The Pittsburgh Press (August 7, 1943)
SICILY STRONGHOLD FALLS
Yanks in Troina after fiercest battle of drive
Smashing blows drive Nazis back near Mt. Etna; 125,000 prisoners captured on island
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Another stronghold falls to the U.S. 7th Army in Sicily with the capture of Troina, dominating the last Axis escape corridor around Mt. Etna. Farther south, the British reached Belpasso, a seven-mile drive from Catania. Allied forces also threatened Adrano. Messina, enemy evacuation port, was pounded by Allied fliers.
Allied HQ, North Africa –
U.S. troops have captured the mountain-top stronghold of Troina in the fiercest battle of the Sicilian campaign and the main Axis defense line, shattered at key points, was believed falling back today under heavy bombing to the hills north of Mt. Etna.
A total of 125,000 prisoners have been taken by the Allies and Italian troops seemed to have been withdrawn completely from the frontlines. Germans defending Troina lost heavily when the U.S. 7th Army’s crack units – supported by a great artillery and dive-bomber attack – seized the city.
It was also announced that the Allies have occupied the tiny volcanic island of Ustica, 40 miles north of Palermo.
Battle to the end
The capture of Troina by the famous 1st Division was of tremendous importance in blasting the southern and western lines around Mt. Etna and the Germans fought to the last to hold this junction between the Hermann Göring Division and the 15th Panzer Division, which is defending threatened Adrano to the south.
The Germans were fighting to hold the road and railroad that runs along the western side of the volcanic peak while their defeated forces on the south or Catania front withdrew. Canadian and British forces are hammering forces way close to Adrano, which is astride the escape road. At last reports, they were five miles away.
But the capture of Troina permitted the Americans farther north to push on toward Bronte, which is on the same road, thus threatening to cut off the Germans at Adrano, which now appeared to be untenable for the enemy.
Front narrowed
The new gains narrow the battlefront from 170 miles on July 20 to approximately 45 miles in length and it was believed the enemy was falling back for a new stand at Randazzo Pass, north of Mt. Etna.
Randazzo Pass is a strong position between Etna and the Nebrodi Mountain range, but Allied air fleets have been hammering this road and many other targets as far as Messina with relentless fury. Every type of plane was hurled into the assault on the cracking and retreating Axis forces.
Some 350 tons of bombs were dropped on Messina alone during round-the-clock attacks, while other planes raked the roads and junctions throughout the enemy sector with bombs and machine-gun bullets. Scores of flaming vehicles were left on the highways, while RAF Wellingtons ranged northward and attacked the harbor of Naples. They also hit 30 landing craft on the beaches near Messina, from which the Allies have been attempting to prevent evacuation of enemy personnel.
Lay heavy minefields
The retreating Germans have laid heavy minefields and again resorted to all types of boobytraps. Nine bridges were blown up in the path of Americans advancing against stubborn opposition on the north coast near Caronia, east of San Stefano.
Troina, atop a 3,600-foot peak, fell after a week-long siege marked by the fiercest fighting since Tunisia.
The peak was held by a German suicide force of 1,500 who held out against terrific artillery barrages and air raids by as many as 70 dive bombers at a time. Key positions on its approaches changed hands several times in a single day in the see-saw battle that preceded its fall.
Reach Belpasso
The main British column driving northwestward from Catania reached Belpasso on the southern slopes of Mt. Etna, an advance of nearly seven miles.
Ustica, a tiny island which Premier Mussolini used as a place of banishment for political opponents, was occupied by combined U.S. naval and military forces Thursday and the garrison of 100 Italian soldiers and sailors made prisoner. All Germans left the island July 11.
Two hundred and sixteen Italian civil prisoners and a guard were found on the island, in addition to 1,100 civilians, who were destitute and without water. Many were ill with malaria.
Meanwhile, U.S. destroyers were credited with sinking one heavily-laden enemy lighter and one of two escorting torpedo boats south of Lipari Island off the Sicilian north coast Tuesday night.
Sink 21 barges
Allied fighter-bombers, joining in the offensive against Axis shipping in Sicilian waters, sank 21 barges and four other small vessels Thursday night, a communiqué said.
The communiqué reported that U.S. destroyers and motor torpedo boats have in the past few nights driven as far east as the Gulf of Gioia on the west coast of the Italian toe without meeting enemy traffic.
British naval forces concentrated their bombardments on the Sicilian east coast road near Taormina, 28 miles south of Messina, where previous shellings loosed landslides that completely blocked that vital highway.
Clear Catania channel
All enemy sea traffic has ceased in this area too, the communiqué said, and minesweepers have begun clearing a channel into Catania, the big east coast port which fell to the British Thursday.
Enemy transport was also attacked in southern Italy, while the Naples raiders last night concentrated on the docks and railway communications.
Two enemy planes were shot down during the 24-hours ended last night and eight Allied planes were lost.
British four-engined Liberator and Halifax heavy bombers from the Middle East Command bombed San Giovanni, Italian mainland ferry terminus across a narrow strait from Messina, last night.
