TOUGH FIGHTERS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21149, 17 July 1943, Page 3

TOUGH FIGHTERS

AIRBORNE TROOPS KEY BRIDGES CAPTURED ASSAULT ON SYRACUSE (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 15. The latest reports from Sicily indicate that the Allied advance is continuing though enemy resistance is stiffening. A correspondent who was in one of the first gliders to land in Sicily reports that the men were armed with Bren guns, rifles, bayonets, knives and grenades. The equipment was not dropped separately but was strapped to the men’s backs. They wore red berets instead of steel helmets as it had been decided that it would bo a good tiling for the Italians to learn quickly that the “red devils,” as they term the air-borne troops, had arrived. A lieutenant in charge of half a platoon in the correspondent’s glider declared that he was going to advance on_ Syracuse. Later, .it was learned that others decided to do the same and they succeeded in getting past military barracks, through hamlets and small villages, the local inhabitants evidently mistaking them for Italian detachments on the march. The invaders had a brush with the Sicilian Home guard who bolted when the first shots were fired.

A bridge near Syracuse, which the troops had to capture and hold until the seaborne invaders arrived, was defended by a machine-gun post which one detachment attacked without success. The troops then attempted to get around the post and the correspondent fell over a small cliff and was separated from the airborne troops for some hours. He re-dis-covered them in time to take part in the final dash on the bridge which was reached with slight casualties. The bridge across two canals on the main road outside Syracuse had been captured by troops who landed near it after they had killed or captured twice their number of the enemy. A lieutenant-colonel took charge of tiie area and, with a force of under 100 able-bodied men, organised the defences that withstood counterattacks throughout the day. Their heaviest weapon was a Bren gun and during the forenoon on Saturday the Italians managed to bring up guns to enfilade the bridge. By 3.15 p.m. the position became impossible and the British were forced to surrender. An hour later their captors led them into one of the forward reconnaissance units of the British attackers and they marched what remained of their captors away as prisoners and then returned to defend the same bridge again.