Chapter 6: Sicily: The Beachhead
The British and American Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) agreed at Casablanca in January 1943 that Sicily would be the next major Allied target in the Mediterranean after Tunisia.1 Soon afterward AFHQ named several officers to Allied planning staffs for HUSKY, the code name of the Sicilian venture. They met on 10 February 1943 in Room 141 of the St. George Hotel in Algiers and took the cover name Force 141. The group operated as a subsection of G-3, AFHQ, until 15 May, when it merged with the deactivated headquarters of 15th Army Group to become an independent operational and planning headquarters. On D-day of HUSKY, the merged organization became Headquarters, 15th Army Group, General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander commanding. Force 141 prepared a general plan, and separate American (Force 343) and British (Force 545) task forces worked out details. Force 343 evolved into Headquarters, Seventh U.S. Army, under General Patton, and Force 545 into Headquarters, British Eighth Army, under General Montgomery.
The engineer adviser to Force 141 during the early planning months was Lt. Col. Charles H. Bonesteel III, who later became deputy chief engineer (U.S.) at Headquarters, 15th Army Group. Despite the limited Force 141 planning, the force engineers and the Engineer Section at AFHQ from the first sought to line up the engineer units, equipment, and supplies that would be required once detailed preparations got under way. The engineer planners also compiled supply lists for the elements of Forces 343 and 545 that would be mounted in North Africa and gave them to SOS, NATOUSA, and the British Engineer Stores for procurement.
Supplies not available in the theater had to come from the United States, a process that would take ninety days for many items. Anticipating a mid-July target date for HUSKY, SOS, NATO-USA, asked that requisitions be in by 18 April. Since this date was well before detailed plans for the assault were completed, the requisitions Force 141 and AFHQ prepared were aimed at providing a general reserve from which the task forces could draw later. The original supply lists were predicated on the assumption that the port of Palermo would be in use about D plus 8, but
in May tactical planners changed the location of assault. Earlier planning had to be revised completely, and, for the most part, supply requirements had to be increased. The result was oversupply of some items and shortages of others. Supply planners made up the shortages by drawing from units that would temporarily remain in North Africa.2
Force 141 and the AFHQ Engineer Section also drew up a troop list in an effort to assure that the necessary troops reached the theater. Engineer planners were able to get approval for an engineer allocation of about 15 percent of the total HUSKY ground forces. They asked for several special engineer organizations, including a headquarters and headquarters company of a port construction and repair group, an equipment company, a utilities company, and two “Scorpion” companies.3
In the meantime engineers labored under two major unknowns—the time and the place of the assault. Not until 13 April did the Combined Chiefs of Staff approve a target date of 10 July, and the decision on where to land on Sicily came even later. Messina, only three miles from the Italian mainland, was the final objective, but was considered too strong for direct assault. The Americans and British would have to land elsewhere and move overland against Messina. Ground forces would need ports to ensure their supply lines, and airfields close enough to provide fighter cover.
The chief ports and airfields on Sicily clustered at opposite ends of the island. In the northwest lay Palermo, the largest port, and nearby were several airfields, while another group of airfields lay along the southeastern coast. The assumption that Palermo had to be seized early shaped HUSKY planning for months, but General Montgomery, commanding the British Eighth Army, insisted that the landings be concentrated at the southeast corner of the island, and on 3 May General Eisenhower approved Montgomery’s plan.
The new plan called for the simultaneous landing of eight divisions along a 100-mile front between Licata and Syracuse. The British Eighth Army, landing on the east, was to seize Syracuse and other moderate-sized ports nearby. The American Seventh Army, under General Patton, was to land along the shores of the Gulf of Gela, far from any port of consequence. Seventh Army would depend upon supply over the beach for as much as thirty days, a prospect that would have been considered impossible only a few weeks earlier.
During the latter part of 1942 the production of landing ships and craft accelerated, reaching a peak in February 1943. Force 141 had ordered all of these vessels it could get, and when they became available in some numbers supply over the southern beaches began to
seem feasible.4 The new amphibious equipment included DUKWs, -naval pontons, and new types of landing craft. The DUKW was a 2½-ton amphibious truck that could make five knots at sea and normal truck speeds on land. It offered great promise, for it could bridge the critical gap between the ships offshore and the supply dumps behind the beach.
