Gliding into disaster: inside the carnage of the Allies’ 1943 Sicilian landings

A little after 11pm on Friday July 9 1943, in south-east Sicily, Glider No. 133 of the British 1st Airlanding Brigade managed to skid to a halt on the ground, just a few hundred yards south-west of the Ponte Grande bridge. This bridge, their objective, carried the main road from the south to the key Italian port of Syracuse.

It was something of a miracle that the pilot, Staff Sergeant Dennis Galpin, had made it at all. The Halifax that had been towing them from Tunisia in North Africa had had both a faulty compass and unserviceable autopilot, and had also encountered engine trouble, while the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Grant, had never once towed a glider at night and never at all on an active mission. Then they had encountered high winds, which had buffeted them as they’d flown north from the island of Malta and turned west towards the east coast of Sicily.

Fortunately, Grant had had the good sense to climb and release the glider higher than originally planned. Finally, an Italian searchlight had helpfully shown Galpin both the bridge and the landing zone. It had meant a fair amount of tracer fire being directed at them, but they had survived, and had finally touched down amid a cloud of swirling dust. On board were 28 men of 15 Platoon, part of C Company, 2nd South Staffordshires, commanded by 21-year-old Lieutenant Len Withers.

The men were surprised to discover they were alone – then, suddenly, a second glider appeared silhouetted in the sky above them. Moments later, it was hit by ground fire. There was a bright flash of an explosion, and the flaming glider fell to the ground by the canal bank, killing all but three on board.  Of the other six gliders for the coup de main operation, there was no further sign.

In all, some 147 gliders were involved in the Allies’ Operation Ladbroke. Eight of them were to deliver men to directly capture the bridge, while the rest were to land a short way to the south, clear the roads and provide further support for the push towards Syracuse itself.

Incredibly, Withers and his men managed to capture the bridge before the Italian defenders could blow it up, and then they tenaciously held on, helped by small groups of glider troops who reached them through the night and into the morning, despite growing fire from the enemy.

Although Ladbroke’s key objective was achieved, there was no doubting it had been an utter fiasco, and one that threatened to derail the main invasion of Italy, due to take place in the early hours of Saturday July 10.  Of the 147 gliders taking part, just four managed to reach their intended landing zones. Sixty-nine had landed in the sea, killing more than 240 men, and the rest had been been scattered over Sicily and even further afield.

By July 1943, the Allies had the best navies and air forces in the world, and armies that were rapidly improving. They were combining air, land and sea power in a way that was new and unrivalled, and were operating with a level of logistical skill and technological advancement that was proving decisive.

Airborne operations, however, still required further thought and development. That night, in the American sector, the 505th Parachute Infantry Team was also scattered to the four winds and barely achieved its aims, while further airborne operations on Sicily were hampered by scattered and poorly executed drops.

It’s fair to say that both American and British war leaders had been somewhat dazzled by the cut, dash and chutzpah of German airborne operations early in the war. The Nazis had captured bridges, forts and airfields, and been regarded within the Wehrmacht and by their opponents as an elite of shock troops that offered tactical flexibility in attack.

While the Allies quickly latched on to the successes of the German airborne forces, less analysis was given to their shortcomings, which were considerable. On May 10 1940, the start of the German attack in the west, the Luftwaffe had lost 353 aircraft, mostly transport planes – the worst figures for a single day in the entire war – while on Crete, in May 1941, the Fallschirmjäger had been decimated and a further 250 transport planes destroyed.

Nonetheless, both the British and Americans pressed ahead with creating airborne forces. In Britain, an initial brigade of 5,000 quickly swelled to one full division and then to a second. It was the same in the States, with glider-borne and paratrooper units being developed concurrently.  All were volunteers, most were highly motivated and their training was excellent.

Airborne troops were taught to think for themselves, and justifiably viewed themselves as elite forces. Unfortunately, the same thought had not gone into who would be delivering them to the battlefield, nor how.

No specialist British transport aircraft was developed, while the American civilian DC-3 was hastily adapted for the role and became the C-47 or “Dakota”. It lacked armour plating or self-sealing fuel tanks, important developments that reduced the risk of fire if hit.

What’s more, the best pilots tended to become fighter and bomber pilots, so a situation quickly arose in which the best-trained troops were being sent into battle at the hands of the least-trained aircrew.

Early paratroop operations in North Africa were ill-thought-through and achieved little, and yet such was the concern about capturing high ground and bridges in the initial phases of the invasion of Sicily, airborne forces were always penned in as part of the plan.

In the case of Operation Ladbroke, Major-General George “Hoppy” Hopkinson, commander of 1st Airborne Division, was messianic about glider operations, even though they had yet to be effectively tested on operations.

Furthermore, south-east Sicily was littered with small, stone-walled fields, entirely unsuitable for glider operations. Then the gliders themselves had arrived piecemeal from the UK and USA, and were so late in being assembled that there was almost no time for training at all.

By July 9, the glider pilots each had an average of just 1.2 hours of night flying and 4.5 hours in daylight. It was nowhere near enough – but by then, the die had been cast.

Meanwhile, the SAS – now briefly renamed the Special Raiding Squadron – were given the task under Paddy Mayne to take out several Italian coastal gun batteries only a few miles from Ponte Grande. Arriving by landing craft from the sea, these 285 men achieved all their objectives, and more besides, for the loss of just one man dead and two wounded. It is hard to think of a more stark lesson of how to use, and not use, special forces.

Yet having been developed, airborne forces needed to be used and such operations tested, and so they had been hustled into the plan for Sicily. Ladbroke taught the Allies a series of vital lessons, not least in the training of glider pilots and RAF tug aircraft. On Sicily, glider pilot Jim Wallwork came down miles off course, but 11 months later he would land his glider at the key Pegasus Bridge in Normandy with a precision that could not have been bettered.

Fortunately, on Sicily, the fiasco had little impact on the outcome of the battle, not least because Lieutenant Withers and his small band of troops managed to take their objective. Ladbroke at least proved there was nothing wrong with the standard of the British airborne troops. That was something.

Sicily ’43 is published by Transworld on September 3 at £25. To order your copy, call 0844 871 1514 or visit the Telegraph Bookshop