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The snouts of the 1058 spat down toward the tanks. The Bofors gunners forgot the sky, at that stage often alive with German planes, and turned on the tanks. Warships offshore got the range, their fire guided with marvelous precision by naval control parties on the beach. Correspondents with the Army were convinced that the Army guns did most of the work that followed; those with the Navy, that the Naval guns did it.
Guns and men did it. The men behind one anti-tank gun were killed. Their company commander then fired the gun until he was killed. The battalion commander fired it until he was wounded. German Mark Ills, IVs, and two of the giant Tiger Vis crumbled under the combined fire. The assault broke. The remaining tanks scuttled.
That afternoon General Patton came ashore. Men on the ships heard that he could no longer bear the stillness of command offshore, jumped into a landing boat, then plunged into the surf. When the men in Gela saw him, he was in an armored command car, flying his three-starred flag, beautiful and battle-fevered in boots and whipcords. Just as he arrived, German bombers attacked Gela, killed 70 civilians and littered the street with bodies.
An Italian assault group approached from the northwest. Colonel Darby called for Naval assistance. Shells from a cruiser found the Italians, who were marching in column as though they were on parade. That attack melted.
At 6 in the evening, eight more tanks sneaked through the U.S. positions, infiltrated toward the beach. Engineers at work on the beach grabbed guns. A captain and a lieutenant spotted an advancing unit of Italians. The captain killed six. The rest retreated. The tanks were routed.
"We Attack." Worn by constant attack, sleepless, the men of Gela were near collapse. It seemed to many an officer that one more enemy attack would finish them. At that point, Terry Allen called a conference. He said: "We attack."
The troops of the 1st had learned that the 45th Division fighting near by—fighting as valiantly, but apparently unaccompanied by correspondents—had held its part of the beach. This news was cheering to the ist. So was Terry Allen's order. But the enemy attacked first.
German tanks were on three sides of one regiment. Its guns had only nine rounds of ammunition left. Someone told the regimental artillery officer: "Here comes a load of ammunition up the road." The officer turned to the regiment's colonel and said: "Shall I let 'em have both barrels?"
"Sure," said the colonel. Off went the guns.
For a taut time, the guns were silent.
"Why?" said the colonel.
"Shot up all the ammunition," said the artillery officer. The tanks were coming on.
Ammunition arrived from the busy beaches. U.S. tanks rolled ashore. The entire ist Division got up from its slit trenches and attacked.
The objective was a spot of high ground overlooking the airfield of Ponte Olivo, eight miles inland from Gela'. Terry Allen had said: "Be there before dawn." Before dawn a regimental commander sat on the high ground. Before that day was done, the airfield fell.