New types of shallow-draft landing craft featured hinged bows and ramps forward. Flat-bottomed, without projecting keels, they were difficult to maneuver in a high cross wind or surf but could come close enough to shore to put men and vehicles in shallow water. The 36-foot LCVP, which could carry thirty-six combat-equipped infantrymen or four tons of cargo, swung into the water off an invasion beach from a larger vessel in a ship-to-shore operation. Newer LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank), coming into production in December 1942, were designed for shore-to-shore amphibious assaults. The American model was 328 feet long, had a 50-foot beam, and on ocean voyages accommodated up to 1,900 tons of cargo or 20 medium tanks; 163 combat-ready troops could find adequate, if sparse, berthing aboard. British-built versions were slightly larger and drew more water at the stern
than at the bow and so tended to ground on the gradually sloping shelves and shifting sandbars in front of the Mediterranean beaches. Navy steel pontons running from the ship’s bow to shore would serve as causeways to dry land for cargo and vehicles aboard the LSTs. Two intermediate-size landing craft that served as lighters for the LSTs and for larger attack transports and auxiliaries were the 50-foot LCM (Landing Craft, Mechanized) and the 150-foot LCT (Landing Craft, Tank). Both had a speed of ten knots and drew little more than three feet of water fully loaded. The LCM took on 1 medium tank, 30 tons of cargo, or 120 troops. The invaluable LCT could transport five thirty-ton tanks or a comparable load of cargo or troops.5
Plans and Preparations
Eisenhower selected Headquarters, I Armored Corps, at Rabat as the headquarters for Force 343, and the I Armored Corps engineer, Col. Garrison H. Davidson, was named the Force 343 engineer. On 25 March he began planning for HUSKY, but unlike Force 545 (the British task force), I Armored Corps still had some operational duties in North Africa. Not until 13 June did Force 343 issue a complete engineer plan outlining boundaries and setting general policies. Each subtask force commander, who was to control his assault area for the first few days, worked out his own detailed assault and engineer plans.6
Planning for HUSKY was difficult. The time and place of the assault were fixed late. AFHQ’s preoccupation with the Tunisian campaign meant that the list of major combat units to be used in HUSKY could be determined only after Axis forces in North Africa capitulated early in May. Also, AFHQ wrapped heavy security around the coming operation. Engineer unit commanders were briefed on HUSKY only after embarking for Sicily, too late for realistic preinvasion training. Even in the higher engineer echelons, essential information was slow in coming. Though Headquarters, I Armored Corps, was named the task force headquarters for the invasion in early March, no one told the corps engineer of his new assignment for another three weeks. On 19 March Colonel Davidson also belatedly learned of the decision to redirect the assault to the southeastern beaches of Sicily instead of the town of Palermo on the north shore.7
Another impediment to planning was the great distances that separated the several staffs. The Force 141 (15th Army Group) plan called for assault landings by three American divisions, with a strong armored and infantry reserve to be held close offshore on the left flank of the American sector. Four subtask forces were set up: the three reinforced assault divisions, JOSS (3rd Infantry Division),
DIME (1st Infantry Division), and CENT (45th Infantry Division) and, a reserve force, KOOL (2nd Armored Division less Combat Command A, plus the 1st Division’s 18th Regimental Combat Team). SHARK (Headquarters, II Corps) was to coordinate DIME and CENT. During the planning stage, these and higher headquarters were scattered across the breadth of North Africa. AFHQ was at Algiers, the British task force headquarters (Force 545) at Cairo, and Force 343 at Rabat in Morocco until the latter part of April when it moved to Mostaganem in Algeria. JOSS headquarters was at Jemmapes, SHARK at Relizane, and DIME at Oran. Western Naval Task Force headquarters remained at Algiers, which seemed to Army authorities too far from Force 343, but the two services cooperated well.8
According to the instructions Force 141 issued in April, U.S. engineers were responsible for breaching beach obstacles, clearing and laying minefields, supplying water and bulk petroleum products, repairing ports and airfields, and rebuilding railways. The instructions emphasized the importance of repairing airfields as soon as possible. The Transportation Corps was to determine requirements for railway reconstruction and request the engineers to do the work, but the Seventh Army engineer staff worked with G-4 of Force 141 in actual preparations. Troop accommodations were to be an “absolute minimum,” and hospitals were to use existing buildings or tents. Engineers were to provide light, water, and latrines.9
While all the subtask forces had common engineer missions, each also had special missions. SHARK engineers were to prepare a landing strip at Biscari as soon as possible after the assault, have runways ready at Comiso and Ponte Olivo Airfields by D plus 8, repair a jetty at Gela, and build bulk storage and pipelines to the airfields. By D plus 4 the 2602nd Engineer Petroleum Distribution Company was to be ashore at DIME beaches and ready to handle over 1,000 tons of gasoline per day. JOSS engineers were to repair the small port of Licata and a landing strip at a nearby airfield. KOOL engineers were to be ready to rehabilitate Porto Empedocle, a small harbor thirty miles west of the Joss beaches.
The engineers were to rely largely on local materials for repairing railway and electrical installations and building troop barracks. Lumber was to be provided for hospital flooring and for twenty wood-frame tarpaulin-covered warehouses. All civilian labor was to be hired and paid by the using arm or service. Until D plus 3 real estate was to be obtained either by “immediate occupancy” or by informal written agreements between unit purchasing and contracting officers and owners. An important engineer responsibility was providing water, known to be scarce in Sicily during the summer. The minimum water requirement was set at one U.S. gallon per man per day. Water enough for five days was to be carried
in five-gallon cans on the D-day convoy or in Navy bulk storage.10
In accordance with the Loper-Hotine Agreement, the Geographical Section, General Staff, British War Office, was responsible for revising maps for HUSKY, but AFHQ was responsible for reproduction. The Engineer Section, AFHQ, established a large field map service organization, the Survey Directorate, in a suburb of Algiers. The directorate furnished general tactical maps for all HUSKY forces except CENT, which, staging in the United States, obtained its maps through OCE in Washington.
In February the 66th Engineer Topographic Company, formerly with I Armored Corps, joined HUSKY. While preparing some tactical maps, the 66th concentrated on such secret materials as visual aids, naval charts, loading plans, photo mosaics, city plans, harbor layouts, and convoy disposition charts. The bulk of the company remained in North Africa under the Survey Directorate throughout the Sicily campaign, with only its survey platoon, essentially a field unit, going to Sicily for survey and control work.
