the dismounted squadrons of the Palermo cavalry regiment and the pathetic companies of motorized machine gunners, commanded by Major Mistretta (from the name, perhaps Sicilian), the American motorized armored columns made their "official" entry into Palermo. At half past seven on the 22nd of July, the Port Defense Command ceased to exist. And Patton had his first city: strategically, insignificant; psychologically, a bad blow to the faltering fate of Fascism and its leader, who in fact three days later received a vote of no confidence by the Grand Council, resigned from his position and was arrested by the police.

The bombing of Messina and the recollections of Francesco Alliata di Villafranca, Italian Army's cinematographer

Francesco Alliata di Villafranca, a young member of the old Sicilian nobility, had been called up for service as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Sixth Army. Having always had a burning passion for filmmaking, he had managed to persuade his superiors to put him in charge of a small Army film and photographic unit; in this role, he found himself in Sicily, his birthplace, at the time of the Allied invasion. He was not the only member of the Alliata family to participate in the battle for Sicily: his cousin Giovanni Alliata di Montereale was also serving as a Lieutenant in the 54th Infantry Regiment, 54th "Napoli" Division, and would be wounded in action and captured on 13 July 1943, near Solarino.

Francesco Alliata narrates his experience of those days in his autobiographic book “Il Mediterraneo era il mio regno: Memorie di un aristocratico siciliano”. He had already been stationed in Palermo for many months before the Allied landing, witnessing the increasing intensity of the Allied bombings, aimed both at destroying and disrupting Axis military installations and communications in the island, and demoralising the Sicilian population. Then the Allies landed:

“On 11 July [1943] I was trying to reach, along with my subordinates, the southern coast of Sicily, where the invasion had just begun, when [the soldiers] at a roadblock between Licata and Gela confiscated all my filmmaking equipment. Colonel Faldella, who had given that order, which I found incomprehensible, would later explain to me: “Frankly, Lieutenant, it seemed absurd to me that we should record our own defeat on film”. Sicily was, by then, completely worn-out. Even Messina, after Palermo, had been turned into a pile of rubble, its fault lying in being located on the Straits, home to the myths of Ulysses and Peix Nicolau, but also a strategic passage for shipping lanes between the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian Sea. They said it had been the most bombed city in Italy: four time from the sea, and 2,805 from the sky (in the first week of August alone, the Flying Fortresses carried out 346 attacks, overall dropping 6,452 tons of bombs).

In June 1943 I had been right in Messina, to film the bombings. Almost every evening, as the British aircraft attacked at night – the American ones, instead, did it during daytime – I climbed on the mountain till Fort Gonzaga, where the spotters of the Anti-Aircraft Defence had installed themselves. The fort owed its name to the Spanish viceroy that had built it in 1540. There, in 1861, four thousand soldiers of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had been besieged for months, awaiting for the royal permission to surrender, but Francis II of Bourbon was already in exile in Rome and his Kingdom did not exist anymore.

The spotters, ingenious and very good at their work, belonged to the “Voluntary Militia for National Security” [aka the Blackshirts, a.n.], “Mussolini’s Army”, in endless competition with the Italian Armed Forces.

They detected the sound of the [bombers’] engines, coming from the sky, with an extravagant sound collector: a World War I helmet that, being turned towards the low wall that delimited the fortress’ emplacement, reflected the noises. Then, they just had to analyse the sounds and phone the data in to the AA defense headquarters, that along with the guns was hidden in the caves at the foot of the rock. The language was conventional: “Lieutenant, sir, they are three aircraft coming from the south, eleve o’clock”. The British air force, heavily committed to the war against Hitler, only sent against Messina two or three aircraft at most, but the attacks weren’t any less savage than the ones carried out by the Americans and, since they came at night, in order to locate the areas where they thought they would to the most damage the British dropped some sort of “lanterns” that, hanging on a parachute, descended slowly, lighting little by little the areas that were to be bombed.

(…)

When the British, on 13 June, hit the Messina Cathedral, I was already at Forte Gonzaga, so, upon seeing the flames from up there, I hurried down to film… Those were upsetting shots, but wonderful from a professional point of view: the Cathedral had caught fire, the church’s beams burned and collapsed, in the chapels the sculptures crumbled, disfigured by the heat. The firefighters tried to chase me away, even by pointing some hydrants against me. My soaked boots made “grisc-grosc”. The firefighters kept making wild gestures to me: “Go away, go away!”, and they shot water on me. I was soaked wet,  but I only left the Cathedral when I thought it suitable, to do some shots from the outside. At dawn I saw the Archbishop of Messina, Monsignor Paino, whom had just recently finished rebuilding the Cathedral, that had been destroyed by the 1908 earthquake. He was coiled up on a bench, sitting out there among the new ruins of “his” cathedral, and he was weeping, weeping desperately. I did not dare say anything to him, I did not dare to speak at all, in respect of so much pain. I did not even get close to him. I waited for some time an then, witht he films I had just filmed, I boarded the first train to Rome that I could find on that morning. There, I delivered the films to the Special Film Unit of the General Staff, located in the barraks of the 6th Engineers in Cecchignola, where they were immediately developed and showed in the “Luce” neswreels.

