Donovan's Devils

by Albert Lulushi

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  At the beginning of 1944, the OG operations out of Bastia packed more punch. They now targeted roads and railways along the Ligurian coast to interrupt the flow of German troops and supplies to the Cassino and Anzio frontlines.10 On the night of January 2, 1944, Livermore and Materazzi led a group of OGs in an attack against a bridge on the Via Aurelia about five miles south of Livorno. PT Boat 216 traveled from Bastia and came to within five hundred yards of the shore at the pinpoint. At 0150 hours, the dinghy and two rubber boats were launched. Two British sailors rowed the dinghy towing the rubber boats that contained the shore party and the demolition equipment. Upon reaching the shore, the OGs beached the rubber boats and proceeded inland, whereas the British sailors rowed back to the PT boat to await the pickup signal. On the way to the target, the OGs encountered several obstacles, including an unoccupied trench, a very dense strip of woods, and a four-strand barbed-wire fence. When they emerged from the thicket, they were able to see the road and to determine the location of the bridge over a ravine that was their target. They proceeded to the bridge and found that it was larger than they had expected—a single-span masonry arch bridge about thirty feet wide. The ravine below had very steep sides, and the water in the ravine was about fifteen feet from the roadbed. The men placed a single charge consisting of 250 pounds of Composition C in the middle of the north pier, approximately two feet from the bottom of the ravine, using two-hour delay pencils to set off the charge. The OGs completed the work at 0300 hours, returned to the beach, and signaled to be picked up. All the men and equipment were back aboard the PT boat at 0340 hours. At approximately 0500 hours, the watch on the boat reported a bright flash on the mainland in the direction of the target. Upon returning to Bastia, the OGs reported the results of the mission to the 63rd Fighter Wing, which ordered a sortie over the spot. The reconnaissance planes reported that the bridge had its railing blown away but the paving was intact, an indication that the charge had not been sufficient to cause major structural damage to the bridge.

  A smaller team of OGs composed of one officer and five enlisted men attempted a similar operation that same night. With the help of an OSS intelligence team of Italian agents, the OGs would destroy a tunnel on the La Spezia–Genoa railroad about twelve miles southwest of Genoa. However, when the OGs arrived at the pinpoint, the reception party was not there to signal the landing spot, so the operation was not attempted.

  A third operation of the same nature, code-named Ginny, was carried out on the night of February 27. Its objective was to destroy the tunnel entrances on the La Spezia–Genoa railroad at one of its most vulnerable points, roughly five hundred yards southeast of Stazione Framura, where the trains ran on a single-track. Because of delays setting off from Bastia and difficulties locating the pinpoint, the shore party was already one-and-one-half hours behind schedule when it landed. Delays increased after the OGs failed to locate the target immediately, thus making it highly unlikely that the team would be able to complete the mission before dawn. Lieutenant Materazzi who commanded the operation cancelled the mission and recalled the team to the PT boats, not wanting to expose the entire crew to the risks of a daylight return trip to Bastia under the threat of attacks from German coastal artillery, chase boats, or fighter planes. However the shore party had done a good reconnaissance of the target, and the OGs decided to try the operation again in four weeks at the next favorable moon cycle.

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  The small island of Pianosa, halfway between Elba and the island of Montecristo, became the target of several OG operations between the middle of January and the end of March 1944. It was the closest enemy-held island to the Corsican shores, and the Germans were using it to monitor the Allied shipping traffic to Bastia and flight patterns at the Borgo airfield. On January 14, 1944, an American pilot was forced to bail out of his airplane, parachuted in Pianosa, and was taken prisoner. A reconnaissance plane looking for the missing pilot flew at low altitude over the island two days later and came under fire. A team of OGs landed in Pianosa on the night of January 18 to assess the strength of enemy positions and possibly destroy the observation post. They did not see any signs of life and retreated after cutting telephone wires along the road. A follow-up reconnaissance mission landed on the night of January 30 and cut some more telephone wires. This time, they noticed a patrol of enemy soldiers on bicycles, which they decided not to engage. Upon their return to Corsica, a joint operation of American OGs and French commandos was put together to storm the island and take prisoners.

