World War II › Special Units › Invasion of Sicily
Special Units · Sicily, 1943
Truscott’s 3rd Infantry Division in Sicily
Lucian Truscott’s division landed at Licata, marched faster than any American infantry had been asked to march, took Agrigento and Palermo, fought the 29th Panzergrenadier Division along the north coast with mule trains and two amphibious end runs, and sent the first patrols into Messina.
- U.S. Army · Seventh Army
- Licata, Agrigento, Palermo, San Fratello, Brolo, Messina
- 10 July–17 August 1943
Joss Force
The 3rd Infantry Division had landed in French Morocco in November 1942 and spent the Tunisian campaign mostly in reserve, which gave its new commander time to remake it. Lucian King Truscott Jr., a former cavalryman and polo player from Texas who had helped organize the Army’s first Ranger battalion, took over in March 1943 and drove the division hard through the spring in North Africa. He wanted infantry that could outmarch the enemy, and he got it.
For Husky the division was the core of Joss Force, about 45,000 men in all, with Combat Command A of the 2nd Armored Division, the 3rd Ranger Battalion and the 4th Tabor of Moroccan goums. It was the left, western end of the whole invasion, landing on four beaches named Red, Green, Yellow and Blue on either side of the port of Licata. Rear Adm. Richard L. Conolly’s Task Force 86 carried it in shallow-draft landing ships and craft that could run straight onto the beaches from North Africa (CMH 72-16; Garland and Smyth, ch. 5).
Licata, 10 July
The 3rd Ranger Battalion went ashore on Green Beach at 02:57, a few minutes after H-Hour. On Red Beach the first wave, the 1st Battalion, 7th Infantry, did not touch down until 04:30, well behind schedule, and other waves were scattered by the swell. The Italian coastal troops of the 207th Coastal Division, in what the Americans later described as their most heavily fortified beach sector, fought in places and surrendered in others. An Italian armored train with four 76 mm guns came out onto the Licata mole and was destroyed by naval gunfire. By midmorning the division held the town and its port and had suffered fewer than 100 casualties (Garland and Smyth, ch. 6).
The next day, near Favarotta, a hidden machine gun stopped Company L of the 15th Infantry. Its platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Robert Craig, went forward alone, found the gun and killed its three-man crew with his carbine. Later the same day, with the platoon pinned down by about 100 enemy soldiers, he deliberately drew their fire, charged, killed five and wounded three before he was killed, and gave his men time to reach cover. His father received his posthumous Medal of Honor on 26 May 1944 (CMOHS; Chapter 2).
The Truscott Trot
In North Africa Truscott had trained his infantry to march at five miles an hour for the first mile and four miles an hour after that, against an Army standard of two and a half. Sicily showed why. The division pushed west and north from Licata through Palma di Montechiaro and Naro toward Agrigento, the ancient city on its ridge above the sea. Patton let Truscott take Agrigento in what was described as a reconnaissance in force. On 16 July, after the 1st Battalion, 7th Infantry, broke into the city, its Italian commander surrendered with his staff and troops, and the 3rd Ranger Battalion took the little port of Porto Empedocle beside it; the Army’s campaign pamphlet dates Agrigento’s fall a day earlier (Garland and Smyth, ch. 12; CMH 72-16; Chapter 5).
On the night of 17 July, near Agrigento, 1st Lt. David C. Waybur of the 3rd Reconnaissance Troop led three vehicles out to find a cut-off Ranger unit. At a destroyed bridge his patrol was attacked by four Italian tanks. With his machine guns out of ammunition and himself badly wounded, Waybur stood in the open and killed the crew of the lead tank with a Thompson submachine gun, then held his men in place until help came. He received the Medal of Honor in October 1943 and was killed in Germany on 28 March 1945.
A hundred miles to Palermo
On 15 July Patton formed a Provisional Corps under Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Keyes, with the 3rd Division, the 2nd Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne. It jumped off at 05:00 on 19 July, more than 100 miles from Palermo. The 3rd Division went over the mountains in the middle, much of it on foot, at the Truscott pace, while the armor took the roads. On 22 July Gen. Giuseppe Molinero offered the surrender of the Palermo garrison; Keyes accepted it at the royal palace shortly after 19:00, and the two divisions entered the city at 20:00. In four days the corps took about 53,000 prisoners for 272 American casualties (Garland and Smyth, ch. 13).
The north coast: mules, mountains and the San Fratello line
Alexander ordered Patton to turn east on 23 July, and at the end of the month the 3rd Division took over the coast road from the 45th Division near Santo Stefano. Ahead lay the 29th Panzergrenadier Division under Gen. Walter Fries, dug in on a line anchored on Monte San Fratello, a 2,200-foot table mountain above the coast. The road ran along a narrow shelf between the mountains and the sea, and every bridge on it had been blown.
Truscott fought the battle partly on hooves. The division assembled a Provisional Pack Train under Maj. Robert Crandall with more than 400 mules and over 100 horses, many of them requisitioned from Sicilian farms, to carry ammunition, food and water up slopes no truck could climb. The 15th Infantry attacked the mountain head-on and lost 103 men on 4 August and another 30 killed and 70 wounded on 5–6 August, without breaking the line (Garland and Smyth, ch. 18).
