For the Rangers at Gela, D + 1 was a rough day although the weather remained hot and sunny throughout Saturday and Sunday (10-11 July). Having gained all their initial objectives on D-day morning, the Americans were held up when there was a delay—partly through the pier being breached by the Italian demolitions—building up the force in the beachhead. As a result the Rangers were without support when the Italian Gruppo Mobile ‘E’ counter-attacked with 32 French 10-ton tanks and some other armour. The Rangers saw the tanks speeding across the flat wheatfields between bursts of naval shell-fire, and none too soon the rangers took fresh positions in the tops of buildings as the first tank came into the town. They knew their rifle fire, including armour-piercing bullets, would have no effect, but as the tanks shrugged off this fire and grenade bursts, Bill Darby found a 37mm (1.5in) anti-tank gun. Bare-headed, his sleeves rolled up, he and Captain Charles Shundstrom fired two rounds into the teeth of the leading tank. The first hit the turret, the second knocked the tank back several feet and set it on fire. Bazooka shots knocked out the second tank and a pole-charge caught the third (see Appendix 3). This charge was dropped from a building, and as other tanks were hit the Italians withdrew. That night the rangers stood-to prepared for further attack, wondering why no Allied aircraft had caught the tanks in the open and what had happened to the American paratroops dropped northeast of the town the previous night.
The first American tanks came ashore late on D-day (Saturday) evening at Gela, but heavy surf prevented more than a few being landed, and many anti-tank guns were lost when an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) was sunk by fighter-bombers; early on Sunday morning, D + 1, General Patton came ashore. Always a man for seeing for himself, he realised why the division had failed, through lack of Allied tanks and guns ashore, to get forward, and take the airfield as planned for D-day afternoon. He spoke to Bill Darby, among other commanders, and was ashore when the first Panzer attack was repulsed about 0830. The German tactics became clear as the morning battle developed with 40 tanks making a frontal attack while 20 others tried to break through to the coast, so splitting the American bridgehead. The first of this renewed series of tank attacks came in, an awesome sight, with the Panzers moving forward and some Tiger’s 88mm (3.5in) guns firing; Italian infantry of the Livorno Division moved in the shelter of this armour. Shells fell among the rangers, the 88s demolishing the houses around the defenders’ ears. Stone chips and shell splinters flew everywhere from the dust clouds. Holding their fire, the rangers watched the tanks came though the naval barrage and were preparing to take on the infantry when once again Bill Darby found some anti-tank guns: several Italian 77mm (3in). With these and scratch ranger gun crews, seven tanks were engaged only 1,000 yards from the beach. About 1030 hours, more American tanks were landed to close the widening gap between the Rangers and the American 1 Division. The division’s artillery came forward on amphibious trucks (DUKWs) to fire over open sights at the Panzers, and by noon the main tank attacks had been repulsed, the accurate Rangers fire having broken the back of the infantry attacks. The Axis forces then began an orderly withdrawl by 1400 hours, heading for the hills that dominated the Gela plain.
The deployment of paras in combined operations with amphibious forces was always a problem, for the seaborne force preferred darkness whereas parachutists needed moonlight. The compromise for Sicily landings was to choose a night in the period of a waxing moon. Nevertheless, the US 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment was scattered and isolated on landing during the early hours of D-day, and an attempt to drop 2,000 men into the beachhead on the Sunday (D + 1) night was one of the greatest disasters of any Allied invasion—whether or not their 145 Dakotas were on course. Certainly, they flew over the fleet not long after an air raid, and many of the 504th Regiment of paras were killed when the planes were hit by the Allied fleet’s guns. In the east near Syracuse the previous night, early on D-day, 60 per cent of the towing planes—American-crewed Dakotas—let slip their gliders short of their targets and 252 men of the British 1st Air Landing Brigade were drowned. But on Tuesday, 13 July the British 1st Parachute Brigade dropped near Primasole bridge with the intention of securing the Eighth Army’s advance to Catania.
