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1943 |
OPERATION HUSKY, Cont'd |
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10 JUL 43 |
D-Day. We sight Sicily just before midnight of the ninth, make a left
turn and follow the coastline, searching for our IP. We pass over hundreds of landing craft knifing
for their landing areas; larger naval vessels are bombarding the beaches with
their big guns, and we trust that their guns have sufficient elevation to
avoid hitting our formation.
According to a report from General Gavin, quote, "Obviously, we
were off course, since our plan called for us to fly between the American
fleet on the left and the British fleet on the right. In fact, the Americans told us that we
would probably be shot down if we flew over them." Fortunately, this did not occur, at least
to our formation. 09/2324 Hours. We descend from our enroute altitude of
1000 feet to less than 500 feet. As
we near the Initial Point, we make a sweeping right turn to avoid a heavy
barrage of anti-aircraft fire that is filling the sky ahead of us, but we are
still taking light fire as we cross the coast. After giving the paratroopers the verbal order to "standup
and hookup", I take my prescribed position aft of the open jump door,
preparing to retrieve the static lines after the jump, while Bob Bramble
stands forward of the door, fingers on the parapack control switches. 10/0030 Hours. The pilot throttles back to 90 MPH, the
green jump light flashes in the darkness, and our "stick" is out
the door in seconds. Just before he jumped,
Lt Wolf grabs me by the arm, shouting, "Okay, buddy, let's
go!" After a short struggle, I
finally convince him that I am the radio op.
He just laughs and disappears into the darkness. I could never get over that! The Lt. laughing, as he jumps into
that hail of fire! I didn't realize
the extent of the ground fire until I looked up while pulling in the static
lines, amazed to see that the sky above us was filled with exploding shells
that had obviously gone through our formation. After dropping our troops, we turned south past Gela, giving me
a good view of the IP and DZ behind us.
The enemy barrage was terrific, and I saw one C-47 take a direct hit
and go down like a flaming meteorite.
A string of green tracers came toward us, and Bramble yelled,
"Duck!" He needn't have
shouted, as I was already on the floor, watching the tracers whiz past the
door. At the same time, Lt Bond
banked steeply to the right to avoid these racers, narrowly missing our
Number Three man for the second time that night. That was the last aircraft we saw that night. Aircraft were scattered to the winds, with
C-47s landing at dozens of airstrips from Algiers to Cairo. 10/0230 Hours. We land at back at our home base. With the high winds and limited
visibility, official airborne reports of the mission state in part, "of
the five groups involved, the 64th was the only one that succeeded in
maintaining formation integrity and to drop its paratroopers on the
designated Drop Zone." All 64th
planes returned safely, although some had been slightly damaged. The other groups, who were dropping
paratroopers and towing gliders, encountered heavy losses due to adverse
weather, friendly fire from naval ships and enemy anti-aircraft fire. Groups from the 50th TCW lost 27 C-47s when
they passed over the fleet in the Straits of Messina, just as a German bomber
force was pulling off target! Nervous
gunners, believing this was a second wave of bombers, put up a withering
barrage, on the defenseless troop carriers.
There, but for the grace of God, and arbitrary Group assignments, goes
the 64th! NOTE: British Intelligence can be thanked for the minimal losses
suffered by the Allies during the Sicily campaign. They devised a scheme whereby Hitler was convinced that the
invasion was going to be on Greece, and transferred several ground divisions
and air defense units from Sicily to that area. Details of OPERATION MINCEMEAT remained classified until 1956,
when they were disclosed in the movie, "The Man Who Never Was."
NOTE 2: Lt Wolf, our Jumpmaster,
recently notified Bramble that of the 18-man stick we dropped, only he and
one other survived the war. Lt. Wolf
was given a medical retirement due to wounds he suffered. |
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