101 Italian WW2 victories & counting

[carlodinechi]

More Italian victories like when the Fascist Youth Division overran the British SAS Headquarters at Siwa Oasis.

"In January 1942 the 'Giovani Fascisti' were attached at first to the Sabratha Division and, in July, seized the oasis of Siwa." Italian Army Elite Units & Special Forces 194-43 - Page 20

"With the loss of Jalo Oasis, the LRDG moved to Siwa as a base. Siwa Oasis, a large fertile settlement, was one of a chain of oases in the outer Libyan desert." Paddy Mayne: Lt Col Blair 'Paddy' Mayne, 1 SAS Regiment By Hamish Ross

[carlodinechi]

The Cremona and Friuli Divisions force 40,000 Germans, including the 91st Panzergrenadier Division to abandon Corsica.

"The Nazis were eventually chased to their bridgehead at Bastia, where, with air support and far superior numbers, they were able to embark for Italy. In total, the liberation of Corsica left 75 French soldiers dead, 245 Italians and around 1,000 Germans." The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis, By Matthew Cobb

"In Corsica, the Cremona and Friuli Divisions, keeping their ranks unbroken and refusing to surrender their arms, joined with the French troops under General Louchet. " The Story of the Italian Resistance, Roberto Battaglia, p. 50, Odhams Press, 1957

[carlodinechi]

Italians force the German 90th Panzergrenadier Division to vacate Sardinia.

"Meanwhile, the Germans were reinforced by the 91st panzergrenadier division which had been driven from Sardinia by the Italians." A New Survey of Universal Knowledge, Harry S. Ashmore, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1961

[carlodinechi]

Fallschirmjager Battalion fails to capture the Italian King.

"However, the Italians ut up unexpectedly fierce resistance, beginning with heavy flak fire that badly scattered the airborne drop. Once on the ground, the disorganized German Fallschirmjager companies found that they were up against two Italian infantry battalions, an artillery battery, a carabinieri detachment and even armed civilians. The Germans eventually fought their way to the castle against heavy resistance, but the senior Italian generals had already fled with the king. This failed operation cost II/FJR 6 135 casualties against 156 Italian casualties." Rescuing Mussolini, Robert Forczyk p. 19, Osprey Publishing 2010

[carlodinechi]

Italians defeat German occupation force in Naples.

"On the morning of September 28, Allied ships were spotted off Capri and the Neapolitans believed a landing was imminent. Attacks on the Germans resumed, particularly in the Vomero district on the west side of the city. Spontaneous uprisings began all over Naples. People seized weapons from the arsenals of the disbanded Italian armed forces, which had been left unguarded by the Germans, and by the afternoon of the next day the Germans were under attack. Bands of gunmen darted out of hiding places to strike at the Germans, then disappeared into the maze of alleys and side streets that honeycomb Naples. The first impulse of Colonel Scholl was to leave the city, but Hitler ordered Naples reduced to "mud and ashes." Scholl threatened to kill 100 civilians for every German soldier wounded or killed. The Germans destroyed scores of houses and businesses, cut of water supplies and left port facilities in ruins. They planned to blow up aqueducts and power plants before they departed. On September 29, the Germans sent a long line of tanks toward the city center. But partisan units destroyed several tanks with cannon fire, immobilized the rest and blew them up with mines." Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce, Ray Moseleyp. 35

[Urmel]

More Italian victories like when the Fascist Youth Division overran the British SAS Headquarters at Siwa Oasis.

"In January 1942 the 'Giovani Fascisti' were attached at first to the Sabratha Division and, in July, seized the oasis of Siwa." Italian Army Elite Units & Special Forces 194-43 - Page 20

"With the loss of Jalo Oasis, the LRDG moved to Siwa as a base. Siwa Oasis, a large fertile settlement, was one of a chain of oases in the outer Libyan desert." Paddy Mayne: Lt Col Blair 'Paddy' Mayne, 1 SAS Regiment By Hamish Ross

Err, 'overran'? The oasis was undefended, since the LRDG had left a few days before.

