The Pittsburgh Press (July 22, 1943)
AXIS DEFENSES IN SICILY COLLAPSE
Fleet shells Crotone port in South Italy
Planes also raid harbor; Naples rail facilities blanketed by bombs
Allied HQ, North Africa (UP) –
A strong force of surface ships shelled the port of Crotone in southern Italy in the early hours of Wednesday, it was announced today.
The London radio said British warships carried out the naval attack on Crotone, setting numerous fires and withdrawing without damage or casualties.
Crotone is an Ionian Sea port near the southwesterly edge of the Gulf of Taranto, which lies in front of the heel of the Italian boot.
Announcement of the naval bombardment of Crotone followed an Allied communiqué revealing that targets there had been “well covered” with bombs in an air raid.
In Springfield, Illinois, Senator Scott W. Lucas (D-IL), a member of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, said that he expected an Allied army to be fighting “in Italy within 10 days’ time.”
Ranging far up to Grosseto, 90 miles north of Rome, U.S. Flying Fortresses scored on runways and among airdrome buildings in an attack yesterday and intruder planes kept up the continual battering of internal Italian communications last night.
Meet little opposition
The big U.S. bombers met only one enemy fighter and little anti-aircraft fire, raining their explosives at will on the Grosseto Airdrome.
2nd Lt. Reynolds Baggio of Los Angeles described the raid as “monotonous” because of the spiritless opposition over Grosseto.
British Wellington bombers laid carpets of bombs on Naples rail and dock facilities, cutting deeply into vital Axis supply routes, and on the Crotone Airfield, where seven grounded aircraft were left burning.
Five Axis planes downed
The airdrome raids were designed to destroy as many enemy planes as possible at the least cost to the Allies. The day’s toll in air combat was five enemy planes destroyed against loss of two Allied aircraft.
Allied planes continued their assaults against Sicily in front of advancing land forces on a day-and-night basis.
An Italian communiqué broadcast by Rome radio said an airdrome at Rome was raided this morning and that Salerno on the mainland and Cagliari on Sardinia had been attacked during the past 24 hours in addition to Naples.