[烛光生存狂]-撤离西西里岛-1943

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Withdrawal from Sicily on July – Aug 1943.

The Evacuation.

By 4 August the Allied pressure at Troina and Adrano along the Etna (or San Fratello) line had grown to the point where Hube ordered the evacuation of all units that could be spared, thus beginning the third stage of the German evacuation. It was a somewhat risky decision because even though Kesselring had left the door open for Hube to order the evacuation on his own initiative, OKW had given specific instructions that the evacuation was not to begin without their permission.

This direction from OKW did not surprise Hube as he was well aware of Hitler’s penchant for not wishing to inform German troops when withdrawal was imminent based on the belief that they would fight better if deprived of any notion that retreat was a possibility. Hube, on the other hand, believed it essential that his troops have hope they would not be sacrificed and, though he was not at liberty to openly tell his corps, he made sure by indirect means that his men knew of the pending evacuation.

Adrano, the key defensive position on the eastern portion of the Etna line, and held by the Hermann Goering Division, finally fell to the British 78th Division on the night of 6 August. Hube’s defenders began the retreat to their second well-prepared defensive line, the Tortorici line, and on 10 August Hube ordered commencement of the fourth and final stage of the evacuation. The plan called for the Hermann Goering Division to leave Sicily first, followed by the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division and finally the 29th Panzer Grenadier Division.

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Withdrawal from Sicily on July – Aug 1943.

The Evacuation.

By this time the Allies were well aware that Axis forces were evacuating the island and began round-the-clock bombing missions of targets in the Messina Strait. The obvious purpose of the attacks was to prevent resupply of the remaining Axis defenders and to strike at the main evacuation points. Allied airmen flew nearly 1,300 bomber and fighter sorties from 31 July through 10 August and reported they sank or set on fire several ferries and barges, and scored near misses on numerous other smaller vessels. The Germans, on the other hand, reported the loss of only one ferry, one landing craft, and three other vessels.

As the Hermann Goering Division backed away from the Etna line and began its withdrawal to von Leibenstein’s evacuation flotilla, there was considerable division of opinion between von Liebenstein and Hube’s planners at 14th Panzer Corps, who mistakenly assumed evacuation operations could only take place during darkness.

However, the opposite was actually true, and although the Allies continued their round-the-clock air raids, the Germans found that most problems with the evacuation actually occurred during night operations. Keeping Allied fighter planes at bay meant using no illumination at night except the moon, and this posed myriad problems to von Liebenstein’s crews both for loading operations and for sailing operations. What the Germans found was that night operations proved far less effective than those performed during the light of day. Additionally, after only a few days von Liebenstein noted that the Allies carried out the majority of their heavy bombing attacks on both sides of the Messina Strait between the hours of 9:00 P.M. and dawn. This increased already difficult night operations immensely. Von Liebenstein, however, noticed that there were very few substantial air attacks during the day and these were fended off using Baade’s extensive AA network.

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Withdrawal from Sicily on July – Aug 1943.

The Evacuation.

With experience, night evacuation operations began to improve dramatically. On the night of 14 August von Liebenstein actually had to suspend operations at 1:00 A.M. (on 15 August) as there were no further men or equipment ready for evacuation. Von Liebenstein’s promise to Hube of moving 12,500 men per twenty-four hour period was hampered only by the lack of that many troops per day to evacuate.

Baade had originally scheduled Lehrgang to last five days from 11 August through 15 August, but because Baade’s and von Liebenstein’s operations became so efficient Hube ordered it extended an additional day to complete the withdrawal of all possible German equipment. By morning on 16 August, all but the rearguard elements defending along the final defense line had safely left Sicily. What many senior German officers thought would be a disastrous undertaking had turned into a stunning success story.

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Withdrawal from Sicily on July – Aug 1943.

The Evacuation.

Though Allied aircraft were flying against targets in and near the Messina Strait, they did not make a concerted effort to stem the flow of evacuation until the final three days of Lehrgang. Even with this concerted effort, over 550 Allied fighter and bomber sorties resulted in zero losses to the Axis evacuation fleet. In fact, according to von Liebenstein’s meticulous war diary, only one German soldier was killed during Allied aerial attacks throughout the entire evacuation.33 All told, the Germans managed to evacuate over 54,000 soldiers, nearly 10,000 vehicles of various types, over fifty tanks, over 160 guns, over 1,800 tons of ammunition and fuel, and nearly 17,000 tons of equipment.

Though the German evacuation is certainly a complete success story, the concurrent evacuation operation accomplished by the Italians was equally successful. General Guzzoni, despite a combative attitude that suggested at least some Italians would fight until the end, directed the Italian Naval Commander in Sicily, Rear Admiral Pietro Barone, to prepare to evacuate Italian troops beginning 3 August. Barone pressed several vessels into service and, like the Germans, quickly prepared to move large quantities of men and equipment to the mainland. Barone used different ports than the Germans, and one of them in particular, Taormina, was in close proximity to where British warships were operating. However, there was virtually no interference and when the Italian evacuation ended on 16 August, they had moved an estimated 50,000 Italian troops, 3,000 sailors, 227 vehicles, forty-one artillery pieces and twelve mules.

The German evacuation ended on the morning of 17 August as the last ferries left Messina with the last of the rearguard troops at about 6:00 A.M. As the Italians completed their evacuation they set mines to blow up what remained of the port. Hube stayed right until the end, in accordance with German military tradition, and was one of the last to leave. Colonel Bogislaw von Bonin, Kesselring’s chief of staff, later summed up German feelings on the evacuation with the following words:

We had more than enough retreats [during the war], but through the fault of our higher command, they almost never ended gloriously. Every German soldier on Sicily, however, who after weeks of fighting and tremendous effort, reached the mainland in the middle of August with his weapons, artillery, vehicles and other equipment, could understand what deep truth there is in the term “glorious retreat.” After five and a half weeks of battle on an island against an enemy who, in ground forces alone, had four times our numbers, who, in supplies and equipment, was still superior to us; an enemy who had absolute superiority on sea and in the air. The three German divisions, on 17 August, were again on the mainland, ready and equipped to be committed in battle.

The last Axis troops to leave Sicily, an eight-man Italian patrol, were lifted to the mainland by a German assault boat at about 8:30 A.M.

Source: THE GREAT ESCAPE: AN ANALYSIS OF ALLIED ACTIONS LEADING TO THE AXIS EVACUATION OF SICILY IN WORLD WAR II. by BARTON V. BARNHART, MAJ, USAF B.S., University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, Missouri, 1988. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 2003.

La Segunda Guerra Mundial. Tomo 3. SARPE. 1978.

The port of Messina as it was seen by the advance guards of Patton's 3 Army on Aug 16 1943.

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