Operation Ladbroke

Operation Ladbroke, July 9 1943At 18.00h, a total of 144 gliders with 2075 men of the British 1st Airlanding Brigade, South Staffordshire Regiment depart Tunisia. Their mission is to capture the Ponte Grande Bridge and knock out a coastal battery. …

1943-07-09

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Operation Ladbroke, July 9 1943At 18.00h, a total of 144 gliders with 2075 men of the British 1st Airlanding Brigade, South Staffordshire Regiment depart Tunisia. Their mission is to capture the Ponte Grande Bridge and knock out a coastal battery. Instead of the recommended 200 hours training, the flight crew had only 5. Due to the inexperienced crew, 56 gliders crashed that night at sea and 252 men drowned before the real action took place. Most navigators lost their orientation, so only 12 gliders reached the landing zones. During the night, the Staffords gathered a total of 87 men. They surprised the garrison and captured the bridge. The next morning the Italians were ready for a counter attack on the Ponte Grande.

Syracuse, Sicily

The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II, in which the Allies took the island of Sicily from the Axis powers (Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany). It began with a large amphibious and airborne operation, followed by a six-week land campaign, and initiated the Italian Campaign. To divert some of the Axis forces to other areas, the Allies engaged in several deception operations, the most famous and successful of which was Operation Mincemeat. Husky began on the night of 9–10 July 1943, and ended on 17 August. Strategically, Husky achieved the goals set out for it by Allied planners; the Allies drove Axis air, land and naval forces from the island and the Mediterranean sea lanes were opened for Allied merchant ships for the first time since 1941. The Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, was toppled from power in Italy and the way was opened for the Allied invasion of Italy. The German leader, Adolf Hitler, "canceled a major offensive at Kursk after only a week, in part to divert forces to Italy", resulting in a reduction of German strength on the Eastern Front. The collapse of Italy necessitated German troops replacing the Italians in Italy and to a lesser extent the Balkans, resulting in one fifth of the entire German army being diverted from the east to southern Europe, a proportion that would remain until near the end of the war.

Wikipedia: Allied invasion of Sicily

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