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarl ... Epi-l.html

The fall of Tobruk on 21 June 1942 and Eighth Army’s retreat to Alamein made it necessary for the LRDG to leave Siwa. The evacuation was completed on 28 June, a few days before the Italians occupied the oasis.

If you have information to the contrary, feel free to provide it. Your quotes don't indicate any combat, so I don't see the 'victory'. Especially since I understand the Italian troops were transported to Siwa in an airlift in German planes.

http://www.egyptstudycircle.org.uk/Arti ... 0Qc223.pdf

At the height of Rommel’s last offensive, on June 27, 1942, orders were given by the British HQ to evacuate Siwa. On July 23 Siwa saw the arrival of the biggest airlift in its history. Thirty Junkers 52s carrying Italian troops, the first wave escorted by 19 Messerschmitt Bf 110s of III/ZG 26 led by Hauptmann Herzberg, arrived overhead and proceeded to land and link up with Major Jakob Burkhard’s 50-man Fallschirmjager Kampfgruppe which had driven in from Jalo and reported the British gone.

[...]

Siwa was occupied by elements of Generale di Brigata Commandante Ismaele Di Nisio’s Divisione Corazzata Giovani Fascisti (136a), GGFF, of 423 soldiers with the airstrips at Siwa taken over by a flight of Caproni-Begamaschi Ca 310s or Ca 309s from 12th Squadriglia Aviazone Presidio Coloniale and the occasional Ju 87.

[carlodinechi]

I have found an newspaper article of the time in which the Italians claimed to have obtained an important naval victory on 15 June 1942.

"Sea Victory Claimed By Italy. 16 British Ships Sunk Or Damaged, Rome Declares; Convoys Under Fire" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 15 June 1942 http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 410,983994)

"The Harpoon convoy of six merchant ships ran through determined air, mine and surface attacks, losing four cargo ships sunk and several warships damaged ... Unfortunately the Vigorous convoy from Alexandria also ran into extremely heavy air attacks and was threatened by an overwhelming surface force. The result was that, having run short of ammunition, the convoy was forced to return to Alexandria. The failure of the two operations was very much down to the Royal Navy's weakness in major units at this time. Only the obsolete and small aircraft carriers Argus and Eagle cold be spared for the Harpoon convoy, whil enoe were available for the Vigorous convoy." The Royal Navy: A History Since 1900, By Duncan Redford, Philip D. Grove, pp. 205-206

"She served in the Second Battle of Narvik, where she was slightly damaged, and in the 1941 commando raid on the Lofoten islands. During the Battle of Mid-June, she was sunk by the combined action of Italian cruisers Raimondo Montecuccoli and Eugenio di Savoia and an SM.79 torpedo bomber on 15 June 1942. She was hit by at least 12 six-inch rounds and near-misses from the cruisers and an aerial torpedo before sinking. Bedouin managed to shoot down the torpedo bomber which delivered the coup de grâce to her. 28 men from her complement were killed in action and 213 were taken as prisoners of war by the Italian Navy." Wikipedia page to do with HMS Bedouin

"The British destroyer Bedouin was sunk at 2.15 p.m. by the S.79 (MM. 23492) of S.Ten. Martino Aichner of the 28 J" Squadriglia of the 132° Gruppo A.S., who was forced to ditch in the sea immediately after having released his torpedo as a result of A. A. fire from the destroyer."Air Pictorial, Volume 45, p. 56, Air League of the British Empire., 1983

"Kujawiak was sunk on 16 June 1942 after running into a mine near Malta while participating in Operation Harpoon. 13 Polish sailors died and 20 were wounded." Wikipedia page to do with the Polish destroyer sunk

The Italians however lost the heavy cruiser Trento with heavy loss of lives.

Urmel: Thank you for explaining that the Fascist Youth Division arrived by plane and that the Siwa Oasis had already been abandoned by the LRDG. Does anybody know if the Italians found any war booty there?

[Marcus]

This thread was featured on our Facebook page recently.

/Marcus

[carlodinechi]

UPDATE ON THE LIBERATION OF NAPLES. It was an achievement of the Bersaglieri.


