Pensamientos para hoy (afterthought for today)
Operation Husky
(continued from Operation Torch) Almost immediately following Operation Torch Engbrecksen was told to get ready for a new invasion--the invasion of Sicily. "After Rommel's defeat in North Africa, we put the German prisoners into POW camps," Engbrecksen said. That was in March of 1943. "Then after a brief rest we began training for Operation Husky -- the invasion of Sicily." Engbrecksen spent another three months in North Africa getting ready for the invasion of Sicily which was to be an amphibious landing involving hundreds of ships and an airborne operation involving hundreds of planes and paratroopers. After returning to Algeria to prepare for the invasion, Engbrecksen's unit the 5th Field Artillery Battalion of the Big Red One, the 1st Division boarded a ship. "On July 9th we loaded our 155mm howitzers onto a Belgian LSI," Engbrecksen said. These ships, known as LSI(S) which means 'Landing Ship, Infantry (Small),' carried the troops, trucks, tanks, artillery, supplies and equipment. When the LSIs arrived off the coast the men and their equipment were loaded onto smaller landing craft for the amphibious landing. "As we approached the beach, German planes were dive bombing our ships and German submarines were shooting at our ships with torpedoes," Engbrecksen said. "A large ship close by exploded, Engbrecksen recalled. "Then as we came in on our landing craft I could see another LST about 300 yards away as it was being attacked by a German fighter plane. It was the LST 313. It blew up and sank. We lost a lot of good men in that invasion." The destroyer the USS Maddox was also sunk by German aircraft. The next day another LST the LST-158 was attacked by German aircraft and destroyed, and two days later the mine sweeper the USS Sentinel was also sunk by German aircraft."1 "The weather was very rough, very rough, and we had a hard time of it getting to the beach and unloading all our equipment. We finally came ashore near the town of Gela but not without a tremendous loss of life. It was a costly invasion." The next day on July 11th the Germans launched a counter-attack. Engbrecksen along with the entire 1st Division were in great danger as they were attacked by German tanks. The German tanks got as close as 1000 yards to their position until they were finally beaten back by the American forces.2 "Compared to the smaller battles that our Division faced in North Africa, the fighting in Sicily was 'true war'," Engbrecksen told me, War can only be described as "chaos", and the invasion of Sicily was one of the most chaotic. Hundreds of British and American soldiers died needlessly because of a lack of coordination and cooperation by the commanding generals and because some soldiers lacked experience and some lacked courage. In just one airdrop alone, over three hundred British paratroopers drowned when fearful American pilots released their gliders filled with the British troops miles from shore. At least sixty-nine gliders crashed into the sea. Later that day over three hundred American paratroopers died when they were dropped far from shore and into enemy.3
Footnotes
1Thomas E. Nutter, Ships Lost: U.S. Navy and Coast Guard Vessels, World War II, December 7, 1941 to October 1, 1945 [web-page] available at: http://www.usspennsylvania.com/NavalLosses.htm. Internet accessed June 22, 2008. 2Thomas E. Nutter, Operation Husky: The Allied Invasion of Sicily, 1943 [web-page] available at: http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/husky/postlanding.aspx?p=8. Internet accessed May 23, 2008. 3Geoffrey Regan, The Invasion of Sicily [web-page in PDF form] available at: http://www.worldwar2pilots.com/Blue-On-Blue-Friendly-Fire.pdf. Internet accessed May 22, 2008.
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