The first Allied mission using large numbers of the aircraft, the operation was carried out from Tunisia by glider infantry of the British 1st Airlanding Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Philip Hicks, with a force of 136 Hadrians and eight Airspeed Horsas.

En route to Sicily, sixty-five gliders released too early by the American towing aircraft crashed into the sea, drowning approximately 252 men.

The Italians, having gained control of the bridge, sought to destroy the structure, but were frustrated by troopers of the 1st Airlanding Brigade who had removed the previously attached explosive charges.

[1] In January 1943 the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt settled at the Casablanca Conference on the island of Sicily,[1] whose invasion and occupation could potentially provide the Allies with Mediterranean shipping routes and airfields nearer to mainland Italy and Germany.

Initially the British Eighth Army, under the command of General Sir Bernard Montgomery, were to land on the south-eastern corner of the island and advance north to the port of Syracuse.

Seventh Army, commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton, would land on the western corner of the island and move towards the port of Palermo.

[1] Instead, the plans were altered to land both the Eighth and Seventh Armies simultaneously along a 100 miles (160 km) stretch of coastline on Sicily's south-eastern corner.

[6] In the revised blueprint for the airborne divisions, a reinforced regimental combat team (the 505th Parachute Infantry, under Colonel James M. Gavin, with the 3rd Battalion of the 504th PIR and numerous other units attached) from Major General Ridgway's U.S. 82nd Airborne Division would be dropped by parachute north-east of the port of Gela to block the movement of Axis reserves towards the Allied beachheads.

[8] The 1st Airlanding Brigade was also given the additional tasks of capturing Syracuse harbour and the urban area that adjoined it, and either destroying or confiscating a coastal artillery battery that was in range of the amphibious landings.

[10] His airborne advisor, Group Captain Cooper of the Royal Air Force, argued that a glider landing conducted at night with inexperienced aircrews was not practical, but the decision was left unchanged.

[10] Montgomery's orders raised several issues, the first with the transport aircraft of the Troop Carrier Wings assigned to the airborne operations.

However, the decision to turn the Syracuse assault into a glider-based one was problematic; the 51st had practically no glider experience, whilst the 52nd had much more but was already training for a parachute-based mission.

To switch both was impractical and would have led to a number of problems, which left 1st Airborne Division, and thus 1st Airlanding Brigade, with an inexperienced Troop Carrier Wing.

In late March a small number of Wacos arrived at Accra on the Gold Coast, but pilots sent to ferry them to North Africa found that they were in poor condition.

Due to neglect and the deleterious effects of tropical weather, the pilots were able to assemble only a small number of Wacos and fly them back on 22 April.

[12] However, when the decision was made to conduct a glider-borne assault with 1st Airlanding Brigade, assembly was improved, and by 12 June 346 gliders had been put together and delivered to the Troop Carrier Wings.

[13] After attacks from Luftwaffe fighter patrols and experiencing often turbulent weather, a total of 27 Horsas were delivered to North Africa in time for the operation.

[22] On 9 July, a contingent of 2,075 British troops, along with seven jeeps, six anti-tank guns and ten mortars, boarded their gliders in Tunisia and took off at 18:00, bound for Sicily.

[20] In the hours that preceded the landing, twelve Boeing B-17 and six Vickers Wellington equipped with radar jamming devices flew back and forth along the coast in the Siracusa-Licata sector; between 21:00 and 21:30, 55 Wellingtons of 205th Group carried out a diversionary bombing of the port and airport of Syracuse, causing a number of civilian and military casualties, including the commander of the Italian naval base, Commander Giuseppe Giannotti.

Based on a warning of imminent glider landings transmitted by the station's previous occupants, the local Italian commander ordered a counter-attack but his troops failed to receive his message.

As the Italians responded to the Allied landings, they gathered more troops and brought up artillery and mortars to bombard the Allied-controlled Pont Grande Bridge.

[30] After an enquiry into the problems with the airborne missions in Sicily, the British Army and Royal Air Force submitted recommendations in the aftermath of Operation Ladbroke.