(See Cover)
Aboard a transport, one of a thousand ships bearing the U.S. Seventh Army to Sicily, a colonel climbed atop a gun mount and read out an Order of the Day from Lieut. General George Smith Patton Jr.:
We are teamed with the justly famous Eighth Army, which attacks on our right, and we have for the Army Group commander that "veteran and distinguished soldier, General Sir Harold Alexander.
When we land we will meet German and Italian soldiers whom it is our honor and privilege to attack and destroy.
Many of you have in your veins German and Italian blood, but remember that these ancestors of yours so loved freedom that they gave up home and country to cross the ocean in search of liberty. . . .
Remember that we as attackers have the initiative. We must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, without rest. However tired and hungry you may be, the enemy will be more tired, more hungry. Keep punching. God is with us. We shall win.
A correspondent aboard the command ship saw a lone figure, leaning on the bridge rail. It was General Patton, gazing over the water toward the Sicilian shore, where history and the enemy awaited him and his men.
The Landing. Patton's ship stood off Gela, a soiled town on a blue bay, the main initial objective of the U.S. troops. Against Gela and its environs had been thrown a great weight of naval shells and aerial bombs. Against Gela, now, were sent crack troops of the Seventh Army: first a shock battalion of Commando-trained Rangers under Lieut. Colonel William O. Darby, who was to do brave things, and Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen's tried-&-proved 1st Division.
One of several correspondents in the landing craft was TIME Correspondent Jack Belden, who reported the landing and the battles which followed. (Because of transmission delays, no eyewitness accounts of the landing reached the U.S. until last week.)
Many of the men in the boats had been seasick on the packed ships. Now, on the way to the flaming shore, they were sicker than ever. They held their heads in their hands. They moaned. They vomited. A shore light picked out one of the boats. The faces in the light were pale and green. One of the men growled: "Why don't they shoot out that goddam searchlight?"
Red balls flew toward, over and among the boats. The Italians on the shore had depressed their ack-ack guns. A soldier, crouching, head down, said: "Shooting at the boats. Jeezus!"
Gunboats with blue lights, standing in toward the shore as guides for the landing craft, began to hail the first comers: "Straight ahead. Go straight ahead. You'll see the light on your right. Land there. Look out for mines. Good luck."
The naval ensigns commanding the boats cut their underwater exhausts, gave their engines the gun, roared toward the nearing shore. Toward some of the boats the red balls converged in multiple lines. For some, other things went wrong. They struck sandbars or reefs. Ramps stuck. Men jumped too late or too soon. Some, on orders, leaped with their equipment into the water, sank to their chins or lower. Some drowned.
"Get inland! Keep moving!"