During the Allied Invasion of Sicily, after the capture of Biscari airfield on 14 July 1943 American soldiers from the regiment murdered 74 Italian and two German prisoners of war in two massacres at Biscari airfield in July–August 1943. Sergeant Horace T. West and Captain John T. Compton were charged with a war crime; West was convicted and sentenced to life in prison and stripped of his rank but was released as a private. Compton was charged with killing 40 prisoners in his charge but was acquitted and transferred to another regiment, where he died a year later in the fighting in Italy.