This last drop was part of two right hooks planned by General Montgomery, who told John Durnford-Slater that morning, 13 July, that ‘the enemy is nicely on the move and we want to keep him that way’. They stood, the General and the Colonel, among bomb-damaged buildings on the quay at Syracuse in fierce summer sunshine. The paras’ drop would be some 20 miles (32km) north of the British 50 Division’s positions, and 3 Commando would land 10 miles (16km) ahead of this Division at Agnone to go inland and take the Ponte dei Malati bridge. Both bridges lay on the road running north to Catania and, if taken intact, they could ensure a rapid advance. Such landings of amphibious or airborne forces ahead of a main advance are a tempting military stratagem to cut off the enemy, but—as General Montgomery knew—they needed nice judgement: if too small or lightly armed, the outflanking force is easily destroyed. Yet mounting too large a right or left hook may necessitate weakening the advancing main army, depriving them of naval and other support diverted to help the outflanking troops. Getting ashore may be the least of the outflankers’ worries for seldom are there sufficient assault craft, suitable beaches, or adequate lines of retreat should the ploy go wrong.
Commander Peate RN, the captain of HMS Prince Albert, dodged her round two torpedos from an E-boat as they sailed up the coast with their escorting destroyer. By 2130 they were five miles (8km) off Agnone The ship’s galley provided each commando with a packet of sandwiches, adding a touch of the routine exercise; low-flying Dakotas thundered overhead, taking the paras to Primasole bridge. To the south, the commandos could see heavy anti-aircraft fire driving Axis planes away from Syracuse. The Commando headquarters and Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 Troops set off in Lieutenant Holt’s flotilla—the one that had made a perfect landing four days before—the plan being to push Nos. 1 and 3 Troops quickly inland to the bridge, while No.2 Troop and the headquarters held the beach. No.4 Troop was to send patrols north to contact the paras and south to join 50 Division. Moving steadily line-abreast in the moonlight, the assault craft were nosing inshore on an unsurveyed beach when bursts of enfilade fire came from above a steep cliff that dominated the landing area. The Colonel was not entirely surprised, for he expected the Germans to defend their main supply and escape route to Messina. But when Lieutenant Holt excelled himself and put the Colonel ashore two boats’ length ahead of the flotilla, even he was momentarily taken aback. The officer following him got a bangalore torpedo jammed across the LCAs bow and for some seconds John Durnford-Slater stood alone. ‘Sand boiled up around me’, he has written, ‘as bullets struck. Somebody also started throwing grenades down the cliff at me. I thought the bullets were enough without the extras.’ Peter Young landed moments later on the extreme right as the Commando swept towards the wire. Despite the bright moon, the Italians fire was not very accurate, in part perhaps because of the commandos’ counter-fire from the boats and because distances are deceptive in moonlight. The destroyer—HMS Tetcott—also came right inshore to take on the pill-boxes. The inaccuracy was not, it seems, from lack of resolution, for, as a prisoner later confirmed, German troops were in the area.
The commandos were jostling to find a gap in the wire as a shower of red-devil Italian grenades fell among them, and the shrill whistles of Troop commanders as well as No.1 Troop’s hunting horn could be heard above the din. Peter Young, cursing loudly, restored order and got a ragged column of commandos moving inland. Charlie Head, in this confused fighting, came upon an Italian machine-gun in action and without time to draw his revolver kicked the gun over.
The Troops moved off along a railway track, one file each side of the line, while the landing craft returned for the second flight—Nos.5 and 6 Troops. The craft were just moving out of range of the anti-boat fire when Lieutenant Holt was fatally wounded in the neck. By the time the craft returned, the Italian
s had anti-tank guns on the shore, and despite the destroyer’s smoke-shells several craft were hit. Meanwhile, Peter Young and his men had reached Agone station and were exchanging the password ‘desert rats’ for ‘kill Italians’ with a party of airborne dropped short of their bridge but now making north to reach it overland. There were some three miles (5km) of cactus patches, occasional orange groves, and those steep-sided ravines on which a knee may be twisted as easily as an ankle in marching ‘at a desperate pace’ as the commandos crossed towards the bridge. A mile short of it, Bill Lloyd—recovered from his wound at Vaagsö—plunged in over his head trying to find a way across the river and was pulled out, the river being waded finally. At about 0300 hours the defences on the bridge’s north side were taken, grenades being dropped through the pill-box gun-slits.
