Word: pantelleria
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Strictly according to plan, the path of invasion had been smoothed by ferocious air bombardment of Sicily's airdromes, ports and supply lines. The real pounding had started on June 11, the very day that the outpost island Pantelleria went groggy and collapsed under the rain of bombs. It had gone on in a sonorous crescendo, rising to a peak in the final week when the big Axis air base at Gerbini caught 20 full-scale raids in one day, and targets were so much in demand that American Liberators politely timed their arrival overhead for the exact moment...
Dour realists in the British War Office and the U.S. War Department growled that Pantelleria was a lesson not only in the possibilities of air power, but in the enormous effort required to apply that, or any other, means of war. Sicily, they said, would take an effort many, many times that needed for Pantelleria. Italy and Germany would be a Sicilian campaign multiplied a thousand times...
...eastern coast, where the Siculi, the Phoenicians and the Greeks began the island's long cycle of invasion. American Fortresses, medium bombers, fighter-bombers and night-flying British Wellingtons attacked from Tunisia (but not as heavily as some U.S. headlines screamed). Compared with the climactic air offensive on Pantelleria, the week, in fact, was one of lull and preparation...
Different Show. Allied commanders, eagerly studying the reports from air-conquered Pantelleria and Lampedusa, saw in them auguries of what could be done to specific targets in Sicily and southern Italy. On Pantelleria, an entire military establishment had been destroyed. Artillery, anti-aircraft positions and coastal batteries had been silenced. The island had not been able to withstand this demolition, coupled with the effective blockade by aircraft and the Royal Navy...
...Sicily is a different kind of target. It is much bigger (9,926 sq. mi. to Pantelleria's 32), more nearly self-contained, with stronger local aircraft and other defenses. If the Germans and Italians are able or willing to do so, the island can be given air cover from the mainland. At a few points the Axis air defenses stiffened last week, although as a whole they were noticeably weak. There were unconfirmed reports that the Luftwaffe had shifted its western Mediterranean air command from Sicily to northern Italy. But it still had defensive fighters on the island...