<text id=00he0708><title>Across the Strait of Sicily</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Across the Strait of Sicily</hdr><body>
<p>Pantelleria was one of a group of fortified islands held by the Italians in the Straits of Sicily. Oval in shape, rocky and hilly, it was called the 'Italian Gibraltar'. It was something less, although formidable enough to require reduction before the planned invasion of Sicily could go forward.
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<p>Its airfield could handle four-engined bombers. Its underground 1,100-ft (335-m) long hangar could support a force estimated at 80 fighters. There were more than 100 gun emplacements around the island, and a garrison of about 10,000. Strategically, it dominated the strait, and could observe and influence the movements of ships and aircraft in the area.
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<p>NAAF was given the job of softening the island. About 1,000 operational Allied aircraft were available against about 1,300 operational Axis planes. But beginning on 8 May, the air battle went only one way. Between that date and 11 June, when British troops went ashore to receive the surrender, Allied aircraft flew 5,285 sorties; the fighter-bombers and bombers dropped 6,200 tons of bombs. The largest share of the work was shouldered by USAAF components in NAAF, which flew 83 per cent of the sorties, and dropped 80 per cent of the bombs.
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<p>It was the first time that a surrender of a land area had been forced by air. The invasion only placed troops ashore for the formality of the signing. Then the Allies cleared the airfield and based the 33rd Fighter Group there to support the invasion of Sicily.
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<p>A triangular island kicked by the toe of the Italian boot at Messina, Sicily is barren and mountainous. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring had 300,000 troops to defend and hold the island. The Axis had 31 air bases on its rugged terrain, populated with a full force of operational aircraft and bolstered by additional forces based on mainland Italy. Perhaps 1,600 planes were available to Kesselring.
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<p>The pre-invasion objective was to destroy that air strength. During June, NAAF bombed the airfields and destroyed about 1,000 aircraft. During the first 10 days of July, just prior to the invasion, it flew 3,000 combat sorties.