Two end runs: Sant’Agata and Brolo
Patton’s answer was to go around by sea. On 8 August Lt. Col. Lyle A. Bernard’s 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry, with two batteries of the 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion and tank and engineer platoons, landed behind the San Fratello line near Sant’Agata from two LSTs, an LCI and 16 DUKWs, covered by Rear Adm. Lyal Davidson’s cruisers and destroyers. It got ashore between 03:15 and 04:15 and linked up with the main body at 12:30. The 29th Panzergrenadier Division slipped away, but about 1,000 Italian troops of the Assietta Division surrendered to one American battalion that day (Garland and Smyth, ch. 18).
Three days later Bernard’s battalion did it again, farther east at Brolo. It landed without loss before dawn on 11 August and seized Monte Cipolla, a 750-foot hill above the coast road. All day it fought off German counterattacks under Col. Fritz Polack while the cruiser USS Philadelphia fired 1,062 six-inch rounds and claimed five of eight attacking aircraft. In the afternoon American A-36 dive bombers attacked Bernard’s own command post by mistake and destroyed his last four howitzers. When the force came down off the hill at 07:30 on 12 August, it had lost 177 men killed, wounded or missing and 13 of its 15 mules. Most of the 29th Panzergrenadier Division again got away to the east (Garland and Smyth, ch. 20).
| Sant’Agata, 8 August | Brolo, 11–12 August | |
|---|---|---|
| Landing force | 2nd Bn, 30th Infantry; two batteries, 58th Armored FA Bn; tank and engineer platoons | 2nd Bn, 30th Infantry, with artillery, tanks, engineers and a mule train |
| Craft | Two LSTs, one LCI, 16 DUKWs | One LST, two LCIs, six LCTs |
| Naval support | Two cruisers, six destroyers (TF 88) | USS Philadelphia and six destroyers; 1,062 six-inch rounds |
| Result | Linked up at 12:30; about 1,000 Italian prisoners; the Germans escaped | Held Monte Cipolla for a day; 177 casualties; the Germans escaped |
Sources: Garland and Smyth, chapters XVIII and XX; CMH 72-16.
First into Messina
The Germans began their full-scale evacuation across the Strait of Messina on the night of 11–12 August. The 3rd Division followed along the coast road, through the debris of blown bridges and mined culverts. On the evening of 16 August a reinforced platoon of Company L, 7th Infantry, under 1st Lt. Ralph J. Yates entered Messina, and more patrols followed early on the 17th. Truscott received the city’s civil dignitaries at 07:00; an Italian colonel offered the military surrender at about 08:00; Patton arrived on the ridge above the city at 10:00 and drove in under shellfire from Calabria. A British commando column arrived shortly after (Garland and Smyth, ch. 21; Chapter 9).
The insignia, rendered
Illustration Original insignia-style artwork made for the Lake Norman Brief. It is not the unit’s official emblem. The division’s real shoulder patch is a square of blue and white diagonal stripes; its nickname, “Rock of the Marne,” comes from its stand on the Marne in July 1918.
Timeline
- The 3rd Ranger Battalion lands on Green Beach at Licata; the town and port are taken that morning.
- 2nd Lt. Robert Craig is killed near Favarotta; posthumous Medal of Honor.
- Agrigento surrenders to the 7th Infantry; the Rangers take Porto Empedocle.
- 1st Lt. David C. Waybur fights four Italian tanks near Agrigento; Medal of Honor.
- The Provisional Corps drives on Palermo; the city surrenders on the evening of 22 July.
- The San Fratello line; the 15th Infantry attacks Monte San Fratello.
- First end run, at Sant’Agata.
- Second end run, at Brolo: 177 casualties.
- A platoon of Company L, 7th Infantry, enters Messina.
- Truscott receives Messina’s civil dignitaries; Patton enters at about 10:00.
People of the unit
Read the full story
- Chapter 2: D-Day, 10 July: Seven Divisions on a Hundred-Mile Front
- Chapter 5: Patton Unleashed: The Boundary Fight, Palermo and Mussolini’s Fall
- Chapter 7: The Race to Messina: Troina, San Fratello and the End-Runs
- Chapter 9: End Game: Lehrgang, Messina and What Sicily Changed
- Invasion of Sicily collection
- Special Units: the 1st Ranger Battalion
- Special Units: the 45th “Thunderbirds” in Sicily
- Special Units: the Big Red One in Sicily
Sources
- Albert N. Garland and Howard McGaw Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy (Office of the Chief of Military History, 1965), chapters V, VI, XII, XIII, XVIII, XX and XXI (chapter XVIII online, chapter XX, chapter XXI).
- U.S. Army Center of Military History, Sicily, CMH Pub 72-16.
- Congressional Medal of Honor Society, Robert Craig; National WWII Museum, “Robert Craig’s Medal of Honor”; U.S. Army Medal of Honor citations (Waybur).
- Lucian K. Truscott Jr., Command Missions: A Personal Story (E. P. Dutton, 1954).
- Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle (Henry Holt, 2007).
Keep exploring
More from Operation Husky
Read more online