The Pittsburgh Press (July 18, 1943)
Agrigento falls to Patton as 8th Army gains in fierce battle
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
Capture of Catania near was the report today from Allied North African headquarters as the British drove to within six miles of the key Sicilian port. The Allied forces (British, Americans and Canadians) smashed inland and along the coasts of the Italian island. The Americans captured Agrigento on the southwestern coast.
Shaded portion of the map shows the approximate area occupied in the Allied advance. Broken arrows point to possible directions of the Allied drives, the British along the east coast toward Messina, the Canadians and Americans headed in the direction of Stefano, another column toward Palermo, and one up the coast toward Marsala. Completion of the drives would cut the Axis forces off from the toe of Italy, and would divide the enemy into three pockets.
In support of the invasion of Sicily, Allied bombers based in Africa and in Britain pounded the island and points on the Italian mainland. Places bombed are shown in the lower-left map.
Allied HQ, North Africa – (July 17)
U.S. forces pushing westward along Sicily’s southern coast have captured the transport and communications center of Agrigento, it was announced officially tonight as British troops reportedly smashed within six miles of the east coast base of Catania whose fall appeared imminent.
Catania was ablaze from five days of air and sea bombardment. While the British 8th Army battled for the vital key to eastern Sicily against the most violent Axis resistance of the Sicilian campaign, other Allied forces drove 10 miles deeper into the island’s interior, capturing four more important communications centers.
Agrigento, southwestern anchor of the Axis line whose defenses had been pounded by the Americans for 48 hours, was taken in a 12-mile push by the U.S. 7th Army under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton. The doughboys drove on at the northern end of the American line after taking the Italian base.
The fall of Agrigento was announced in a dispatch by United Press correspondent Richard D. McMillan, who obtained the official report at an Allied force command post.
The capture marked a notable American gain from Palma, on Sicily’s south coast, and the conquest of another important road and rail junction and vital center of communication. The city is the terminus of important roads leading from Palermo on the north and Trapani on the west to join highways to southern and eastern Sicily.
The British forces fanning out across the flat plain of Catania were also battling for the airport facilities at Gerbini, 15 miles west of the coast, and the twin drive along the Allied fright flank threatened to deprive the Axis of its last good sea and air bases in eastern Sicily.
The whole southern end of Catania was ablaze, Allied fliers reported, and cruisers and other naval units sailed up and down the coast at will, pouring shells into the port and points farther north.
NBC correspondent Alfred Wagg reported that the Germans were “attempting to rally their forces at the foot of Mt. Etna after combined warship and artillery bombardments had blasted a path for British armored units into the suburbs of Catania.” Mt. Etna is 28 miles north of Catania, indicating that the main Axis defense forces had probably withdrawn from the port.
In anticipation of occupation of all Sicily in the wake of the fast-moving Allied advances, an Allied military government known as AMGOT was established in occupied Sicilian territory and immediately proclaimed the annulment of the authority of the Italian Crown, the Fascist Party and all discriminatory and racial laws.
One-fifth of Sicily’s 10,000 square miles were now in the hands of hard-fighting Allied forces that had raced 20-40 miles inland since they fought their way onto the beaches a week ago.
London military observers said the situation was “more satisfactory than ever would have been dreamed a week ago” when the problem was whether the Allies could establish beachheads and hold them against Axis counterattacks.
A British military expert said:
Now there is no question of our being driven out. The only question is if the Axis will be able to make any kind of a stand or will himself be swept into the sea.
While the British spearhead on the Allied right flank drove steadily up the coastal road toward the toe of Benito Mussolini’s boot, Americans and Canadians in the center were moving toward the inland supply centers of Enna, 34 miles north of Gela. A third spearhead, led by U.S. forces, took Agrigento on the left flank.
A front dispatch from United Press correspondent C. R. Cunningham said a trail of death and ruin lay behind the advancing U.S. Army. The blackened hulks of Germany’s prize Mark VI Tiger tanks littered the roadsides in testimony to the deadly accuracy of American anti-tank guns and 105mm howitzers.
Italians, surrendering by thousands, complained that the Axis command had placed them in front of minefields that protected the Germans. More than 20,000 had been taken – of these about 16,000 by the Americans.
The U.S. 7th Army, with which French Goums from North Africa were officially reported to be fighting, straightened its lines in the rugged terrain on the Allied left flank where they had penetrated 20 miles in a week and then smashed into Agrigento.
Canadian units, driving inland on the central sector for a gain of 10 miles, captured the communications center of Caltagirone, 18 miles northeast pf Gela, and pushed on another five or six miles to the east, taking the town of Grammichele. Their gains for the week was more than 30 miles.
Capture Lentini
The British, whose 40-mile gain for the week was the greatest, opened the way through the narrow bottleneck into the Catania plain by taking Lentini, 14 miles southwest of the port, and Scordia, seven miles west of Lentini, in a hard-fought action supported by naval bombardments.
As the troops swirled through the Lentini bottleneck onto the Catania plain, Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s battle-wise veterans faced the problem of crossing the Gornalunga, Dittaino and Simeto Rivers which cut across the flatland. On the banks of these streams and along irrigation ditches south of Catania, the Axis forces stiffened in a desperate effort to stave off the capture of the port.
Strengthens position
The capture of Lentini, where British armored units had been engaged in hard fighting for two days strengthened the Allied position in the race up the east coast to the chief Sicilian port of Messina, already blasted into almost complete uselessness by repeated raids by the Northwest African Air Forces and U.S. Liberators from the Middle East.
The Allied advances cut deeply into the network of railroad and highway communications feeding the Axis frontline troops in eastern Sicily, protecting the route to the toe of Italy.
An Exchange Telegraph report said the Allies were threatening the Axis airfield network around Gerbini, 15 miles west of Catania, indicating that the 8th Army and Canadians in the Militello sector, midway between Catania and Gela, were pressing across the flat plain as well as up the coastal road.
Some 60,000 Germans, chiefly the Hermann Göring Division that appeared to have been spread throughout Sicily to stiffen the Italians, were fighting on the island. Italian forces, under Gen. Alfredo Guzzoni, were estimated at 264,000.
The capture of Caltagirone was especially significant in that it left the Axis with only three roads over which reinforcements can be sent to the north and west.
Actually, almost half the network of roads in central and southeastern Sicily have been unavailable to the enemy by the captured of all important communications centers.
Radio Algiers reported that the railways connecting Messina with Palermo and Catania had been cut.
