A horrific incident as the Allied paratroopers were about to jump onto Sicilian soil.SLAUGHTER OVER SICILY by CHARLES WHITING
JULY 11th 1943 near the coast of Sicily with the Allied Fleet below.
Suddenly a lone machine gun started to fire on the low flying transports above.Tracer began to hurtle through the sky.Almost immediately it was joined by another,either on shore or one of the ships off the coast-no one would ever find out.The fire of those 2 guns seemed to act as a signal.Guns opened up everywhere.Abruptly,the night sky was full of exploding shells.Signal flaresspurted from the transport planes.Down below the the gunners took no notice of the recognition flares.
In a matter of minutes hundreds of guns and machine guns had joined in the barrage.At that low altitude it was difficult to miss.Slugs and Shrapnel ripped through the metal fabric of the planes slaughtering the paratroopers as they readied to jump.Down below Ridgway and General Patton,who had come to watch the drop,looked on in horror as the slaughter continued.Patton kept muttering over and over again “Oh,my god! Oh my god!”,Ridgway could not stop the tears that welled up in his eyes.His crack regiment was being slaughtered before his eyes.Still the killing went on.Planes were coming down all over the beach.Others plummeted into the sea,taking their cargo of young men to their deaths.Within 30 minutes after the first serial had successfully parachuted down,23 of the original 144 had been shot down and another 60 so badly damaged they would need extensive repairs before they could fly again. 318 paratroopers were killed or wounded.23 per cent of the total force,with still more casualties to come.Colonel Tuckers own plane came and flew the length of the beach and later in N.Africa was found to have been hit over 1000 times. CHARLES WHITING