BRILLIANT NAVAL OPERATION

Evening Star, Issue 24918, 16 July 1943, Page 3

BRILLIANT NAVAL OPERATION

HANDLING OF INVASION ARMADA ITALIAN FLEET STILL " RAISING STEAM " (Rec. 1 p.m.) RUGBY, July 15. Sidelights upon the armada which carried the invasion army reveal the meticulous care with which the operation was planned, writes a correspondent. From a naval operational point of view the most amazing feature of the whole scheme was the fact that hundreds of vessels sailing from scattered ports arrived off the Sicilian coast within an hour of the appointed time. In the whole brilliant operation only one ship was lost. Unfavourable weather caused delay in landing to the extent of an hour and a-half on some beaches, but with so many transports and vessels of all kinds,' with warship escort bringing them together, the great organisation, speed, and efficiency with which the sailors did their difficult and strenuous job enabled the Allied tanks to be landed 75 minutes after the first wave of invasion troops went ashore. Allied battleships and cruisers bombarded several points around the island coast the night of the invasion and on the following nights. One of the strangest operations was that in which two destroyers captured Pozzalo, a small village on the south-west coast, and took 20 prisoners. On the morning of July 10, the despatch adds, when the combined operation started, it was known that the Italian fleet was raising steam. So far as is known, to-day it is still raising steam.