Operation Ladbroke

The Beginning of Operation Husky

Operation Husky was the Allied invasion of Sicily in July and August, 1943, the start of the Italian campaign in World War II. Husky began with an amphibious and airborne operation the night of 9–10 July, part of which was Operation Ladbroke, a British glider operation that was the first-ever Allied mission using a large number of glider aircraft.

Sicily isn't like Normandy when it comes to finding and visiting sites important in World War II. But there are some things to find, including the bridge that was Operation Ladbroke's target and an associated defensive bunker.

Operation Ladbroke was a British victory, although with harsh lessons learned. However, what was learned here was crucial for preparing for the Pegasus Bridge operation just eleven months later during Operation Overlord, the enormous Allied landing on Normandy.

I was traveling around Sicily for about a month, and while I was seeing a great deal of history, some of it military, most was much earlier — the initial Phoenecian colonies; the many Greek colonies that made this Μεγάλη Ελλάδα or Megáli Elláda, Greater Greece; Carthage; Rome; the Greek Byzantine Empire; and then the Normans, those Norsemen who had taken control of northern France and were expanding into this region around the same time that they were also taking control of England. Then Norman rule was followed by centuries of Spanish and Franco-Spanish rule of Sicily, at which point I lose track and, frankly, interest, what with the Inquisitions and centuries of misrule.

But back to the point of this page — there is some history of Operation Husky to be seen on the outskirts of Siracusa! Operation Ladbroke seized Ponte Grande, "The Big Bridge", an important bridge on the highway south from Siracusa. Similar to the Pegasus Bridge site in Normandy, the original bridge span is gone but its abutments remain. The replacement highway bridge runs right next to the original. And, a reinforced concrete gun emplacement remains nearby.

Here's the path to the site from where I got breakfast every morning at a cafe near where I was staying. It's just 2.8 kilometers and perfectly flat, it's an easy walk!

Cornetto e doppio caffè, per favore!

A cornetto is the Italian version of the croissant in France. A cornetto vuoto or an "empty" one is plain, but a shop typically has plain ones plus an array with different fillings and toppings — this one had grain outside and orange marmalade inside.

As for coffee, caffè is the common Italian term for what they also call espresso. Seeing that I was obviously from far away, shop workers would sometimes ask if I wanted caffè americano. Oh no, no, no, I'm in Italy! Please give me the real coffee, the espresso. Not that weak "Americano" stuff that has been heavily diluted with water, or the latte or cappucino, both diluted with steamed milk, the second with a layer of milk foam on top. An Italian might have a latte or cappucino at breakfast time, but after mid-morning they have nothing but the real stuff, caffè. The real stuff for me, too, please! And make it a double, a doppio.

Fortified with a good Italian breakfast, I was ready to walk to Ponte Grande.

Start from wherever you want to start — Stazione di Siracusa, the main train station, is in that general direction from the center. Just continue on out the SS115 road. What could possibly go wrong?

To prepare for your walk along an Italian highway with no sidewalks, read John Steinbeck's essay in the May, 1953 Harper's Bazaar, which discusses some aspects of Italian driving and pedestrian travel.

The above picture was taken from pretty close to Ponte Grande, "The Big Bridge", the goal of the operation of 9–12 July 1943. It's roughly the furthest visible piece of road in that picture.

The Invasion Plan

Overall plans for the invasion of Sicily changed dramatically through the four months before it happened. An intial plan for widely separated landing areas — around Palermo near the northwest corner, and around Siracusa near the southeast corner — was replaced by landings concentrated along the coast near the southern corner. Also, the initial plans for parachute assaults by U.S. paratroopers were seen as misusing that force while overly exposing them to danger from Allied naval bombardment.

The below map shows the final plan, with Ponte Grande labeled as "Ponte Orange Bridge". The British 1st Airborne Division would conduct three operations — the 1st Airlanding Brigade would capture Ponte Grande; the 1st Parachute Brigade would capture the Primosole Bridge, just south of Catania; and the 2nd Parachute Brigade would assault the port of Augusta. The ports of both Siracusa and Augusta were to be captured early and used by further Allied landings.

Map of the Axis dispositions and the Allied landing plans for 9–10 July 1943, from the history department of the U.S. Military Academy, available on Wikipedia. Military map symbols are explained here. Siracusa was the main port in 1943. By the time of my visit in 2025, Augusta had become the region's commercial port and the two relatively small ports at Siracusa were used for fishing boats and for pleasure craft.

Initial Problems — Gliders? What Gliders? Flown by Whom?

There was a plan for a glider operation, but serviceable gliders weren't available. The plan called for mostly American-built Waco CG-4 gliders, called Hadrian by the British, plus a few British-built AS.51 Horsa gliders. However, the gliders weren't in place in North Africa.