In addition to tactical and strategic maps, the topographic engineers produced a number of special issues: town plans, an air map, and defense and water supply overprints. Combat units got valuable information from the defense overprints, particularly those marking enemy positions covering the beaches and issued to the subtask forces before the invasion began, as did engineers from the water supply overprints, which pinpointed probable sources of fresh water. The HUSKY maps were considerably better than those for the Tunisian campaign.
HUSKY saw continued progress in solving map-handling and distribution problems that had been so vexing in Tunisia. Two new thirteen-man units, the 2657th and 2658th Engineer Map Depot Detachments, were responsible for storing maps and for distributing them in bulk at division, corps, and army levels. The two units set up a map depot at Constantine on 5 June and immediately began to receive large stocks. Security considerations, the scattered deployment of assault units across North Africa, the drastic change in the basic HUSKY plan, and the tardy arrival of maps from England hampered distribution. AFHQ and Force 141 had to help the depot detachments sort map stocks, and truck convoys loaded with maps had to be given priority along North African roads to get the maps out in time. Final deliveries to ships and staging areas began on D minus 11 and were completed to assault units on D minus 8, but last minute distribution continued aboard ship until D minus 1.11
Training
The subtask forces had decentralized responsibility for training their own troops for the assault. The Seventh Army (Force 343) Engineer Section inspected the training of engineer units assigned to the subtask forces, generally
supervised that of shore regiments, and guided that of SOS, NATOUSA, engineer units scheduled to join the task force later. The troops underwent refresher and special amphibious training. Refresher training emphasized physical conditioning, mines, marksmanship, and other combat techniques. Experience in Tunisia had demonstrated that nearly all engineer units needed such training; but, with the exception of mines, little of it could be geared directly to the coming operation. There was not much time to train units for HUSKY, nor could what time there was be used to best advantage. In the main, engineers in the subtask forces, other than shore engineers, had to get by with general engineer instruction.12
Early in March AFHQ decided to use the 1st Engineer Amphibian Brigade in the invasion of Sicily. The early HUSKY plan had given the brigade a vital role; the final plan made it even greater. The new plan called for the brigade to support three assault divisions and the floating reserve. It also called for the supply of all Seventh Army forces in Sicily for as long as thirty days over the beaches and through such tiny ports as Licata and Gela. The brigade itself was to function as the sole American base section in Sicily and handle all supplies for the first month on the island.13
It was quite apparent that the techniques employed during the TORCH operation would not suffice against the determined opposition expected on Sicily. New techniques, with new equipment especially designed for amphibious operations, would be necessary. Army and Navy efforts had to be coordinated, and such problems as offshore sandbars and man-made underwater obstacles had to be overcome. The 1st Engineer Amphibian Brigade had much to do to prepare for its role on Sicily, a role on which the entire undertaking could well depend. But AFHQ remained preoccupied with the Tunisian campaign.
Brigade participation in planning for HUSKY began on 23 April when Brig. Gen. H. C. Wolfe, then commander of the headquarters unit known as the 1st Engineer Amphibian Brigade, attended a conference of unit commanders at Rabat.14 At the time the brigade consisted of less than a hundred officers and enlisted men, for it had all but passed out of existence after TORCH, its units spread out in support roles in North Africa. In February one battalion of the 531st Engineer Shore Regiment and another of the 591st Engineer Boat Regiment assumed identities as provisional trucking units and operated in support of II Corps until the end of the Tunisian campaign. The 36th and 540th Engineer Combat Regiments, which had participated in the TORCH landings, had construction and labor assignments in Morocco through April. Only the 2nd Battalion of the 531st, attached to the Fifth Army’s Invasion Training Center at Port-aux-Poules in Algeria, remained associated with amphibious warfare in the early months of 1943. An entirely new organization
had to be formed to carry out Army responsibilities in support of the HUSKY landings.15
In the Pacific, engineer brigades followed the pattern conceived for them at the Engineer Amphibian Command. They operated landing craft as well as handling their duties on the beaches. These brigades had a unity of command not enjoyed by those in the Mediterranean and European theaters, for on the Atlantic side landing craft belonged to the Navy. Thus, naval responsibility in amphibious operations extended to the shoreline, whereas Army engineer responsibility began at the waterline and extended inland. Both services accepted this line of demarcation in principle, but many specific questions remained. Army and Navy representatives tried to spell out answers in detail during HUSKY planning, but neither in North Africa nor in later amphibious operations were they completely successful. The definition of Army-Navy amphibious responsibilities continued to be a source of friction throughout the war in Europe.16
In the end, U.S. Army engineers developed a new type of engineer amphibian brigade for HUSKY. With no assignment in the assault waves, the newly designated 1st Engineer Special Brigade consisted of four shore groups: one for each of the three infantry divisions making the assault and the fourth held offshore as part of the reserve force (KOOL). An engineer regiment formed the backbone of each task-organized shore group, and each group’s other assigned or attached units included such organizations as a medical battalion, a quartermaster DUKW battalion, a naval beach battalion, a signal company, and an ordnance maintenance company. A number of smaller units, such as dump-operating details from each of the several technical services, were attached according to anticipated need. Still other attachments operated local facilities such as railways, furnished specialized services such as water supply and camouflage, or reinforced the brigade in some area such as trucking.17
