Sites and places

Primosole Bridge

The 'present day' (actually 2005) pictures of Primosole Bridge and the surrounding area are kindly provided by Enrico, he was kind enough to make them available for publishing on this website.

I've played the J97 'Nice morning for a ride' scenario on this historical map as the Germans. It's a tough job to break in on the British bridgehead and to fight of all those counterattacking Brits afterwards with their mega-smokemaking capability (5 Sherman tanks with smoke & smoke dispensers and 6 mortars in total with smoke capability..). Still it's a great scenario and we had lots of fun playing it.

Please note that you can download a ASL "Primosole Bridge" terrain aid on the website of the 'Beserk Commissars' here or on a mirror here.

Please also visit the website of the Durham Light Infantry here. They are trying to gather funds and awareness for the poor state of the Primosole Bridge DLI memorial in Sicily and also about the need for a fitting memorial for a brave but inadequately recognised hero - Sgt John Murray VC, buried in Eire.

During the night of 14/15 July the two Fallschirmjäger engineer companies jumped onto Catania airfield. They marched to Primasole Bridge and took up positions on the south side of the bridge. During the morning the British, with the support of tanks of the 4th Armoured Brigade, attacked the bridge again. Again they were flung back by a combination of antitank, machine-gun and mortar fire.

The British came back again, this time reinforced by troops of the Durham Light Infantry, but again they were beaten off by the Germans. The latter had brought up an 88mm gun, but this was subsequently destroyed by intensive Allied artillery fire. The engineers on the south side of the bridge were badly mauled, and by the afternoon Fallschirmjäger casualties had reached a point whereby further defence of the bridge was untenable. Another British attack finally wrested the bridge from the paras. Two days later the Fallschirmjäger retook Primasole Bridge, before finally losing it on the 18th.

Present day Primosole Bridge from the North bank

The original Primosole Bridge

The plain of the river from Y26, the river is in front but a lower level.

Once more, the original bridge.

Present day, on top of the bridge.

Present day view over the surrounding landscape from the bridge.

Aerial view from Google Earth on Primosole Bridge.

One of those horrible 360" vision bunkers from the Campaign (on the right).