One Waco/Hadrian could carry 13 to 15 troops and their equipment, or a quarter-ton vehicle or trailer, or a 75 mm howitzer. The Horsa was larger, carrying up to 30 fully equipped troops.

The smaller Waco gliders began to arrive partially disassembled, crossing the Atlantic on ships from the U.S. to North Africa. The parts were unloaded haphazardly, and then they discovered that most of the men assigned to assemble the gliders had never done that before.

No problem, just read the instructions, right? Uh, what instructions? The shipments had disorganized collections of glider parts and no instructions for putting them together, delivered to men who had never assembled gliders.

The British decided to send some Horsa gliders by towing them all the way from Britain to Tunisia, a trip of about 2,400 kilometers. A total of 27 Horsa gliders arrived that way, Eight of those would take part in Operation Ladbroke.

As for the much larger number of Waco gliders, once they were being assembled and some wiring repairs fixed, the British pilots had no experience flying them, let alone in night operations, because British airborne doctrine said that such operations were impossible. The commander of the British Glider Pilot Regiment had declared that all of his pilots were entirely unfit for any glider operation. The average pilot had just eight hours of glider flight time, none of it in Wacos, and none of the pilots had any combat experience.

Urgent training began. When its two exercises were completed, the pilots were up to an average of 4.5 hours flying the Waco, 1.2 hours of that at night.

Deception and Misdirection

The British had been running Operation Mincemeat since April 1943. The body of a tramp who had died after eating rat poison was dressed in the uniform of an officer of the Royal Marines, carrying false correspondence between two British generals about a planned Allied invasion of Greece and Sardinia, with any action around Sicily being nothing but a ruse.

They transported the body by submarine to a position near the Spanish coast, and released it. Spanish fishermen found the body, and Spanish officials shared copies of the documents with the Abwehr, German military intelligence. Ultra decrypts of German messages showed that the Germans had fallen for the deception. German reinforcements were sent to Greece and Sardinia while none went to Sicily, even after the Allied landings had begun.

In the hours before the landing, on the evening of 9 July, U.S. B-17 and British Wellington bombers equipped with radar jamming gear flew back and forth along the coast between Siracusa and Licata, from one end to the other of the landing zones.

Other allied aircraft dropped 280 mannequins dressed in paratooper uniforms to the north of the landing areas, to mislead italian defenders.

Between 21:00 and 21:30, 55 Wellingtons dropped bombs on the port and airport of Siracusa.

Meanwhile...

Problems Reaching the Battle

136 Waco and eight Horsa gliders and their minimally-trained pilots had been assigned to Operation Ladbroke. American C-47 towing aircraft would pull them from Tunisia to their release points near their targets.

Late in the afternoon on 9 July, 2,075 British troops, along with seven jeeps, ten mortars, and six anti-tank guns, loaded into those gliders. The towing aircraft lifted off with the gliders at 18:00 and headed north across the Mediterranean.

Some of the first towing aircraft reported searchlights and anti-aircraft fire as they neared the coast. Many of the following aircraft climbed to higher altitudes or took evasive action.

Confusion caused by the anti-aircraft reports and the unplanned maneuvers led to many of the towing aircraft releasing their gliders while they were still too far out to sea to reach the shore.

Sixty-five gliders crashed into the Mediterranean, and approximately 252 men drowned. British casualties for the entire operation were 313 men killed and 174 missing or wounded, so about 80% of the deaths were caused by these premature releases while still out to sea.

Of the seventy-nine gliders that weren't released too early, only twelve landed where planned. Fifty-nine landed up to forty kilometers away, and the remaining eight gliders were either shot down or failed to release and were towed back to Tunisia.

Arrival at the Bridge

Here's how it looked when I reached the north end of the bridge, almost eighty-two years later.

The old bridge has been replaced, with the highway somewhat straightened out. However, they have left the two abutments, and the long approach on the north side. A sign along the highway marks the bridge, and briefly mentions the history.

The Anapo is one of multiple streams that come together as they drain into the circular bay to the south of Siracusa. It's the largest in the area and closest to the city and port, so that made this bridge the Allied target and the subject of Italian fortifications. There were multiple reinforced concrete machine-gun posts, one of which remains to be seen today.

Much of Sicily is rugged terrain. This is where the African Plate is driving itself beneath the Eurasian Plate, feeding the string of active volcanos from Etna through Vesuvius and wrinkling the sea floor and the land. Notice how close the 100-fathom line is to the shore, and that second solid depth line is the 1000-fathom line. But also notice how Augusta and especially Siracusa are on flat river deltas. That's why the Greeks established a colony here, it was a large and protected harbor surrounded by rich agricultural land.

