Word: butera
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Dates: during 1943-1943
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There were many local battles for towns and airdromes, of great moment to the men in the battles, dismissed with a sentence or no mention whatever in the communiques. One such engagement was the battle for the town of Butera, eight miles inland from Gela. Butera was taken by Rangers on the march toward the inland communications center of Enna, which Canadian and U.S. troops approached this week...
General officers had thought that Butera, perched on a hill behind deep and well-gunned passes, might require a month of siege. It fell in a matter of hours to a Ranger detachment of 50 officers and men. After a tense, hard march in the night, Privates John C. See and John Constantine crept within earshot of the garrison, lolling and chatting beside their guns and trucks at the top of a high pass. Constantine, one of the many Italian-speaking soldiers in the Seventh Army, called upon them to surrender. The few German officers with them tried to make...