  The OGs selected a team of three officers and ten enlisted men to work as part of the larger French force of the Groupe de Commandos d’Afrique, composed of approximately 120 officers and men, mostly Moroccans, under the command of Colonel Georges R. Bouvet. The OGs contributed to the joint effort “D” rations for the entire party of 144 men, one hundred pounds of plastic explosives, various detonating equipment, and radio communications with the Bastia headquarters. The French furnished two diesel submarine chasers to transport the entire party to and from the objective and seven large rubber landing boats. The task force conducted joint landing exercises on two consecutive nights near Saint Florent, Corsica, which included a simulation of the projected raid on the second night.

  A first attempt to conduct the raid on February 28 failed due to a delay in arrival at the pinpoint and difficulties finding a suitable landing spot. The second attempt occurred on the night of March 17. Commandant Bouvet made a personal reconnaissance of the landing point two nights before the raid took place to ensure that everything went like clockwork. The two sub chasers left Bastia at 1835 hours followed closely by four escorting PT boats. They made landfall at 2220 hours at the planned pinpoint in Pianosa. A reconnoitering party went ashore and at 2245 hours gave the all-clear signal. In less than an hour, all troops were ashore and had climbed the precipitous cliff. They split into three patrols responsible for clearing the western, central, and eastern sector of the island. A fourth group assured security of the beachhead and maintained communications with Bastia.

  The patrol on the western part of the island found it desolated and returned without any action. The central patrol found a penitentiary at 0300 hours and cleared it within minutes, taking twelve Italian guards as prisoners. The east patrol surrounded the village where the German garrison was bivouacked. It attacked the barracks at 0400 hours, killing several Germans in the ensuing fight, but thirty-five to forty Germans barricaded themselves in fortifications at the edge of the port. They had an 81-mm mortar, a cannon, and several light machine guns, which they used to keep the attackers at bay. They lobbed about twenty mortar rounds over the three-to-four-meter-high walls of the fortifications without causing any damage to the French and American Commandos. Commandant Bouvet judged it would be impossible to clean them out within the time limit fixed for the mission. The east patrol therefore withdrew with twenty-four Italian guards as prisoners. They arrived at the beachhead at 0600 hours and re-embarked within fifteen minutes.

  The sub chasers began the return journey right on schedule at 0700 hours, just as Allied fighter planes appeared overhead and the PT boats laid defensive fire on the island. The results of the mission were positive. The French-American Commandos killed several Germans, took Italian guards prisoners for intelligence gathering purposes, and reconnoitered the island in full. The only casualty on the Allied side was a Frenchman wounded during the firefight.

  The series of raids culminating with the attack on Pianosa could not help but attract the attention of the Germans to the persistent threat coming from Corsica. An incident on the night of March 21, 1944, alerted them further to the commando operations that the Allies were launching from Bastia. A group of French Commandos left Bastia at 1700 to blow up a train and block a tunnel in the Savona–Genoa line. They were aboard an Italian torpedo boat, one of the vessels that had left the Italian ports after the armistice of November 8, 1943, to join the side of the Allies. Aboard the torpedo boat, there were Italian off
icers and crew, French Commandos, and a group of British and French naval officers. The party was due to return to Bastia at 0800 hours the next day. When it failed to do so, reconnaissance planes searched the area all day on the 22nd and 23rd without any trace of the boat. By the end of March 23rd, the search was called off and the boat and its crew were considered lost, probably having hit a mine. Later it was learned that the Italian crew had mutinied, killed the French and British officers and Commandos, as well as their own officers, and sailed to La Spezia,11 where they described in detail the landing operations carried from Bastia to the German naval intelligence officers stationed there.

