Ponte Olivo Airfield

Ponte Olivo Airfield is an abandoned pre-World War II airport and later wartime military airfield in Sicily, 3 km north of Gela. Its last known use was by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force in 1944 during the Italian Campaign.

Originally built as Ponte Olivo Airport in the 1920s, the airport in September 1939 became base for the 41st Storm of the Italian Regia Aeronautica with 18 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 that were later transferred to the Italian bases round Benghazi in Cyrenaica. Together with Comiso Airport it was extensively used for the bombing of the British bases on the Maltese islands. It was the primary objective of the Amphibious Battle of Gela during Operation Husky. On 9 July 1943, the United States Army 82d Airborne Division 505th Regimental Combat Team and the 3d Battalion of the 504th Parachute Regiment was carried by 226 C-47 Skytrains of the 61st, 313th, 314th and 316th Troop Carrier Groups, which departed from Kairouan Airfield, Tunisia. The parachutists mission was to seize the high ground near the airport and to assist the seaborne forces of U.S. II Corps, Seventh Army, in capture of the airfield. Although the parachute drops were widely scattered, the objective was taken. This was the first major airborne operation to be undertaken by Allied forces in World War II. By morning, only 400 of the Regiment’s 1600 soldiers had reached the objective area. The others had been dropped in isolated groups on all parts of the island and carried out demolitions, cut lines of communication, established island roadblocks, ambushed German and Italian motorized columns, and caused so much confusion over such an extensive area that initial German radio reports estimated the number of American parachutists dropped to be over ten times the actual number.

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