The Battle of Gratteri was a battle of World War II that occurred on 25 July 1943 when the US Army pushed against the Sicilian town of Gratteri, defended by German Wehrmacht regulars and fallschirmjaegers. The Americans, using armored support from two M8 Greyhounds and an M5 Stuart tank, succeeded in securing the town and holding it against several failed German counterattacks.
Background[]
The invasion of Sicily began on 9 July 1943 when 160,000 Allied troops (predominantly from the United States and United Kingdom) under the command of the British general Bernard Montgomery assaulted Italy's southernmost island from the south at Gela (the US troops) and Agrigento (the British troops). The original plan was for the Americans to guard the British flank and, therefore, have to do most of the fighting, but the US Seventh Army's commander George S. Patton broke ranks and took Palermo without resistance on 22 July, being greeted warmly by the residents. The 252,000 Royal Italian Army and 60,000 Wehrmacht troops on the island failed to marshal up sufficient resistance to the invasion, and the inexperienced Italians were sidelined as the German Wehrmacht took over operational command. German troops occupied the Axis Powers-held parts of Sicily, and these forces included the fallschirmjaegers, the German airborne infantry.
After the capture of Palermo, the Americans had to race the British to capture Messina in order to allow Patton to reap the glory of the near-victorious campaign, but the Americans had to push through the mountains as well as the coast. Patton dispatched a mechanized infantry regiment to capture the town of Gratteri, which was defended by a Wehrmacht regiment and a company of paratroopers. Albert Kesselring, the German commander in Italy, was determined to delay any Allied invasion of mainland Italy for as long as possible, hoping to hold the Allies back in Sicily until reinforcements from the Great Patriotic War could arrive.
Battle[]
The Americans defending the Gratteri bridge from the Germans
On 25 July 1943, the mechanized infantry regiment launched its assault on Gratteri. They took the Germans by surprise, succeeding in securing the main road in the east of the town, also taking the bridge in the center of the town. However, the Germans defended the farmland in the west, leading to fighting between the Americans in the bridge area and the Germans at the farms. An M8 Greyhound was dispatched to assist the Americans, and the armored car assisted the Americans in securing the farmland from the Wehrmacht regular infantry.
German counterattacks[]
Fallschirmjaegers in the western farmland of Gratteri
With the three positions secured, the Americans had to defend these positions from fierce German counterattacks. The Germans had no armored forces, but their paratroopers fought bravely, briefly seizing the eastern road before American reinforcements arrived and recaptured the road. Another M8 Greyhound was sent to assist in the defense of the eastern road, and an M5 Stuart tank was later dispatched. The Germans advanced from the north on both the eastern and western flanks, but the Germans were mowed down, with a fierce paratrooper attack on the western flank failing. The arrival of the M5 Stuart tank and the possibility of more American reinforcements led to the Germans eventually abandoning their attempts to recapture Gratteri, and the Americans succeeded in their goal of taking over Gratteri from the Axis forces.