The Troops from the second beaching by the landing craft came up about dawn and some 300 commandos consolidated their positions around the north end of the bridge and for 15 minutes all was quiet. The arrival of a German half-track ammunition carrier gave a Section officer the chance to ambush it with a PIAT (see Appendix 3), but he was mortally wounded in the resulting explosion, for this anti-tank weapon had to fire at less than 100 yards (40m) range to give a reasonable chance of a hit. A German tank came up but, after some shelling, pushed off, leaving the next counter-attack to the Italians. Almost all the commandos removing charges from under the bridge, and those from the Troop sent to take its south-west defences were dead or wounded, and more German tanks were arriving with men and ammunition going south to reinforce their line holding off 50 Division. Although some trucks were set on fire, it was clear by 0530 that the Germans had held the Division; however, these few German reinforcements would have little effect on that battle—12 hours later the leading elements of 50 Division reached the bridge. By then the Commando was long gone. Should they have attempted to seize both ends of the bridge? Probably such a division of their small force might have led to neither end being taken and the pill-box defences were at the north end of the bridge. There was also a limited field of fire to the south, where orange groves came within 30 yards of the bridge.
The Commando broke up into small parties that hoped to lie up during the day, but some were caught, although not easily—a Troop Sergeant-Major held out in the Italians’ fortified beach headquarters until a forward patrol of the Eighth Army arrived. Others were freed from capture when the advance swept forward, but they had 153 casualties, including Bill Lloyd who was killed. This sacrifice was not in vain for when 50 Division reached the Leonardo the bridge was intact and unguarded. The paras and airborne had even greater losses but held their bridge with 250 men for two days before being overrun, despite bringing their anti-tank guns into action.
The right hooks would probably not have been thrown had the General known the enemy’s strength in that area: three battalions of Panzer Grenadiers; the 101st (German) Tank Battalion, some self-propelled guns of the Herman Goering Division; the 904 Fortress Battalion; and many Italians with no thoughts of surrender. These forces would have influenced General Montgomery’s, decision, for he was a commander with careful consideration for casualties, having seen the slaughter of World War I, and he did not hazard men unnecessarily, although he was always prepared to take a calculated risk.
Command of Special Forces—from the corporal’s squad to the general’s use of spearhead forces—is fraught with such chances of error or, more correctly, mis-information in calculating the odds for success. In Sicily, as the British pushed north and the Americans swung east along the road from Palermo, such decisions led to several ranger battles in Sicily, as shown in the unit histories in Appendix 7. Bill Darby, however, helped the odds with six self-propelled 105mm (4.1in) guns, and later formed the Ranger Cannon Company with 18 self-propelled howitzers. There were also further outflanking attempts in landings, as at a point two miles east of Agata where a battalion of the US II Corps got ashore easily, ahead of the advance along the north coast. Here, on 8 August, the battalion’s position was for a time in doubt: were they cutting off the Germans or vice versa?
On 11 August another landing ahead of the American II Corps was made further along the coast near Brolo, but after an initial success it was again caught in heavy German pressure. Down to 650 men after taking 160 casualties before being relieved, this force had advanced 10 miles from their landing beaches. On 15 August a landing, at Patton’s insistence, went through, although the 3 Division already held the target beaches on Cape Milazzo. On the east coast there were also landings, with 2 Commando as part of a Canadian force attempting to cut off the Germans at Scaletta (see history Appendix 7). They were landed on the wrong beach, the white house landmark selected as a navigation point being hidden by a grove of cypresses, and although landed with a sqaudron of Sherman tanks and a troop of Priests (105mm (4.1in) self-propelled guns) they were too late to cut off the Germans retreating to Messina.
In Sicily the commando’s and ranger’s reputation was firmly established. In conversation with Bob Laycock, General Dempsey described 3 Commando as ‘the finest body of soldiers I have ever seen anywhere’. The Brigadier was pleased, for his commandos were being used—as were the rangers—in roles for which they had special talents.
THE ITALIAN AND BALKAN CAMPAIGNS, 1943 TO 1945
Although many senior Allied commanders considered the Mediterranean a secondary theatre, Prime Minister Churchill wanted to carry through a campaign into Italy. This was brought about despite the shortage of equipment and men, on which other theatres had a priority.
