Italy agreed to an armistice with the Allies on September 3,
1943, with the stipulation that the Allies would provide military support to
Italy in defending Rome from German occupation. Operation Giant II was a
planned drop of one regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division northwest of Rome,
to assist four Italian divisions in seizing the Italian capital. An airborne
assault plan to seize crossings of the Volturno River during the Allied
invasion of Italy, called Operation Giant, was abandoned in favor the Rome
mission. However doubts about the willingness and capability of Italian forces
to cooperate, and the distance of the mission far beyond support by the Allied
military, resulted in the artillery commander of the 82nd, Brig. Gen. Maxwell
Taylor (future commander of the 101st), being sent on a personal reconnaissance
mission to Rome to assess the prospects of success. His report via radio on
September 8 caused the operation to be postponed (and canceled the next day) as
troop carriers loaded with two battalions of the 504th Parachute Infantry
Regiment were warming up for takeoff.
With Giant II cancelled, Operation Giant I was laid on again
for September 13 to drop two battalions of the 504th at Capua. However
significant German counterattacks beginning September 12 resulted in a
shrinking of the American perimeter and threatened destruction of the
beachhead. As a result, Giant I was cancelled and the 504th instead dropped
into the beachhead on the night of September 13 using transponding radar
beacons as a guide. The next night the 505th PIR was also dropped into the
beachhead as reinforcement. In all, 3,500 paratroopers made the most
concentrated mass night drop in history, providing the model for the American
airborne landings in Normandy in June 1944. An additional drop on the night of
September 14–15 of the 2nd Battalion 509th PIR to destroy a key bridge at
Avellino, to disrupt German motorized movements, was badly dispersed and failed
to destroy the bridge before the Germans withdrew to the north.
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