Portion of 1962 aeronautical chart TPC G-2B, from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin.

Crossing to the west side of the highway, I saw the stone approach that supported the old highway approach to the north end of the bridge. A small gravel lane led from the highway down to the base of the bridge. That was where I needed to go.

There's a lighted plaque and flag on the northern abutment.

Capturing the Bridge

Six of the 30-men Horsa gliders were to land close to the bridge at 23:15. One of one of those gliders landed nearby, carrying an infantry platoon. They divided into two groups, one of them waded and swam across the river, and after quick simultaneous assaults, they held both ends of the bridge.

They quickly dismantled demolition charges that the Italian defenders had attached to the bridge in anticipation of its attempted seizure. Then they dug in to wait for reinforcements to arrive.

A second Horsa landed about 200 meters from the bridge, but it exploded on landing, killing everyone on board. Glider landings in farmland and swamp are controlled crashes under good conditions, and even worse at night with neither lights nor lighted markers.

The remainder of the brigade was to land at 01:15 at landing zones from 2.5 to 5 kilometers away, and then converge on the bridge as defensive reinforcements. Three of the four remaining gliders of the assault force landed as planned, a little over three kilometers away. The men began to make their way through the dark fields toward the bridge. But by 06:30 there were only eighty-seven British soldiers at the bridge.

The area was defended by the Italian 206th Coastal Division, which had a mix of coastal and anti-aircraft artillery batteries, plus an army regiment.

The Italian coastal units mostly consisted of local men in their forties and fifties who had once been in the military, retired, and now been called up again. Morale was low, and equipment was old, dysfunctional, and lacking.

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In November 1942, following the Allied Operation Torch landings in North Africa, German forces fully occupied southern France and disbanded the limited army that the collaborationist Vichy French government had been allowed to maintain.

The Italian army had planned to improve their coastal units by issuing them seized Vichy equipment. However, when the arms arrived in Sicily, it was discovered that many of the weapons had been disabled. Many of what wasn't disabled either was accompanied by no ammunition at all, or only ammunition of the wrong types.

The Italian defenders from the 120th Coastal Infantry Regiment abandoned their pillboxes on the north bank of the river. One of those remains today, as you'll see below.

More-capable Italian units began to arrive, bringing artillery and mortars. The British 5th Infantry Division had been scheduled to arrive at 10:00 to relieve the glider-borne assault group, but they did not.

At 11:30, more Italian units were arriving, and preparing to attack the British-held bridge from three sides.

By 14:45, there were only fifteen uninjured British troops defending the seized bridge.

By 15:30, the remaining British troops had used their last ammunition. They had captured the bridge despite only limited numbers making it to the assault, and they had held it well past the time they were to have been relieved. They had done a heroic job, but they simply had to stop fighting.

Some of the British men on the south side of the river escaped into the countryside. The rest of them, and all the survivors on the north side, were captured.

The Italians who seized the bridge planned to immediately destroy it. But then they found that the British had removed all the demolition charges.

At 16:15 a British infantry brigade arrived and re-captured the bridge. The survivors of the 1st Airlanding Brigade took no further part in the fighting, and were taken back to North Africa on 13 July.

The Pillbox

You can see in the above pictures that the gravel lane continued underneath the north end of the new bridge. I had to bend down to walk through there, but you could drive a car through. A normal sized car anyway. Not a gigantic American pickup truck on which the engine compartment comes up to my shoulder, but a reasonably sized personal vehicle.

The gravel lane continued a little further, bending to the left into a parking area. Directly ahead, a brick-paved walkway continued. A little further ahead, there was a reinforced machine-gun post.

I'm from the U.S.A. So, when I see an area that is not covered with advertising urging me to immediately enter, I worry that if I step into it, or just slightly towards it, I will be suddenly confronted by an angry man carrying a gun. A man who has been aching to shoot someone ever since he got that gun.

However, there is only a narrow river bank beyond the bushes along the right side of the brick path, and the bushes along the left side are thick and taller than me. Besides, I am in Italy, a civilized country.

Maybe I can slowly and silently move forward and see a little more without alarming anyone.

The brick path opened into a large brick-paved area also containing a round glass-walled building around the hedge to the left, not initially visible.

Ah! As it turns out, the pillbox is at the river-side edge of a large patio at a pizza restaurant. I have wandered in through the unsigned side entrance, and it's mid-morning and the restaurant isn't open.

The firing ports have stair-stepped surfaces so they won't act as funnels to collect inbound rounds.

The entry/exit port appears to have taken some damaging fire.

Looking past the potted plant, I notice two things.

First, there is no special Pillbox Table within, for history-minded customers. As I said, this isn't Normandy.

Second, look at those thorns! And also the tall cacti along the original bridge approach, and the other spines and spikes and thorns.