Italy signed an armistice early in September when Allied forces were moving into Calabria in the Toe of Italy and were preparing to land at Salerno further north. After initial difficulties the Allied armies established a line across Italy, but they were held by the Germans. In this mountain war, an advance of 10 miles (15 + km) could take two months.
In January 1944, an attempt to outflank the Gustav line with a landing at Anzio, not far from Rome, failed: and throughout the rest of that summer the Allies made slow progress.
The Yugoslav partisans had been fighting in the Balkans since 1941, and by late 1942 they had seven shock-troop divisions plus man and women living among local communities. Despite German offensives—Marshal Tito’s partisans lost 10,000 men in the fifth of these during May 1943—the partisans maintained a fighting army with little outside help until late in 1943, when 14 German and five other Axis divisions drove a major part of partisan army from the mainland on to the island of Viz. From here they fought back in 1944 with 200,000 men and women, disrupting German withdrawals that might otherwise have reinforced their armies in north Italy or those fighting the Russians in Bulgaria. One in ten of the Yugoslav population were killed in this guerrilla war and nearly two-thirds of their national wealth was destroyed. For their Allies, cooperation often raised political as much as military problems, but in their support of these partisans and of Greeks and Albanians, the British soldiers’ ability to exercise tact (if not always patience) prevented serious disharmony.
Having crossed the Arno in September 1944, the month of landings by Allied troops in southern France, the armies in Italy moved north from Florence but were checked again at the Gothic line. With insufficient men to break these defences, the Allies in Italy did not move forward until April 1945, when this line was broken by bombing, and the German east flank was turned in crossings of the Po estuary.
CHAPTER 9
Through Italy to the
Balkans
Before the Fifth American Army—the American X Corps and British VI—went ashore at Salerno, a reconnaissance was made on the mainland nearer to Sicily across the Messina Straits. A Section of No.5 Troop from 3 Commando visited Bova Marina and found no troops in the area on the night of 25-26 August. The following night Peter Young landed five parties with 21-sets, which were used in artillery fire control and were manned by signallers without commando training. However, the bulky 47lb (20kg) sets failed to operate, despite having a rang
e of 15 miles (24km), and about a third of this on voice (R/T) transmissions when not on the move. Peter Young returned the next night and was obliged to stay ashore when the LC Infantry—a shore-to-shore craft that could beach after a passage from her sally port—landed so firmly she could not be got off. The parties of commandos, signallers, and sailors, without any radios, then made what reconnaissance they could in the jagged hills behind the beach. Some were attacked by Italian soldiers, others were received with hospitality—a mixture of feelings that epitomised the Allied forces’ reception throughout the Italian campaign. The inadequacy of commando signals’ gear was no greater than for other troops, although coming ashore exposed their sets to water damage and some improvements were made as explained in Appendix 5. Yet even the following year, the commandos coming ashore at Normandy were still bedevilled by sets damaged in landing, so perhaps taking artillery signallers was a gamble in 1943, although no lessons seem to have been learnt from the Timor experience of 1941.
Although the reconnaissances had failed, the lack of their reports may in part have influenced John Durnford-Slater and other senior officers in choosing Bagnara Calabria, as a landing point for the Special Raiding Squadron crossing from Sicily. This Squadron, commanded by the enormous Irishman and rugby international, Major Paddy Mayne, was one of several special service units in the campaigns through Italy, on the Yugoslav Dalmation coast, and in the Aegean. After a sharp engagement when they had landed near Bagnara Calabria, the Squadron held the town for 24 hours until relieved by the British 15 Infantry Brigade of XIII Corps, which landed on 3 September at Reggio. These southern operations’ final details were planned and mounted in 10 days, a feat of organisation that required collecting the craft at sally ports, repairing some craft, and loading them as well as issuing the relevant battle orders, which included a fire plan in which the Eighth Army’s artillery fired 29,000 rounds (400 tons) of shells in the opening barrage across the straits in the early hours of 3 September. For the commandos, after their experience in Sicily, the planning and mounting of raids was becoming almost routine.
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