  Thus, with the vigilance of the enemy on the coast increased considerably, the odds were stacked against the success of the second Ginny operation launched on the night of March 22, 1944.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Ill-Fated Ginny Mission

  After their unsuccessful attempt to blow up the tunnel entrances on the La Spezia–Genoa line on February 27, 1944, the OGs assigned to carry out the Ginny mission spent the time in March to further study their target and be ready to carry out the operation at the next suitable lunar cycle.1 OSS intelligence agents in Naples were able to find construction documents and interview engineers from the maintenance section of the Italian railways that provided new information about the structure of the tunnel near Framura. Pilots from the Eighth Army Air Force’s 52nd Fighter Group flew another reconnaissance of the area and delivered a number of aerial photographs of the target. Based on the new information received, the OGs decided to increase the amount of explosives from 375 pounds to 650 pounds and to concentrate the demolition charges at the tunnel entrance. Lieutenant Vincent Russo experimented with various methods for carrying this quantity of explosives and held several rehearsals with the entire team in the vicinity of L’Île-Rousse. A complete dry run of the operation was held on the night of March 20, two days before the scheduled raid date.

  The plan was to arrive at the pinpoint and launch the rubber boats no later than 2300 hours. After landing, the party would proceed to the target by following a natural ravine and be ready to commence the operation no later than 0030 hours. The security party, headed by Lieutenant Paul J. Trafficante and comprising Technical Sergeant Livio Vieceli and Technical Specialists Grade 5 (T/5) Joseph Noia, Rosario F. Squatrito, and Santoro Calcara, would neutralize the signal house and perform an on-the-spot reconnaissance of the target. Upon receiving the signal to proceed, the working party, led by Lieutenant Russo and including Sergeant Alfred L. DeFlumeri, Sergeant Dominic C. Mauro, and T/5s Liberty J. Tremonte, Joseph M. Farrell, Salvatore DiScalfani, Angelo Sirico, John J. Leone, Thomas N. Savino, and Joseph A. Libardi, would set the charges to demolish the target. If Russo determined that they could not complete the work and be back onboard by 0330 hours, he would notify by walkie-talkie radio Lieutenant Albert R. Materazzi in command of the boat party and return some of the men with the rubber boats. The party remaining on shore would hide during the day and prepare the target for demolition by 2300 hours of the following night, when the PT boats would return for pickup, weather permitting. At that time, most of the men of the shore party would be at the beach with only two men left behind to set off the charges. At 2300 hours, the party on the beach would begin signaling the letter “R” with a red flashlight and repeat it at fifteen-minute intervals on the quarter hour. When they had established contact with the PT boats off shore, they would set off the delayed charges, launch the rubber boats, and head to rendezvous with the PT boats. In the event that the boats could not return the following night, the OGs would follow the same procedure nightly until the night of March 27–28. If the team had not made contact by then, it would demolish the target and proceed inland to a safe house forty miles inland, where it would contact the headquarters in Bastia to arrange for alternate return plans.

  The party left Bastia at 1755 hours on March 22, 1944, and arrived at the pinpoint near Stazione Framura at 2245 hours. The PT boats came to within three hundred yards of the shore, and in ten minutes the men launched the rubber boats in the water, loaded the explosive cases in them, disembarked, and headed for the shore. Materazzi and the other members of the boat party kept watch for any activity on shore. The shore party called at 2315 hours, but the message was garbled. Ten minutes later the radio crackled and Lieutenant Russo reported that he had reached shore and was looking for a landing place. In another ten minutes, Russo called again and said he thought he had found the target. At 2340 hours, Materazzi heard Russo say something to Trafficante and the latter replied, “We see you. Wait for us.” This was the last communication received from the Ginny team.

  A few minutes later, a convoy of enemy boats approached from the south and, at the same time, the lights at Stazione Framura and along the coast went off. The PT escort boat took off as a diversionary measure and attracted fire from the lead boat in the convoy. Materazzi’s boat drifted about two miles south of the pinpoint and waited five hundred yards from the coast. Shortly afterward, a large green flare came from the coast clearly outlining the boat’s silhouette. An answering red-and-white flare responded from the sea. The main boat moved immediately further south, but another green flare went up over its new direction. Materazzi observed what appeared to be machine gun fire coming from the shore.