The organization of the new brigade started toward the end of April, when two engineer combat regiments (36th and 540th) and an engineer shore regiment (531st) assembled at Port-aux-Poules, twelve miles east of Arzew. The fourth shore group, built around the 40th Engineer Combat Regiment, received amphibious training in the United States and arrived at Oran with the 45th Infantry Division on 22 June.18
The 36th Engineer Shore Group was the largest of the four and when finally assembled for the invasion totaled 4,744 officers and enlisted men. Its nucleus was the 2,088-man 36th Engineer Combat Regiment, plus the 2nd Battalion, 540th Engineer Combat Regiment (623 men). A naval beach battalion (413 men) was attached to make hydro-graphic surveys, maintain shore-to-ship communications, and coordinate the beaching of landing craft and LSTs. A 322-man quartermaster battalion (amphibious), to operate trucks and DUKWs, and the 56th Medical Battalion (505 men) were added, as were a number of smaller units. These last included a signal company to provide radio and wire networks on the beach, a military police company to control motor traffic and guard prisoners, a four-man engineer map depot detachment to handle reserve map stocks, and a detachment from an ordnance maintenance company to repair ordnance equipment. An ordnance ammunition company, detachments from two quartermaster units, and an engineer depot company were included to operate beach dumps. The 531st Engineers’ shore group consisted of 3,803 troops, its composition similar to that formed around the 36th; the 40th Engineers’ group had approximately 4,465 officers and men. The smallest shore group, from the 540th, was with KOOL Force and had a strength of about 2,815. The total strength of the four shore groups was approximately 15,825, including 1,270 naval personnel with three naval beach battalions. U.S. Army engineer troops represented about 52 percent of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade as organized for the assault. Later accretions on Sicily would bring the brigade’s strength to nearly 20,000.19
Some differences existed between the 531st Engineer Shore Regiment and the engineer combat regiment that formed the nucleus of the other three shore groups. Although the total strength of the shore regiment was about the same as that of a combat regiment, the former had more officers, more specialists, and more specialized engineering equipment. The shore engineers knew all that combat engineers did, even for combat operations inland, but not vice versa. The combat engineers had more organic transportation, but they also had much organizational equipment not needed for beach operations. If they left the equipment behind, they also had to leave men to guard and maintain it, thus weakening the combat regiment.20
In accordance with an AFHQ directive, Fifth U.S. Army trained Force 141 units in amphibious operations at its training center at Port-aux-Poules.21 When the’ 1st Engineer Special Brigade came together there, less than 2½ months were left until D-day. The shore
groups had to be organized, equipped, and trained. Experiments had to determine how to deal with a number of problems, such as breaching obstacles on the beaches. Troops had to become familiar with DUKWs and with the new types of landing craft. Combat troops and naval units had to train together and rehearse landings.22
The 1st Engineer Special Brigade carried out extensive experiments to learn the characteristics of landing craft just being introduced into the theater and to establish procedures for landing supplies across the beaches. All through May regular training took a backseat to tests and experiments, those with landing craft and others geared to such problems as offshore sandbars.23
The discovery of sandbars off many of the beaches on Sicily raised serious doubts about the whole HUSKY undertaking. The typical sandbar lay about 150 feet offshore under two or three feet of water; only the most shallow-draft landing craft could ride over them. Water often deepened to ten feet shoreward of the bars, and naval ponton causeways were to get troops and vehicles aboard LSTs across this gap. Another problem, water supply for the beaches, was solved by equipping twenty LSTs to carry 10,000 gallons of water each. Shore parties equipped with canvas storage tanks and hoses were to pump this water ashore.24
On 3 June Col. Eugene M. Caffey, commanding officer of the 1st Engineer Special Brigade, became responsible for organizing, equipping, and training the shore units, and, by- the fifteenth, engineer regimental shore groups were attached to the subtask forces for combined training and rehearsals. As during TORCH, the brigade had to train with other Army organizations and with the Navy before it could prepare its own units adequately.25
Rehearsal landings took place between 22 June and 4 July, for JOSS in the Bizerte-Tunis area and for DIME and KOOL in the Arzew area. CENT Force, which came from the United States, rehearsed near Oran. To Admiral Hewitt, whose Western Naval Task Force was to land the Seventh Army, these hurriedly conceived exercises were at best a dry run on a reduced scale. They had some value for assault troops but virtually none for the engineer shore groups. The CENT rehearsals, for instance, ended before any shore party equipment had been landed or any supplies put across the beach.26
Limited time and opportunity made the training of many other engineer units just as meager, while security prevented specific training for HUSKY. The Fifth Army mine school and the British Eighth Army mine school at
Tripoli trained instructors who could return to their units and pass on their knowledge, but most such training was without the benefit of enemy mines. Warnings from the U.S. chief ordnance officer at AFHQ that aging explosives could become dangerously sensitive proved justified in a British attempt to ship enemy mines to the United States; while the mines were being loaded aboard a small coaster at Algiers the entire lot blew up, sinking the coaster and firing an ammunition ship at the next berth.27
On the whole, the troops scheduled for HUSKY were far better prepared to deal with mines than were those in Tunisia. Concern arose in some quarters lest overemphasis on mine warfare damage troop morale, but engineers were convinced that thorough instruction was the best answer. Nor did they concur in the decision to restrict the use of live enemy mines in training. Colonel Davidson believed that “realism in training [was] essential regardless of the risk to personnel and equipment,” a view with which 15th Army Group agreed and which AFHQ accepted.28
