The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-11-19
ASSAULT ON SICILY

island of Sicily was launched on
 10 July 1943. For weeks airfields,
 rain lines, and enemy Notifications
 on the island and in Sardinia and
 on the Italian mainland had been
 reduced by aerial bombbardment.
 Pantelleria had surrendered on II
 June after an intense air and naval
 attack. The small islands of Lam
 peduSa and Linosa had fallen a few
 days later
 The attacking force-the Fif-
 teenth Army Group-7was under
 General Eisenhower's deputy com
 mander for allied ground forces,
 Gen. Sir Harold L. R. G. Alex
 ander. It consisted of the Ameri-
 ican Seventh Army, under It.
 Gen. George s. Patton, Jr., an the
 left and the British Eighth Army,
 under It. Gen. Sir Bernard L.
 Montgomery, on the right. The
 Seventh Army assault force was
 made up of the II Corps, com- manded by It. Gen. Omar N.
 Bradley and separate task force
 under Major General Lucian K. Truscott. The II Corps consisted principally of the 1st and 45th Divisions, and a paratroop force. The task force was made up of the Sd Division with a combat team of the 2d Armored Division. In the British Eighth Army were two corps, including four infantry di- visions, two brigades, and an air. borne division. These troops were embarked from Algeria, Tunisia, the Middle East, the United King dom, and the United States. The Naval Commander in Chief under General Eisenhower was Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunning ham. Vice Admiral Henry K. Hewitt was the senior U. s. Naval officer.
 A wind which had sprung up the night preceding D-day attain ed near gale proportions as our conveys approached their rendez- yous. The wind subsided some what before H-hour, but condi- tions continued quite unfavorable for landing. In compensation, the storm had put the beach defend- CTS of their guard.
 General Eisenhower wrote me IT July:
 All the initial invasion moves were carried out smoothly, and an astonishing lack of resist ance was encountered on the shoreline. Captured Italian gen. erals say We secured complete sur prise. The airborne operations, which were executed about three hours ahead of the landing, were the first real notice the defenders had of what was com ing. Our parachutists and the Brit ish glider troops got fairly well in- to their positions in spite of very high winds and bad navigating conditions. The landings on the east coast were not greatly trou- bled by the weather, but the 18th and 1st Divisions had an extremely bad surf. Admiral Cunningham told me that he considered the United States Navy landing opera tions under Admiral Kirk with the 45th Division), to be one of the finest examples of seamanship he had ever witnessed. :"
 Casualties From Own Fire
 The wind also disrupted our airborne landings which were scheduled to be made inland from Gela a few hours before H-hour, Although scattered over wide area and suffering heavy casualties from our own fire directed at transport formations which were of the pre- scribed course. the paratroops had a decisive effect on the successful landing.
 General Eisenhower described these tragic difficulties as follows: q. The most difficult thing we have to solve is to work out meth- ods whereby friendly aircraft can work over our troops and vessels with safety. Take for example one operation: We were quite anxious to assemble all the fighting ele- ments of the sgd Division in the read of Patton's line as a general reserve. since ali the evidence showed that he might receive some rather serious counterattacks. Two nights after the original landing. We laid on a very carefully co- ordinated plan for bringing in the of the 82nd Division. Sea lanes were established with the Navy and all troops were carefully
 AA Iaa spite of this. the troop-carrying planes encountered some fire be- fore they got over the shore and from then on we had very un- fortunate experience. Some German night bombers came in at the same moment that our troop-carrying planes did and the dropping of bombs ana Aezss made GU sns sns