The division was subsequently assigned a lead role in the amphibious assault on Sicily, coming ashore on 10 July. Landing near Scoglitti, the southernmost U.S. objective on the island, the division advanced north on the U.S. force's eastern flank. After initially encountering resistance from armor of the Hermann Goering Division, the division advanced, supported by paratroopers of the 505th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, who landed inland on 11 July. The paratroopers, conducting their first combat jump of the war after six weeks of training in Tunisia, then set up to protect the 45th's flank against German counterattack, but without weapons to counter heavy armor, the paratroopers had to rely on support from the 2nd Armored Division to repulse the German Tiger I tanks. As the division advanced towards its main objective to capture the airfields at Biscari, and Comiso, German forces were pushed back. For most of the first two weeks while the division moved slowly north, it encountered only light resistance from Italian forces fighting delaying actions. Italian and German forces resisted fiercely at Motta Hill on 26 July, however, and for four days the 45th Division was held up there. After this, the division was allocated to drive towards Messina, being ordered by the Seventh Army commander to cover the distance as quickly as possible. The 45th Division spent a few days in that city, but on 1 August, the division was withdrawn from the front line for rest and rear-guard patrol duty, after which the division was assigned to Major General Ernest J. Dawley's VI Corps, part of the U.S. Fifth Army, under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, in preparation for the invasion of mainland Italy.