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Patton (farthest left) comes ashore after the 1st Divison saved the beachead on Sicily from a massive German counterattack. |
After North Africa fell, the 1st Divsion marched back across the continent to Oran in Algeria, the port city it took at the beginning of the African war. After several weeks of amphibious landing practices, the troops were alerted to board their ships for a move to yet another unknown destination.
Owing largely to the delay in taking North Africa, planning the Invasion of Sicily had been cumbersome for all involved. The British wanted to play the principal role in assaulting the island, but eventually yielded to the pressure put on them to give American forces an important zone to seize and hold.
The American Seventh Army, under the command of General George Patton, was to assault the southeastern side of the island. The Gela Beach area was initially assigned to two divisions that had not yet come under fire. Realizing this section of the landing zones would be the hardest to take and to hold, Patton's largest contribution to planning the invasion was to substitute one of these units with the battle-hardened Big Red One. Playing to concerns that Eisenhower agreed with him on, the division was given the most difficult job on D-Day in Sicily. |
On July 9, 1943, the Fighting First charged towards the shores off Gela Beach and started landing at 2:30 in the morning. By dawn, two regiments were ashore and the beachead appeared to be taken. But, not far away in the hills behind the beach, the crack Hermann Goering Panzer Division was poised for a massive strike to throw the invaders back into the sea. Their first attempt was delayed until nearly 9:00 AM, a situation that forced them to attack directly into the rising sun. The division's effective use of small arms fire held the infantry-heavy regiments of the Hermann Goering off, while the navy fired inland from ships in the Gulf of Gela, pounding their tanks and temporarily forcing retreat.
A fuming commanding general of the Hermann Goering renewed his attacks the next morning, sending two tank-heavy units and one infantry unit towards the 1st Division zone on Gela Beach. At 6:40 AM General Roosevelt sent a message to the division command post alerting Terry Allen to the severity of the situation:
"Terry; Look, the situation is not very comfortable out here. The third battalion has been attacked by tanks and has been penetrated. The second battalion is in support, but that is not enough. If we could get a company of medium tanks it would sure help."
By now the enemy was launching an air offensive at the division and the flotilla of reserve forces and supplies still in the Gulf of Gela. General Allen moved quickly, ordering all available pieces of artillery and anti-tank guns into Roosevelt's zone, but by 9:00 AM his forces were inundated with Germans. Allen called for more naval gunfire, and air support. Things did not look good.
By early afternoon the Germans broke through Roosevelt's forces and were moving closer to the beach edge. The regiment trying to hold this zone was commanded by Colonel George Taylor, an officer whose inspiration and leadership was matched by few. Faced with near-certain slaughter, Taylor told his men, "Everybody stays put where he is. Under no circumstances will anyone be pulled back. Take cover from the tanks! Don't let anything else get through. The cannon company is on their way. Everyone is to hold present positions!"
Taylor's bravado almost paid off. Half of his men took refuge in foxholes until the German tanks came within point-blank range. Then, they jumped out and let go with bazookas, mortars and machine guns, literally blowing the treads off many of the enemy's tanks. Mortars went right into tank turrets, rendering the meanacing monsters useless. But, even with twenty tank kills, the Hermann Goering thundered past with more Mark IV's. Taylor sent a hurried message to Terry Allen, saying, "We are being overrun by tanks. In one area ten tanks are in front of a battalion and they are being ringed by an additional thirty!"
Meantime, another regiment of the Fighting First was ashore, supported by just five medium tanks and a field artillery battalion. Undaunted, they rushed on to meet the German tanks that broke through. In one of the most vivid descriptions of the actions that followed, revealed in the oral history of a lieutenant, the division made a Custers Last Stand on the beach edge:
"The outfit's back is to the Mediterranean and that leading German tank followed by tens of others is about to cut off all lateral communications and stab through to the sandy beach itself. Just at the darkest moment, a 105 gets lucky and hits on three of the tanks. As they flame brightly, the last round of 105 ammo is slammed into the breach and the gunner desperately aims at the leader's tank, now starting to cross the road. He sets the ambitious monster afire, and we breath again, for this action is followed by two others. Other tanks, apparently not knowing how near victory they are, take fright and turn clumsily about, then scuttle back up the plain to their mountain hideout. And five of our medium tanks, hurriedly brought ashore in this hour of danger, clank up just in time to destroy several of the fleeing tanks of the hated Hermann Goering Panzer Division."
The Germans made a final attempt later in the afternoon. But, this time the navy was ready for them, pounding the tanks with round after round of salvos and building an impregnable barrier for the Hermann Goering to punch through, and a retreat was again forced. A weary 1st Division got little rest, though, for General Allen ordered a counterstrike to push the Germans farther back at midnight that night.
The divison began a grueling advance inland, wrought with tough fighting, fatiguing marches and rapid maneuvering for over three weeks. The Fighting First slugged its way up the center of the island, then moved east to protect the flank of Patton's charge towards the Straits of Messina. In the key Battle for Troina, which "broke the hinge of German resistance" on the island, the 1st Divison was joined by two sorties of thirty-six medium bombers, and the nautious odor of death soon settled on the town, effectively ending the tough-fought struggle for Sicily.
The entire Battle for Sicily is presented in Before Taps Sounded over 110 pages in the following chapters:
The Second Taking of Oran
Onward to Sicily
Gela Beach
Ponte Olivio, Politics of War and Progress Inland
The Battle Inland
Triumph and Tragedy
The End to Sicily |
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