​509th PARACHUTE INFANTRY BATALION DEPLOYS TO AVELLINO, ITALY

1943 ​AIRBORNE HISTORY

With the battle for a foothold on mainland Italy hitting a decisive phase and the 82nd Airborne in action at Salerno, it was left to the 509th PIR to undertake one of the most hazardous jumps and seize the key town of Avellino. The small town was located twenty miles north of Salerno on a strategic crossroad, where if held, the movement of German troops to the area could be blocked from moving to the beachhead at Salerno.

 The Plan

It was planned that on 14th September 1943, the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Doyle Yardley, would jump onto the crossroad town of Avellino and provide the barrier to hold back German reinforcements. At 1400 on 14th September and with little advance notice, General Ridgway notified the 509th of their critical mission to jump than night and to occupy, prior to daylight, the large crossroads area at the south edge of the town and deny its use to German units moving forward towards Salerno. This crossroads had to be taken and held until the US Fifth Army could relieve the 509th PIR. Ridgway finished his briefing with the words, “the Fifth Army’s fate is in you hands, good luck and God speed.”

 The Jump

For the next six hours Lt. Col. Yardley, his staff and the 64th Troop Carrier Group tried to work out the specific details of the combat jump. It would have been challenging enough had they had days to plan, but with only hours at their disposal, as the planning continued, the troops began to make their way to their departure points at Comiso Airfield. When the aircraft were finally ready for takeoff, the troopers still only had very sketchy detail of their mission, but most knew that they were heading for Avellino. For the first hour of the flight the convoy managed to maintain their close formation, but as they moved up the Italian coast, they began to separate and as they climbed to avoid the mountains near the drop zone, the C-47s drifted even further apart.

The Pathfinders led by Lieutenant Fred Perry and Lieutenant Henry Rouse and their team were thirty minutes ahead of the main body of aircraft and when he thought that he was over the drop zone, Lt. Perry and his team leapt out of their aircraft. However, once on the ground, he realised that he had selected the wrong crossroads and was a mile south of their intended drop zone. With insufficient time to get to the correct DZ, he marked the area where the Pathfinders had jumped, but his 5G radio beacon and Aldis lamps proved useless in the mountains. As a consequence, of this and the scattered formation, when the Jumpmasters thought they were at the correct location, they led their troopers out, only to be spread over and area of some 100 square miles around Avellino. Fifteen planes dropped their jumpers within four miles of the correct DZ, twenty-three scattered them between eight and twenty-five miles away and two planeloads were lost.

 In spite of their wide dispersal, the troopers did what they were trained to do – join up into small groups and meet the enemy where they found them. Over the next few days, small groups mined roads, blew up bridges and cut telephone lines in the area, knocking out the German communications and causing havoc wherever they were. They ambushed enemy patrols, shot up convoys and attacked outposts causing the Germans to think that a much larger force was in the area. Consequently, the Germans sent out patrols looking for the troopers. The paratroopers’ actions reduced the potential of a regiment of the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division that had been deployed around Avellino.

 Col. Yardley was in one of two planes that managed to find the correct DZ and when on the ground, he gathered what men he could find and marched the three miles towards Avellino. A little after 0100 on the morning of 15th September, he had about 30 men out of his 641, but decided to move out to the crossroads – his mission. Two miles down the road, a German machine gun opened fire and while the troopers sought cover, it was evident that they had ran into a large body of Germans who were supported with tanks and artillery. As the group tried to shoot their way out of trouble, the Germans used flares to pinpoint the troopers positions and then hit the with 88mm artillery shells. Many troopers were wounded including Col. Yardley and the Germans soon overran them, taking them prisoner. They spent the rest of the war as POWs.

 For the next few days and nights, small bands of 509th paratroopers prowled the area harassing the enemy for as far as forty miles deep into German territory. In one such incident, Captain Edmund Tomasik led about sixteen men to blow up a bridge over which was moving a convoy loaded with Germans. In another, Captain Archie Birkner with fifteen men, set up an ambush and took out a staff car plus any other unfortunate Germans who passed by, amassing a total of fourteen dead Germans.

 Over the next two weeks, 532 of the original 640 who had jumped, found their way back to the US lines. Even in the confusion, the 509th had achieved what General Mark Clark had in mind when the mission was planned. It disrupted German communications, caused confusion and partly blocked German supplies and reserves. It also caused the Germans to keep units on anti-parachute missions that otherwise would have been sent to the beachhead at Salerno. The paratroopers would continue to fight for many more weeks and months as “legs” in Italy and prove a valuable asset to the allied command.  

 Jump Summary

Date:                           14 September 1943

Unit:                            509th Parachute Infantry Batalion

Operation:                   Avalanche

Troopers:                     640

Country:                      Italy

Drop Zone:                  Avellino