The Battle for Sicily: Stepping Stone to Victory by Ian Blackwell

Author:Ian Blackwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Basic Code 1: HIS027100
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781844685608
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2008-09-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE AXIS REACTION

THE LANDING CAME AS NO SURPRISE to the Axis forces on Sicily; as the war diary of the German liaison staff with the Italian Sixth Army reported, they were anticipating it for several hours before it occurred:

July 9th, 6.20 p.m.: Radio message from 2nd Fliegerkorps indicates the presence of six convoys totalling 150 to 200 vessels in the waters north of Malta and Gozo.

8.05 p.m.: Radio from C.-in-C. south: 150 landing-craft at 4.30 p.m. in a position north of Malta, steering north.

11.15 p.m. Chief of Staff of Italian 6th Army to General Senger: We anticipate an attack at dawn against Catania and Gela1.

German intelligence reports had listed the numbers and types of shipping that had been assembling in the Mediterranean for some time; on 1 July, for example, the passage of five hospital ships through the Straits of Gibraltar was interpreted as an indication of forthcoming Allied operations. Two days later, heavy concentrations of troop ships with landing craft aboard, and ten LCTs, were reported at Port Said. What remained unclear, until 9 July, was exactly where the blow would strike – but that fact was now becoming apparent2.

At 0500 hours on 10 July the first reports arrived of parachute landings in the region of Comiso and San Pietro, between Caltagirone and the coast. News also came in that gliders had landed near Augusta3.

As dawn broke on 10 July the size and locations of the Allied landings were becoming apparent to the defenders of Sicily. Although details were not always clear, the Italians and their German allies were able to form a picture of events and to begin to plan their countermeasures accordingly. It appeared to them that the main threat was in the south and east, where the landings had occurred that morning; little credence seems to have been given to the possibility that further attacks would come in the west of the island. Even should these happen at some future time or date, the Axis forces had enough on their hands dealing with those invaders that had arrived on the coastline between Licata and Syracuse, and the available resources had to be deployed to deal with this threat. The Axis response was, firstly, to contain the beachheads while their own reinforcements arrived from mainland Italy. Secondly, they would attempt to drive the Allies back into the sea. And finally, in the event that this was unsuccessful, they would fight to keep their escape route off the island – the Straits of Messina – open.

Guzzoni’s first action was to order 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, only recently arrived in the west of Sicily, to move back to the centre of the island ready to be deployed where and when the situation demanded. He also ordered XIV Corps Headquarters and the Livorno Division, with the Hermann Göring Division, less Group Schmalz which was in the Syracuse area and therefore already likely to be committed, to counterattack the western beaches before the Americans could establish themselves solidly.

These intentions were

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