Satisfied of the praie I had received from my superior and from all the personnel of the Film Unit, I went back to work in Sicily, where in the meantime the bombings had increased in intensity, in preparation for the 10 July landings, “our defeat” that the regime prevented me from filming, confiscating all of my equipment.

As I was thus left without the essential equipment for my work, I welcomed the order that recalled me to Rome. Captain Cogliati Dezza came down [to Sicily] specifically to deliver it to me.

I crossed the straits with my subordinates and the two cars on a motor barge, the only available means (ferries and ships had all been sunk by the enemy). This was a two-engines floating platform that the Germans used to carry fresh troops and weaponry intended to oppose the advance of the newly landed American forces. I was allowed to use the barge, that was leaving empty for Scilla, after lenghty negotiations, thanks to my Royal Italian Army officer’s badge”.

The Seaforth Highlanders vs the Napoli Division in the battle for Augusta

From the fine site "Operation Ladbroke"- http://www.operation-ladbroke.com/death-gates-augusta-jim-fern-6-seaforths/

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.

An Italian cavalry patrol in the turmoil of the invasion of Sicily

From the fine blog "Operation Ladbroke"- http://www.operation-ladbroke.com/italian-cavalry-charge-ponte-grande-bridge-sicily/

According to a divisional news-sheet produced by the British 1 Airborne Division in July 1943, the BBC had broadcast the following story:

“Airborne troops were landed on a wide area owing to a strong wind. First objective captured, but, owing to shortage of men and expenditure of ammunition, Airborne troops could not continue to hold bridge owing to strong enemy pressure including a cavalry charge. Bridge later retaken intact by 17 Bde and Airborne troops rescued.”

The bridge mentioned above was the Ponte Grande bridge, just south of Syracuse. No other official source mentions a cavalry charge in Operation Ladbroke, and no personal account does either, memorable though such a thing would have been. Clearly there was no Italian cavalry charge as described in the broadcast. So how did the BBC come to report a charge at the Ponte Grande? And if there was no cavalry charge at the bridge, then was there a charge against airborne troops somewhere else in Sicily?

Italian Sources

Italian accounts are clear: there was indeed a cavalry attack against Allied troops, however foolhardy and improbable that seems. We have two primary sources. The first is the official report of General Guzzoni, commander of the Italian 6 Army, who was head of all the Italian armed forces in Sicily. Speaking of US troops that had penetrated inland from beaches in the American sector of the invasion, he wrote:

“The commanding officer of XII Corps ordered a mobile group, … comprised of a Blackshirt battalion and a squadron of cavalry, to counterattack in support of some strongpoints that had been surrounded but were holding out.

The action could not have the desired effect, given that the enemy had already landed jeeps and light tanks, against which they had no effective weapons.”

We also have a personal account from a survivor of the Italian cavalry unit. He was the commanding officer of one of its squadrons:

“On 10 July 1943 I received orders from my group commander: 1) To make contact with the enemy in the plain of Licata to identify their position, strength and activity; 2) To determine the precise location of a battalion of Blackshirts that were part of our battle group. I set out with my squadron and made contact with the enemy force and … fulfilled my orders … Making contact with the Blackshirt battalion was now vitally important to the success of our operations, but I did not think I needed the whole squadron … so I personally took command of the search with ten cavalrymen … and set off in the direction where I supposed the Blackshirts were. Soon we approached a copse of trees and unexpectedly came under intense enemy machine gun fire from it. Rapidly reviewing the situation I saw that turning back was absolutely impossible, as there was no cover anywhere. So I decided to eliminate the machine gun and I ordered the charge. I got as far as a few meters from the trees when my horse, severely wounded, fell. I lost my helmet and was knocked unconscious … When I regained my senses I found I was in enemy hands … I assume that most of the ten men in my patrol were killed.”

Both of these accounts tally in placing the action near Licata in the American sector of the invasion. The personal account also makes it clear that the charge was not a deliberate and planned piece of military tactics, but an impulsive and desperate move by men trapped in an ambush.

To those who subscribe to a rigid code of military honour, the charge may well seem heroic. Many Italian soldiers that day, all over the invasion zone, fled or surrendered when under no particular threat at all. By contrast, this cavalry charge is an instance of Italian soldiers, caught in a hopeless situation, who did not surrender, despite facing almost certain death. To a modern civilian sensibility, however, it may seem a pointless waste, when surrender under the circumstances would have been equally honourable, and would have left no widows and orphans.