Toward the end of June assault units began moving into their embarkation areas: CENT Force (45th Infantry Division) at Oran, DIME (1st Infantry Division) at Algiers, and JOSS (3rd Infantry Division) at Bizerte. The initial assault—Seventh Army would have 82,502 men ashore in Sicily by the end of D-day—included approximately 11,000 engineers scheduled to land with the subtask forces, plus nearly 1,200 more in the floating reserve. Engineers with DIME Force numbered nearly 3,200. Another 4,300, plus Company A of the 17th Armored Engineer Battalion, were with JOSS Force and 3,500 with CENT Force. About 1,350 engineer vehicles accompanied these troops on D-day. Additional engineer troops and vehicles were to reach the JOSS and DIME areas with the D plus 4 and D plus 8 convoys. In North Africa 22 engineer units totaling 7,388 men stood by, ready to be called forward as required.29
The convoy carrying CENT Force sailed from Oran harbor on 5 July, and as it moved along the North African coast DIME and JOSS Force convoys joined. The faster ships feinted south along Cape Bon peninsula, while the slower vessels proceeded by more direct routes to a rendezvous area off the island of Gozo. On the ninth a steady wind began to blow out of the north and increased during the afternoon, piling up a heavy sea and raising serious doubts that the invasion could proceed. Then, during the night, the wind dropped. As H-hour approached the seas began to settle and prospects for a successful landing brightened.30
D-day
Before dawn on 10 July 1943, the
assault waves of three American infantry divisions landed along a forty-mile stretch of Sicilian beach. (Map 5) On the west the 3rd Infantry Division (JOSS Force) straddled the small port of Licata, landing on five separate beaches. In the center, about seventeen miles east of Licata, the 1st Infantry Division (DIME Force) went in over six beaches just east of Gela, and on the division’s left a Ranger force landed directly at Gela. The 45th Infantry Division (CENT Force) beached at eight points extending from Scoglitti halfway to Gela. Farther east, the British made simultaneous landings along another stretch of the Sicilian coast extending from Cape Passero almost to Syracuse. DIME Force went in on time at 0245, but weather slowed the other two forces. The wind had dropped to about fifteen miles an hour, but a 2½-foot surf still ran along most beaches and a considerably higher one at Scoglitti. The initial landings on some beaches in the JOSS and CENT areas came just as dawn was breaking at 0550.31
Enemy strength on Sicily consisted of about ten divisions. The equivalent of about five were disposed in or near coastal defenses, and five were in mobile reserve. Most of the troops were dispirited Italians; only two divisions, both in reserve, were German.32
American assault troops swept through enemy shore defenses with little trouble. A few strands of barbed wire stretched across most of the beaches, and on some a few bands of antitank mines, but there were no manmade underwater obstacles and few antipersonnel mines or booby traps. Many concrete pillboxes, cleverly camouflaged, well supplied, and well provided with communication trenches, existed, some so new that wooden forms still encased them. None proved very troublesome, mainly because the Italians manning them had little disposition to fight.
Here and there infantrymen skirmished briefly along the shoreline before pushing inland, and at a number of points shore engineers joined in to clean out scattered pockets of resistance.33 At some points the enemy had sections of beach under small-arms fire as the shore engineers came in, but for the most part only intermittent artillery fire and sporadic enemy air action harassed the beaches. No enemy strong-point held out stubbornly, and shore engineers were soon free to go about organizing their beaches. By nightfall all three subtask forces had beachheads that stretched two to four miles inland, and they had taken 4,265 prisoners. The cost had been relatively small: 58 killed, 199 wounded, and 700 missing.34
Joss Beaches
From west to east Joss beaches were named Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue. The first two lay west of Licata, the other two east of it, and all were the responsibility of the 36th Engineer Shore Group. Along the 4,500-yard length of Red Beach ran a sandbar, and between the sandbar and beach was a runnel 100 to 300 feet wide and, in many places, more than 6 feet deep.
About 0440, nearly two hours after the first wave of infantrymen had splashed ashore from LCVPs, shore searchlights that had been playing over the water off Red Beach winked out. At 0510 heavy fire broke out along the beach and a destroyer began shelling shore positions. An LCT carrying engineers of the 36th Engineer Shore Group joined five others carrying medium tanks to make the run in to the beach, covered by two destroyers coursing along the shoreline belching out a smoke screen as dawn broke. The six LCTs grounded successfully, the tanks lumbered off into 3½ feet of water and waded ashore. The engineers discovered that the beach, in places only twenty feet wide, consisted of soft sand strewn with large boulders. Behind it rose cliffs fifteen to sixty feet high, with only one exit road usable for wheeled vehicles, a steep, sandy wagon track that led through vineyards and fields of ripening tomatoes and melons to the coastal highway some three miles away. The first six LCTs did better than craft of successive waves. Some stuck on the offshore bar and discharged trucks into water that drowned them out—thirty-two of the sixty-five vehicles that disembarked for Red Beach from nine LCTs failed to bridge the water gap.
Ashore, congestion and confusion mounted. Tractors had to drag vehicles over the sandy beach exit road while recovery of stalled vehicles was slow and unorganized, for no definite preparations for this work had been made. Some sections of beach became choked off completely. T-2 recovery units, tanks, and DUKWs tried to unravel the problem; D-7 dozers, well suited to the task, were inland working on beach exit roads, but the smaller R-4s proved ineffective in the soft sand. Vehicles stalled or awaiting better exit routes soon jammed the beaches with supplies. As congestion increased and more landing craft broached, many men stood idle, uncertain what to do.