"Until the Allies arrived there has been havoc and the city is wrecked as a result of Allied bombing, German demolitions and the pitched battles which Italian regular army Bersaglieri regiments loyal to the King have been fighting with the Germans. When we arrived, there was shooting everywhere. Even six and eight year old boys were shooting, firing abandoned weapons into the air in play. Disregarding the fighting, civilians turned out all over the city to give the Americans and British a thunderous ovation. The German rearguards, caught by the speed of the Allied advance from Torre Annunziata, had seized scores of Italians youths, old men and women as hostages and retreated with them into public buildings to fight the Bersaglieri. Civilians took courage from the Bersaglieri, and commandeered all avialable vehicles which they raced along the streets firing at every German at every German in sight." Yanks Busy With Clearing of Naples, By Herny T. Gorrell, p. 5 Valley Morning Star 3 October 1943

[carlodinechi]

Italian anti-fascist Bersaglieri force, holds its ground in its baptism of fire against Germans.

" WITH THE ITALIAN FORCES IN ACTION, Dec. 8. (UP)A reborn Italian army went into action at 6:20 a.m. today beside its American and British allies of Gen. Mark W. Clark's Fifth Army on the long, hard parth to its Eternal City, Rome. Formed around a nucleus of tough, Africa-seasoned regulars and Bersaglieri and Alpini shock troops, proud to be treated as full allies, the Italians went into battle in a shroud-like dawn fog under a deafening barrage by Italian, American and British guns ... They reached the heights of the first hill before them, a hill which was like a step upward to a second hill. At 9:33 a.m. the Germans came back, with the bayonet and hand grenade, in a counter-attack. They knew whom they were facing and we who watched knew it was white hate against white hate. The Italians were outnumbered and they withdrew slowly and stubbornly, as the Germans threw more men into the light. The Germans were firing ahead of their men, putting down a crisscross of fire against the hill up which the Italians had been moving. "We are losing good men," the commanding general said as he stood beside Prince Humbert, "but we want the world to know that Italy is again on the side of America, Britain and France. Our losses will be worthwhile." The Germans cracked like a hammer against the Italian left flank. The Bersaglieri, though pressed in the center, sent men over and took the brunt of the attack. Then the Italian, American and British guns opened against the Germans, and the Germans in their turn went back. The fire became hotter as the morning passed and a bright afternoon sun drove the fog away. I watched the Italian wounded as they started back, some limping, some on stretchers. From our observation post I could see the Germans carrying off Italian dead, apparently in an attempt to identify their units and get other information. Our mortar fire killed some of them." White Hate Flares As Italian Troops Face Germans, By Reynolds Packard, p. 1, Nevada State Journal, 12 December 1943

[carlodinechi]

21 July 1943 Italian unit ambushes the US 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment near Sciacca, Sicily and is able to retreat, after killing 9 and wounding 18 paratroopers in F Company.

US Paratroopers Killed in the Tuminello Pass action

PFC. Coen, Edward
PVT. Cope, Leonard J.
SGT. Durdin, Moses A.
T-4 Fattore, Louis F.
SGT. Lockhart, Joseph L.
PFC. McNally, Arthur
S/GT. Reopke, Paul M.
T-5 Secondine, Alfred
S/GT. Wilczynski, Henry J

According to Edward J. Sims, First Lieutenant, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment:

"We cleared Sciacca, then headed for Marsala. In an area called "Tuminello Pass," we were forced to make a frontal assault when a strong German force caught us by surprise and opened fire on our column. This turned into a long, hard fire fight, with a number of casualties on both sides, before the Germans were driven off." (http://www-sbt.brookdalecc.edu/pages/960.asp)

Sims has ofcourse embellished his story by claiming "Germans" had ambushed F Company when in fact it was an Italian unit that inflicted this reverse on the US Paratroopers and that resulted in the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel William P. Yarborough being relieved of command, de-ranked to Major and given a desk job. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_P._Yarborough)

"On July 21, with Company F once again in the lead, Italian infantry supported by a battery of 75mm guns and two 90mm guns ambushed the paratroopers. When the Italians opened fire, Lieutenant Sims and his troopers were advancing along the road that ran through the Tumminello Pass. "We were forced to make a frontal assault when a strong Italian force caught us by surprise and opened fire on our column. This turned into a long, hard firefight, with a number of casualties on both sides." As Company F assaulted the Italian positions frontally, a flanking movement was undertaken, resulting in the surrender of all of the Italian personnel and weapons." More Than Courage: Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Anzio, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, Central Europe: The Combat History of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Phil Nordyke, pp. 66-67

