Sicily '43. James Holland

Reggimento Genio

       Generale Alfredo Guzzoni

      Commander-in-Chief, Sixth Army

       Vincenza La Bruna

      Civilian living in Regalbuto

       Tenente-Colonnello Dante Ugo Leonardi

      III° Battaglione, 34° Reggimento di Fanteria, 4° Divisione ‘Livorno’

       Tenente Livio Messina

      I° Battaglione, 33° Reggimento di Fanteria, 4° Divisione ‘Livorno’

       Michele Piccione

      Student sergeant, 4º Reggimento Autisti

       Mario Turco

      Civilian living in Gela

Harold Alexander	Mark Alexander	James Altieri	Omar Bradley
Giuseppe Bruccoleri	Alex Campbell	Bill Cheall	David Cole
Arthur Coningham	Max Corvo	Peter Davis	Charlie Dryden
Hugh Dundas	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Warren Evans	Douglas Fairbanks Jr
James M. Gavin	Karl Goldschmidt	Alfredo Guzzoni	Chester B. Hansen

Hans-Valentin Hube	Franklyn A. Johnson	‘Hap’ Kennedy	Josef Klein
Farley Mowat	Audie Murphy	George S. Patton	Alastair Pearson
Raymond Phillips	Michele Piccione	Martin Pöppel	Ernie Pyle
Charlie Scheffel	Wilhelm Schmalz	Carl Spaatz	Johannes Steinhoff
Arthur Tedder	Hedley Verity	Robert Vrilakas	Walter Warlimont

Prologue

       The Burning Blue

      FRIDAY, 25 JUNE 1943. Morning, and another scorching day of soporific heat. Trapani on the western edge of Sicily was crowded with aircraft: two more fighter groups had arrived that morning. Major Johannes Steinhoff – ‘Macky’ to his friends – twenty-nine years old and in possession of a lean, gentle face, blue eyes and fair hair, had been up early, woken in the grey light of dawn and driven down to the airfield to join the rest of I. and II. Gruppen of Jagdgeschwader – Fighter Wing – 77. Already, mechanics were furiously working on their Messerschmitt 109 aircraft, desperately trying to get as many as possible fit to fly despite chronic shortages of parts – from simple bolts to electrical wiring to just about everything complex machines like these needed.

      Trapani lay on a dusty, sun-bleached, small coastal plain, and by the time Steinhoff had planted himself in a chair in front of the wooden dispersal hut, the dawn light had been swept aside by the deep burning blue of the daytime sky. Beyond, past the edge of the airfield, lay the vast wine-dark sea. Crickets and cicadas chirruped. The heat grew palpably.

      Steinhoff