Offshore an LST tried to unload its ponton floats, but the surf was too rough and the floats washed ashore. The craft then tried to get nearer the beach to discharge without the causeway but grounded fifty to sixty feet out in about four feet of water. The first truck off stalled ten feet from the LSTs ramp. Two DUKWs recovered the truck, but a motor crane stalled in about the same place. When DUKWs could not move the crane, the LST pulled offshore for the night. Next morning two D-7 tractors spent some five hours pulling the crane ashore and then succeeded in moving the naval ponton causeway into position.
Here, as at other beaches, the causeways proved of great value once they were in use. Vehicles were driven ashore over them, and an LST could unload in about two hours. But the causeways did not always hold head on against the shore. As one LST pulled off, the causeways tended to broach before another LST could come up. After forty-eight hours broached craft and stalled vehicles still choked Red Beach, and on D plus 3 it was abandoned. The only enemy opposition had been Messerschmitt 109s, each carrying a single bomb, that made eight bombing and strafing raids during D-day. The aircraft had caused delays but no casualties.
Halfway between Red Beach and Licata lay Green Beach, also difficult but selected because it could take assault units within close striking distance of the port of Licata. Green consisted of two half-moon beaches, each about 1,000 feet long, separated by a point of land jutting out from the shore. The coastal highway was about 1½ miles away. Offshore bars were no problem but exits were, for behind the beaches towered abrupt bluffs more than 100 feet high. One platoon of Company C, 36th Engineers, along with a naval beach detachment and some medical personnel, supported the landing of the 2nd Battalion, 15th Infantry, and the 3rd Ranger Battalion. As expected, exit difficulties ruled out Green Beach for supply operations, and twelve hours after the initial landings the beach was closed. The small engineer shore party there rejoined the 1st Battalion, 36th Engineers, on Red Beach, taking along twenty-six captured Italian soldiers. But Green Beach paid off, for the men landed, took Licata, a small port that offered facilities for handling five LSTs simultaneously, and by 1600 on D-day an LST was unloading.
At Yellow and Blue beaches things went much better. Yellow Beach, centering about six miles east of Licata, was probably the best American beach. The sand there had no troublesome boulders, and the main coastal highway lay only some 400 yards away across slightly rising sandy loam planted in
grapes and tomatoes. Blue Beach, beginning about a mile farther east, was almost as good. After the initial assault most of Joss Force landed over these two beaches, and those elements of the 36th Engineer Shore Group that supported landings on the other Joss beaches soon moved to Yellow and Blue. Some LSTs sent vehicles ashore over a naval ponton causeway, but most stood one-half to three-quarters of a mile out and unloaded on the LCTs or DUKWs. DUKWs were the workhorses on the beach, invaluable because they could eliminate much of the man-handling of supplies. Nearly all carried more than their rated 2½ tons, and some went in with so little freeboard that the wake of a passing landing craft could have swamped them. At least one, overloaded with 105-mm. shells, sank as soon as it drove off a ramp.
The 36th Engineer Shore Group headquarters landed at 0714 on D-day and established itself on a hill overlooking both Blue and Yellow beaches. By noon the shore group had consolidated battalion beach dumps into regimental dumps behind the two beaches. Shore engineers worked throughout the night and into D plus 1 with only temporary halts during enemy bombing raids. During the afternoon of D-day, the 2nd Battalion, 540th Engineers, landed along with two platoons of the 2nd Naval Beach Battalion, and before noon on 11 July units of the 382nd Port Battalion (TC) entered Licata port to clear LST berthings. As order emerged and supplies began to move smoothly, it became evident that Seventh Army could be supplied across the beaches so long as the seas remained calm. During the first three days 20,470 men, 6,614 tons of supplies, and 3,752 vehicles landed at
Licata or across the Joss beaches. In the same period, more than 200 wounded and over 500 POWs were evacuated to North Africa.35
Dime Beaches
Seventeen miles east of Licata a wave of Rangers went in at Gela at H-hour (0245), a second wave following within a few minutes. One-half hour later two waves of the 39th Engineer Combat Regiment were ashore preparing to clear away beach obstacles and demolish pillboxes. Some mortar men, providing support for the Rangers, comprised the fifth wave, which went in about H plus l, while shore engineers from the 1st Battalion, 531st Engineers, landed in the sixth wave. By dawn (0515) Rangers and the 39th Engineers were digging in on their objective on the north edge of Gela, and shore engineers were preparing the beaches for an influx of cargo.36
Just to the east the 16th and 26th Regimental Combat Teams, 1st Infantry Division, landed simultaneously with the Rangers, while the 18th Regimental Combat Team and elements of the 2nd Armored Division lay offshore in floating reserve. In these landings divisional engineers, attached by platoons to infantry battalions, went in with the assault waves. The 1st and 2nd Platoons, Company A, 1st Engineer Combat Battalion, landed with the 16th Regimental Combat Team;
the 1st and 2nd Platoons, Company C, were with the 26th Regimental Combat Team. These engineers were to clear enemy obstructions, but they found little wire, few antipersonnel mines, and no artificial underwater obstacles. Enemy resistance was light, and combat engineers soon disappeared inland with the infantry. Some of them removed demolition charges on bridges leading into Gela.37
DIME beaches were much like Yellow and Blue beaches in the JOSS sector except in one important respect—the main coastal highway was nearly two miles away. Enemy defenses in the area were somewhat more developed than at other points on the southern shore, but pillboxes gave little trouble to infantry-engineer assault teams, and the only underwater obstacles were offshore sandbars.