[carlodinechi]

More on the Tuminello Pass action, according to Edward J. Sims, a platoon commander in F Company:

"The first thing I did personally was to curse at the people from the rear who were telling us to speed up the damn thing all the time. All that did was close up on the people ahead of us. Bunched us all together. I kept thinking how stupid that was. I took what cover I could alongside the road. But I realized quickly it was no place to stay, so I got up and said, "Let's go." The Germans were up on a small hill to our right. We weren't close enough to see an indivdual and fire at him. We had encountered mostly Italians to this point. But these Germans fought us hard. They had the element of surprise on us, but they took on too many people— our whole battalion was on the road. They pinned us down until we figured out what was happening, then we made a frontal assault on them. We turned to the right and attacked them head on. Eventually, they fled." I Was with Patton By D. A. Lande, pp. 78-79

No doubt, there must have many more actions in which Allied troops suffered greatly at the hands of brave and competent Italian units, but that Allied veterans would prefer us to believe the enemy they faced were Germans.

[carlodinechi]

Great Italian naval achievement.

"Going into the war, the Regia Marina had several primary missions. Foremost was maintaining communications with Libya in North Africa and the Balkans. This required the movement of regular convoys to those areas. Another important task was the control of the central Meditteranean, thus denying its use to the British. This was a key strategic factor during the war, as it dramatically increased the shipping requirements to maintain British forces in the Middle East. Unable to use sea lanes through the Mediterranean, the British were forced to use the Cape of Good Hope route around Africa, a total distance of 12,000 miles. This quadrupled shipping requirements compared with the Mediterranean route and had strategic implications for Allied capabilities and plans worldwide. Instrumental to being able to move convoys to Africa and keeping the Mediterranean closed to Allied shipping was the maintenance of Italy's battle fleet." Italian Battleships of World War II, Mark Stille, pp. 4-5, Osprey Publishing, 2012

"The Regia Marina closed the direct passage through the Mediterranean for thirty-six months, almost its entire war, to all but eight fast freighters in three massively protected convoys, Collar, Excess, and Tiger, which ran between November 1940 and May 1941. This forced Great Britain to build and supply an army in Egypt around the Cape of Good Hope rather than the Strait of Gilbraltar, a twelve-thousand-mile voyage, nearly four times longer than the direct Mediterranean passage." On Seas Contested: The Seven Great Navies of the Second World War, Vincent P. O'Hara, W. David Dickson, Richard Worth, p. 156, Naval Institute Press, 2014

[carlodinechi]

Great Italian Air Force achievement.

"An 'air bridge' had been established to supply the German- Italian bridgehead in Tunisia. With the use of all available transport capacity the Regia Aeronautica managed to fly 72,000 ground troops and 5,000 tons of war material into Tunisia." In the Skies of Europe: Air Forces Allied to the Luftwaffe 1939-1945, Hans Werner Neulen, p. 58, Crowood, 2000

[carlodinechi]

"From November 1942 through May 1943 the Regia Marina fought its hardest campaign. Its ability to keep the Axis armies operating in Tunisia for such an extended period, despite Allied air, naval, and intelligence superiority, was a tremendous accomplishment. Battleships and cruisers remained at anchor as destroyers and corvettes burned oil pumped from their bunkers. The fact that the Germans and Italians seized 800,000 tons of French shipping as a consequence of Torch made the task easier. Moreover, by supporting the position in Africa, the Regia Marina ensured that more than 2 million tons of Allied shipping remained tied up maintaining the Middle East and the Far East around the Cape of Good Hope. The ramnification of this on the global war is seldom evaluated, but it certainly guaranteed there would be no second front in France in 1943." On Seas Contested: The Seven Great Navies of the Second World War, Vincent P. O'Hara, W. David Dickson, Richard Worth, pp. 151-152, Naval Institute Press, 2014