BITTEN BY A MULE

摘要

May 1943:142 Squadron was based at Kairouan, south of Tunis, as part of the North West African Strategic Force under the command of Major General James Doolittle, USAAF. The invasion of Sicily was planned for July. Partly as a rehearsal, partly as a need to remove a potentially serious irritant, the invasion of the much smaller island of Pantellaria, midway between Tunisia and Sicily, was scheduled as Operation corkscrew for June. An Italian garrison of 12,000 men with 21 gun batteries was well entrenched and supplied. Tiny was one of those pilots ordered to drop a total of 4,000 tons of bombs on the guns and harbour, beginning on May 23. B-17s, B-25s, Bristol Bisleys [Blenheim Vs] and Wellingtons went two and three times a night, meeting little opposition, and by June 10 were at the end of it.