  At this point, the escort boat reported that the area off the coast was clear of enemy patrols. Materazzi ordered both boats to head out west for about five miles, join, and then proceed back to the landing point to reestablish communication with the shore team. The rendezvous happened at 0200 hours, but now other enemy vessels appeared on the radar between their location and the pinpoint. By 0300 hours, the area was clear again and Materazzi decided to go in. The PT boats had barely started when the escort boat reported that both the main and auxiliary steering mechanisms were not functioning. The main boat had to wait until the crew had repaired the problem. It was now 0415 hours and too late for the boats to return to the pinpoint, retrieve the men, and leave before daylight. Materazzi and the boat skippers decided to head for Bastia and return the following night to pick up the shore party per the established contingency plan.

  On March 23, two PT boats returned to the pinpoint. Radar indicated the presence of several large enemy craft at sea, making it impossible for the boats to approach the shore and contact the landing party. On the night of March 24, the PT boats attempted again to pick up the party. At the pinpoint, the boat crews observed several blinking lights near the landing beach. It was not one of the prearranged signals with the Ginny team and most likely a German attempt to trap the boat party, so they headed back to Bastia again. That morning, a photoreconnaissance mission flown over the area revealed no damage to the tunnel and no trace of the party. A final attempt to pick up the Ginny team was made on the night of March 25. After that, the OSS listed the fifteen OGs initially as missing in action and later as captured by the enemy.

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  After the fifteen OGs left the PT boats on the night of March 22, they rowed hard to reach shore only to discover sheer cliffs rising straight out of the sea. They decided to move up the coast in search of a suitable landing place, which they found around 2345 hours. The rough sea complicated the landing and the surf kicked the rubber boats around. Several OGs fell in the water and had to swim to shore; fifteen cases of the gelatinous explosive material were lost. Once ashore, they discovered that they were not at their target zone near Stazione Framura. Russo took two or three men to make a reconnaissance of the target area. Trafficante and the others remained with the boats and tried to establish contact with Materazzi on the PT boats. They had two walkie-talkie radios with them, but both failed to reach the boat party.

  Russo returned and informed everyone that the target was a mile and a half away to the northwest. When he learned that Trafficante had not established contact with the boats, Russo decided that they would not demolish the target until the boats had returned. A while later, as the dawn approached, they pulled the rubb
er boats and the cases of explosives about fifty feet up from the beach and camouflaged them in the rocks. Then the whole party went inland about four hundred yards uphill where they found an abandoned barn and decided to hide there for the day.

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  In the morning of March 23, Franco Lagaxo, a sixteen-year-old Italian villager, started the day as usual preparing to go fishing. He lived alone with his mother in Bonassola, in the locality of Carpeneggio, about two miles southeast of Stazione Framura. Lagaxo was outside his house when he saw two armed men in military uniform come toward him. They identified themselves as American and asked to speak to him and his mother inside. Once they entered the house, they went near the fire to warm up because they were wet. They said they were looking for a casetta, little house, by the railroad tracks and asked Lagaxo if he knew where it was and whether he could take them to it discreetly. Lagaxo told them “yes,” and they left after five minutes.

  They followed a path in the woods for about half a mile and arrived at the place in about ten minutes. “This is not the place we are seeking,” the Americans told Lagaxo as soon as they saw the guardhouse—they were on the southern exit of the railway tunnel at Bonassola, rather than at the northern entrance at Framura. They gave him some money to buy food and wine, and told him to meet back at the house. Lagaxo went into town where he bought fifteen eggs and a liter of wine and returned home to wait for the men to return. They came back around noon, ate some polenta with Lagaxo and his mother, and asked if Lagaxo could take them to another casetta further north. Lagaxo agreed, the men finished eating, took the eggs and wine, and told him to meet them at 1500 hours near a little stable two hundred yards from the house. Lagaxo met the Americans at the agreed time, and they walked for about an hour until they arrived at a spot on the hills from where they could see Stazione Framura down below. “This is the place where we were supposed to land,” the Americans said. After about fifteen minutes, they sent Lagaxo away, while they remained behind talking among themselves.