Blood-drenched Ashes. September, 1942
September 8. The beachhead around Gela, west from us, was attacked by Italians from the hills of Caltagirone, further north. As our guys have been there for 2 days already and have dug-in well, delaying the Italian advance. In about 24 hours, the guns went silent, leaving 50 of our dead and wounded, and more than 150 Italians.
A short respite before rising again. September 10, 1942
In two days, after the harbour was fully secured for unloading the supplies, our 4th Infantry division 'Vilnius', led by the Operational HQ of Gen.Rastikis, which was recently expanded to nearly 3000 men, headed for the same hills, trying to dislodge Italian 'Cuneo' division in an unexpected assault.
At the same time Motorized division 'Pasubio', supported by Inf division 'Parma', tried to ford Salso river from the direction of Agrigento, their attack turning into a artillery and mortar barrage, trying to take our volunteer divisions in a shock, but our guys, lead by experienced Gen. Liatukas, denied all their efforts to cross the stream. In two days both battles ended with victories, with our losses reaching 221 against 376 of theirs.
All this time we were heading north with all haste, trying to reach the foot of mount Etna - to secure strategic heights before Italians (including the retreating garrison of Syracuse, nearly 7000 men) could entrench there, cutting us from the rest of the island and, possibly, to breach the defensive Etna line - a series of fortified encampments and machine-gun nests. Finally, we desperately needed another port for our supplies, since the capacity of port facilities to accept supplies in Syracuse was clearly not sufficient. And that port was to be Catania.
Battle for Etna. September 16-23, 1942
It appeared, however, that we were out of luck this time - we ran into some bloody Alpini division, 9000 men strong. We had some fire superiority against them, however, as they seemed to have been rushed into positions and lacked heavier artillery, but this did not look promising at all, even to our most hardened veterans.
We knew that there were some skirmishes in Caltagirone, where our 4th division finally arrived, and even further west, around Caltanissetta, as some probing attacks by our volunteers, sitting in Gela, were made. But none of that mattered then.. We only had the looming smoky peak before our eyes, dark and frightening.
On the 18th, the guys of Gen. Rastikis started an attack from the flank, soon joined by the 4th Infantry. The Italians started to give way. And then came the bombers.
Bristol Beaufort bombers helped immensely in our fight for Etna. September 21, 1942
At first, there were several British Fleet Air Arm planes from HMS Glorious, stationed off-shore, but on the morning of the 21st of September we heard the roar of two wings of British bombers, based perhaps in Malta or Tripoli, and the whole mountainside was soon dotted with fire. It took two more days and several more waves of bombers, but we finally did it - Italians were fleeing. More than 800 Italians were found dead, with another 400 lost due to bombings, and there were 1250 Lithuanian casualties.