Mines proved somewhat troublesome, largely for want of SCR-625s. Mine detectors belonging to the 39th Engineers were on trucks or other vehicles that did not land until D plus 1, while the 531st Engineers carried a number of detectors ashore only to find that salt spray had short-circuited many of them. Most of the mines lay in regular patterns and were not booby-trapped, but some were buried as deep as five feet. On one Gela beach, engineers found six rows of Teller mines spaced three yards apart; five Navy bulldozers were lost in this mine belt. Mines also destroyed a number of trucks and DUKWs—some because operators ignored the warning tapes the engineers had put down. No antipersonnel mines were found on the beaches themselves, where, said one observer, they would have been “horribly effective,” but some in the dunes and cover just back of the beaches caused casualties.38
While the 1st Battalion, 531st Engineers, landed at Gela in support of the Rangers, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions followed the assault waves of the 16th and 26th Regimental Combat Teams ashore. The infantry moved inland as rapidly as possible, while the shore engineers remained behind to organize the beaches. The shore engineers landed before dawn, but not until midmorning could landing craft stop ferrying men ashore and start bringing in cargo. In the interim shore engineers cut exit roads, cleared away mines and other obstacles, set up beach markers to guide landing craft, established beach communications systems and traffic control measures, and organized work parties.39
As at JOSS, mishaps caused craft to broach and vehicles to stall in the water off DIME Beach, but the primary disruption was an enemy counterattack through most of D plus 1.40 During the
early hours of D-day Italian guns laid intermittent artillery fire on the beaches, destroying a pier at Gela that planners had counted on for unloading LSTs. Then at 0830 enemy armor started moving south out of Niscemi toward Gela. One column drove to within a mile or two of the coastal highway before paratroopers, elements of the 16th Infantry, and the guns of the cruiser Boise and the destroyer Jeffers stopped it. In the meantime, a second column of about twenty-five light Italian tanks approached Gela from Ponte Olivo. The destroyer Shubrick knocked out three but others came on, and the defense section of the 1st Battalion, 531st Engineers, moved forward to reinforce the Rangers and the 39th Engineers. In the ensuing fight the shore engineers scored several hits with bazookas, and when nine or ten Italian tanks drove into Gela, the Rangers drove them off.
With enemy armor in the vicinity, the greatest need ashore was for tanks and artillery, most of which were still aboard LSTs. Early on D-day LST-338 ran a ponton causeway ashore. The causeway’s crew rigged it amid falling shells, and by 1030 the LST had unloaded and pulled away. But before another LST could take its place the causeway began to drift, and repositioning it cost valuable time. The lack of adequate anchors for the seaward ends of the ponton causeways was especially felt on DIME beaches, where plans for using the Gela pier had limited the number of causeways to three. Artillery pieces had to be ferried ashore by DUKWs while tanks, too heavy for DUKWs, came in on LCTs and LCMs. As the afternoon wore on, the surf became littered with abandoned vehicles and broached landing craft and the beach clogged with stalled vehicles and piles of materiel.
Late in the afternoon of D-day General Patton ordered ashore KOOL Force, the floating reserve consisting of the 18th Regimental Combat Team and two combat commands of the 2nd Armored Division. The movement did not get under way until about 1800; by 0200 on 11 July men on the beach, exhausted after working around the clock, began to drop off to sleep, stalling KOOL landings until daylight. In the meantime the enemy, now reinforced by larger German tanks of the Hermann Göring Division, prepared to launch a new attack on Gela.
Few antitank guns or 2nd Armored Division tanks were ashore when the enemy struck on the morning of D plus 1, and the only American tanks engaged were five Shermans an LCT had brought ashore about 1030. The German tanks fanned out across the Gela plain, overran American infantry guarding the beachhead perimeter, and rolled on toward the beaches, some lobbing shells into the mass of vehicles, materiel, and men assembled there. Divisional artillery, an infantry cannon company, the five Sherman tanks, and fire from cruisers and destroyers halted the Germans. At 1130 two causeways were operating and tanks rolled ashore over them. The enemy attack faltered shortly after noon, but sporadic fighting continued into the night.
On the beaches conditions had already begun to improve, and by 1600 on D plus 2 the D-day convoy had completely unloaded. By D plus 3 order prevailed, and, with the arrival of the 540th Engineer Combat Regiment (less one battalion), the shore engineers of the 53 1st were able to concentrate on keeping the
beaches clear. Casualties in the 531st were somewhat higher than in any other shore regiment during the landings: as of 16 July the regiment had losses of 22 men killed, 68 wounded, and 2 missing.41
The 540th Engineers took over responsibility for road work, mine removal, beach dump operations, and other jobs inland from the beaches. It also operated the tiny port of Gela, where U.S. Navy engineers had anchored two ponton causeway sections alongside the damaged pier for unloading LCTs and LSTs.
The 531st Engineers’ beach operations settled down to routine: clearing the beaches, operating dumps, guarding POWs, removing waterproofing from vehicles, and protecting the beach area. One of the most efficient means of moving supplies across the beaches was cargo nets which enabled DUKWs to be unloaded with one sweep of a crane. DUKWs equipped with A-frames, a nonstandard item manufactured and installed in the theater, proved particularly valuable.42
After 11 July enemy strafing and bombing attacks subsided, and, favored by ideal weather, supply across JOSS and DIME beaches could have continued indefinitely except for very heavy equipment. But Palermo fell on 22 July, and the beaches lost their importance rapidly. They continued to function during the first week in August, but
DIME averaged less than a hundred tons a day. On 7 August DIME beaches closed down in favor of JOSS beaches and captured ports on the north coast.43
Cent Beaches
Two groups of beaches ten miles apart provided the landing sites for the 45th Infantry Division in the CENT area. One group of beaches (Red, Green, and Yellow) north of Scoglitti had been chosen for proximity to Biscari Airfield, about eight miles inland; the group south of Scoglitti (Green 2, Yellow 2), for proximity to Comiso Airfield, some fourteen miles away.