This is southern Sicily, due east of Tunis, and plant life in arid climates tends take hostile forms. The many forms of cactus common in this area were further obstacles for the invasion.

Across the Replacement Bridge

I returned along the brick path, under the new bridge, and back the gravel lane to where the highway over the new bridge, the gravel lane, and the approach to the old bridge did a 3-way Y. Then I continued south along the right side of the road, where there was just enough room for my feet outside the white stripe along the edge of the highway.

The old and new bridges were roughly at the same elevation.

A tree that made me think of the water-loving cottonwood trees back home has grown up out of the south abutment of the old bridge. A memorial plaque names two local men who were killed here.

An old, rusty sign reading "FIUME CIANE" marks a small span over the smaller Ciane River that runs parallel to the Anapo. Mind all the thorns and stickers growing into the road.

Fiume Ciane continues paralleling the Anapo to the east, emptying into the bay.

Upstream of the bridge, Fiume Ciane looks even smaller.

I assume that the Allies knew about this stream and had decided that they could span it with portable bridging equipment if needed. It wasn't absolutely necessary to capture intact, unlike the operation's main objective.

I continued on south another hundred meters or so, but didn't see anything of interest. Just a lot of thorny plants growing up out of swampy ground. I returned to the assault site to continue back into the city. I crossed over to the east side, the bay side, of the replacement bridge.

I looked back across the bridge and beyond. Yes, this area is a flat delta with rugged terrain inland. The 3,400-meter Mount Etna is visible 82 kilometers to the north, to the left of the utility pole.

I crossed over to the east side, the bay side, of the replacement bridge. Had I walked across the bridge when I first arrived, or maybe done more careful research with the "Satellite" view on Google Maps, I could have been a little less worried about approaching the pillbox. There's the pizza restaurant to the left, and the pillbox along the left bank near the center of the picture.

Ortygia, the island where the Greeks established their settlement of Syrakousai in 734–733 BCE, is across the bay on the horizon.

I realized that a sign that I had seen along the highway about kayak rental referred to a business just beyond the pillbox.

Husky and Avalanche

The lessons were pretty obvious in retrospect — logistics, training, and using Pathfinder units to provide guidance for glider landings. The 5–6 June 1944 Pegasus Bridge operation in particular and much of D-Day in general would have been less successful without Allied analyses of the landings on Sicily. As for the battle for Sicily and the rest of the Italian campaign:

Seven Allied assault divisions were ashore by the evening of 10 July, and the port of Syracuse was under Allied control.

The Grand Council of Fascism denounced Mussolini, and then King Victor Emmanuel III finally stepped in and dismissed Benito Mussolini from his post as Prime Minister and Il Duce on 25 July 1943. On 3 September, the same day the Allies landed south of Naples, Mussolini's replacement agreed to an armistice between Italy and the Allied forces. It was announced five days later, and Germany seized control.

The Axis commanders over Sicily realized by 27 July that they had to retreat to the port of Messina and evacuate by night across the narrow strait to peninsular Italy. The strait was well protected by anti-aircraft and anti-ship artillery, so the Allies could do little to interfere with the evacuation.

Many of the older men in the local defense units simply laid down their arms and went home. The majority of the population of Sicily welcomed the Allied troops as liberators. The regular Italian military units retreated across the Strait of Messina over the nights of 3–16 August, and the Germany military units 11–17 August, and with that the Allied invasion of Sicily was complete.

Operation Avalanche, the Allied invasion of Italy, began with landings starting on 3 September 1943 across a 55-kilometer strip of beaches from Salerno south to Paestum.

On 12 September 1943, a German raid with paratroopers and commandos extracted Mussolini from prison. Mussolini was briefly taken to Germany to meet with Hitler, where he agreed to establish and be the puppet leader of the Italian Social Republic, that part of the Italian peninsula north of Allied-held territory. In December 1943, it extended as far south as Montecasino, between Rome and Naples. By September 1944, the Allies had advanced almost as far north as Bolonia. Its seat was in Saló, a town in far northern Italy.

The remainder of the Italian campaign was long and difficult, with Allied advances slowed by the mountainous terrain that favored the German defenders.

The provisional government of King Victor Emmanuel III was based in Salerno from 12 February to 17 July 1944.

On 25 April 1945, with Allied forces making their last offensive in Italy, Mussolini's puppet state collapsed during a general uprising of partisans. Mussolini, his mistress, and their entourage were captured by partisans on the 28th, while they had been on their way to Switzerland. The partisans executed Mussolini, his mistress, and sixteen other prominent Fascist leaders the next day, two days before Hitler's suicide.

German forces in Italy surrendered on 30 April, and the remainder of the puppet state surrendered the following day.