War Stories III (17 page)

Sergeant Dyas and the surviving paratroopers of his little band became POWs. They were taken to an internment camp outside Naples, Italy, and then shipped in boxcars to Germany, where they remained for the next twenty-two months.

 

American troops walk through a damaged Sicilian city.

But for the paratroopers still fighting on Sicily, their ordeal wasn't over yet. Early on 11 July, in a hand-to-hand battle on “Bloody Ridge” overlooking the Gela landing beaches, the American 1st Infantry Division and small groups of paratroopers repulsed a German armored counter-attack. But in so doing, they suffered more than 1,000 casualties.

Patton decided to commit some of his reserves—two battalions of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, waiting in North Africa. Since no airfields were yet available for landing in the U.S. zone of action on Sicily, it was decided that the 1,800 paratroopers would parachute inside American lines near Gela.

Tragically, the C-47 transports carrying the paratroopers passed over the invasion fleet just minutes after a German air raid had sunk an LST. Nervous U.S. Navy gunners opened fire on the American aircraft as they approached the drop zones, straight and level at 1,200 feet, downing twenty-three and damaging thirty-seven of the C-47s. Sixty pilots and crewmen, along with eighty-one paratroopers, were killed.

Though their losses were higher than any other units in Husky, the paratroopers had bought precious time for the troops on the beaches and kept them from being pushed back into the sea. For twenty-five-year-old Oklahoma native 2nd Lieutenant Ed Speairs of the 45th Infantry Division, the hours purchased by paratrooper blood made the difference on D-Day.

Lt. Ed Speairs' observations about Patton's pressure to keep driving forward—and the heroic acts that he inspired—were right on the mark. The 7th Army commander had come ashore on D-Day and shortly thereafter reported, “We have them on the run” and he wanted to keep them that way.

Certain that the Germans had been surprised by the Allied landings, Patton unrelentingly pressed his troops forward—before their enemy could reinforce or escape across the narrow Strait of Messina. And he almost succeeded.

Hitler
had
been totally surprised by Husky. He not only believed the inaccurate intelligence he'd received about the Allies heading for the
Balkans or Sardinia, but the Führer was also distracted by giving so much of his attention to Operation Citadel—the offensive he had launched in the Crimea near Kursk. But once Hitler realized what was
really
happening on Sicily, he moved swiftly.

On 13 July, Hitler ordered the Kursk offensive halted—it was already a disaster for the Wehrmacht—so that reserves headed for the Eastern Front could instead be sent to Italy. At his “Wolf's Lair” headquarters in East Prussia on 17 July, the Führer told his general staff, “Barbaric measures are needed to save Italy. Only by terrifying the Italian population into blind obedience, can we stiffen Italian resistance.” Acting on that premise, he flew to Feltre, north of Venice, to meet with Mussolini on 19 July. The next day he ordered the 29th Panzergrenadier and the 1st Parachute Division to Sicily.

Hitler's last-minute intervention wasn't enough to save his fellow Fascist. On 23 July, Patton marched triumphantly into Palermo, Sicily's capital. And three days later, Mussolini was imprisoned.

 

General Patton on his way to Messina.

Patton's capture of Palermo may have precipitated the fall of the dictator, but it didn't end the fighting on the island. German reinforcements halted Montgomery's push to Messina dead in its tracks at Mount Etna. By 31 July, Patton's advance through central Sicily and along the island's northern coast had been slowed as well.

Undeterred, and adamant that he'd reach Messina before Montgomery, the U.S. Army's most famous armor tactician showed that he also had a firm grasp of amphibious warfare. Starting on 8 August, with the help of the U.S. Navy, Patton launched a series of short “amphibious hooks” along Sicily's north coast, leapfrogging his battalions beyond German strong points on the approach to Messina. Small vessels like Sub-chaser-692, commanded by twenty-four-year-old Lt. (JG) Edward Stafford, were essential to the success of these operations.