The 120th Engineer Combat Battalion, attached by platoons to infantry battalions, began landing on the northern beaches at 0345, H-hour having been set back sixty minutes in this sector because of heavy seas. The engineers hastily cleared sections of the beaches, reconnoitered for exit routes, and knocked out enemy pillboxes. By noon two companies of the 19th Engineer Combat Regiment had come ashore. Though earmarked to repair inland airfields, they helped on the beaches until the airfields were taken. The men of the 19th Engineers were doubly welcome because of their three rare D-7 bulldozers and three road graders, but most of this equipment could not land until the following day because of high seas and trouble with causeways.44
The landings on CENT beaches were the most difficult in Sicily. One trouble
was the loading plan, which followed the U.S. amphibious standing operating procedure, calling for assault battalions to be unit-loaded aboard a single ship. This plan did not apply to the 120th Engineer Combat Battalion, which sailed aboard nineteen different ships, but it did apply to the assault units to which the combat engineers were attached.45 The system had obvious theoretical tactical advantages, but at Sicily practical disadvantages tended to outweigh them. No single ship carried enough landing craft to put a full assault wave in the water. As a result, landing craft from one ship had to grope about in the predawn darkness seeking other ships or the landing craft that formed the rest of the assault wave.
Waves and surf higher and rougher than in the JOSS and DIME areas made offshore rendezvous at the CENT beaches more difficult. Well-trained landing craft crews might have been equal to the offshore problems, but at least half the 45th Infantry Division’s coxswains had been replaced just as the division left the United States. The high surf took a fearful toll of landing craft. By noon on D plus 1, in one sector 109 LCVPs and LCMs out of an original 175 were damaged, stranded, sunk, or missing. Along one stretch of beach one craft was stranded an average of every twenty-five yards.46
Many of the landing craft that reached shore missed their mark because of heavy surf, too few landmarks, and a strong southeast current; part of one regimental combat team (including the commander) landed six miles northwest of its assigned beach. The 40th Engineers’ shore group, mounted in the United States, had not instructed its components to develop whatever beach they landed on. When men of the 40th found themselves on the wrong beaches, many searched along the shoreline for the right ones. But even those who stayed where they landed and set to work on exit routes could not build roads fast enough to handle the cargo coming ashore. Exits had to cross a belt of sand dunes up to a thousand yards wide, and the main coastal highway was several miles away.
The CENT beaches soon became heavily congested, and many shore engineer units shifted their location—some several times—to find better exit routes. Each move cost the shore groups time, control over their organization, discipline, and equipment. Naval beach battalions, for instance, had heavy equipment that could not be shifted about easily.47
D-7 angledozers had to build most exit roads at the beaches, for the smaller R –4s again proved too weak for either road construction or vehicle salvage. The engineer regiments working the beaches had two D-7s per lettered engineer company and could easily have used a third. Cyclone wire and
Sommerfeld mat that came ashore on sleds were used to surface sandy roads. Engineers also cut and laid cane to make sandy roads passable.
DUKWs carried most supplies inland. Bleeding the tires to ten pounds of pressure enabled the craft to cross the sandy beaches but cut tire life to about 3,500 miles. Other supplies had to be manhandled, mostly by POW volunteers, and dragged to the dumps on sleds hauled by bulldozers. Not much went into the beach dumps on D-day, and before D plus 1 ended CENT beaches were hopelessly jammed. That night and the next day the original Green, Red, and Yellow beaches were abandoned, and unloading moved some three miles to the southeast, where the inland roadnet was more accessible. Operations continued at new beaches in the Scoglitti area for another week before events inland and farther west along the coast closed the CENT beaches permanently.48
During the first three days of the invasion 66,235 men, 17,766 deadweight tons of cargo, and 7,416 vehicles went ashore over Seventh Army beaches, while 666 U.S. Army troops and 614 POWs were evacuated. By the end of July the 1st Engineer Special Brigade had put ashore 111,824 men,
104,734 tons of cargo, and 21,512 vehicles, and had shipped out to North Africa 1,772 wounded and 27,939 POWs. The performance quieted fears that the beaches would be unable to support the Seventh Army.49 Around 17 July the 1st Engineer Special Brigade, on orders from General Patton, began to gather all Seventh Army supply activities and many service units under its command, taking over all unloading and supply at DIME, CENT, and JOSS beaches. The brigade’s beach operations on Sicily demonstrated that Allied planners would not have to be so closely bound by requirements for ports in preparing for future moves against the Continent.
Despite the generally favorable conditions for amphibious operations in Sicily, the engineers still suffered from their own inexperience. The frequent inability to adapt existing plans and procedures to new conditions in the midst of a developing situation led to continued delays in supply movement off the beaches. The haste of preparations and the curtain of security for the Sicilian landings also brought many engineers their first glimpse of new types of equipment on the busy beaches. They soon would have to apply what they learned in new thrusts onto the Italian mainland against a still determined German enemy.