Mussolini rescued by parachutists ??

September 12th, 1943, after weeks of frantic research, the German intelligence services managed to locate where Mussolini was being held as a prisoner and launched a covert operation to rescue him. THE OPERATION WAS AN AMAZING SUCCESS, ORGANIZED AND PREFORMED BY GERMAN PARACHUTISTS UNDER THE DIRECTION OF OTTO SKORZENY. Can anybody give me any info about this operation .

 

Here´s some:

On June 25th 1943 Skorzeny was summoned to the 'Wolfsschanze', the headquarters of Adolf Hitler. Hitler gave him the task to find Mussolini, who was taken prisoner by the Italian government, and to liberate him. General Kurt Student would assist Skorzeny on his mission. The next day Skorzeny was in Rome. It would cost him several weeks to find out about the place where Mussolini was staying. Just at the moment that Skorzeny was about to free Mussolini off the island of Maddalena in the North of Sardinia Mussolini was moved to an unknown destination.
A few days later Skorzeny's intelligence service found out that Mussolini was held on mount Gran Sasso in Winter sports hotel Campo Imperatore at an altitude of over 2000 meters. During a reconnaissance flight Skorzeny saw a small lawn just behind the hotel. This was the spot on which he decided to land. Normal paratroops could not land at this altitude because the air was to thin. This was the reason the operation would be performed by gliders. As the gliders floated down toward the hotel Skorzeny noticed the the lawn he chose was covered with rocks and was very steep.
"Dive! Try to make a forced landing as close to the hotel as possible!", he shouted. They landed at a distance of about 100 meters of the hotel. Skorzeny and the Italian General Soletti, who was pro-German, jumped out off the plane. Mussolini's faced appeared behind a window of the hotel. "Backup," Skorzeny was shouting, "get away of the window!" Soon the commander of the Italian guards surrendered. Skorzeny rescued Mussolini without a gun being fired.
The next questions was how to get Mussolini out. To go alongside the road was far too dangerous. The plane which had to transport Mussolini had been damaged during the previous landing. There was only one possibility left. Captain Gerlach, the personal pilot of General Student, flew directly above the hotel in his Fieseler Storch, a small one-engine reconnaissance plane. Skorzeny called Gerlach by radio. Gerlach made a perfect landing. In the beginning Gerlach refused to take both Mussolini and Skorzeny with him. However, Skorzeny felt personal responsible for Mussolini and insisted on flying together with Gerlach and Mussolini. Finally Gerlach conceded.

When Mussolini and Skorzeny had entered the plane 12 men held the plane on his place as Gerlach ran up the engine. Finally he raised his arm and the men let go of the plane. The plane speeded ahead, almost hitting a large rock, and finally disappeared over the edge. The plane landed in Rome. Mussolini and Skorzeny were flown to Vienna.

http://www.worldwar.nl/persons/Skorzeny/otto_skorzeny.htm

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With some pics

http://thecensureofdemocracy.150m.com/skorzeny.htm

 

thanks Kai-Petri

 

The whole of this operation is covered in great detail with plenty of very interesting 'then & now' photographs in 'After The Battle' magazine No 22 ( which is still available as a back issue ).

 

I will read it later in Skorzény's memoirs: "The forgotten war". Also there is a very good telly programme about this, it is called "Realeasing the Duce" of the series True Action Adventures of the XX Century.

 

It were nog parachutists, but gliders.

No one was killed, only one glider crashed and the soldiers were wounded. Benito was liberated and was then flying back with Skorzeny to Vienna where Adolf was waiting for him.

 

Albert is right here. Skorzény and his men used Gliders and Fieseler Storchs for the mission.

 

They did use gliders, but some FJ elements did use parachutes to get into the valley further down to secure the cable car station. Those men used in the gliders came in the majority from SS500 para battalion.

 

Indeed, the men that couldn't fly back (all but Skorzeny and Benito) went to the valley by cable car.

 

Skorzeny almost killed himself, Mussolini and the Fiesler Storch pilot, Hauptmann Heinrich Gerlach, by insisting on accompanying Mussolini in the plane.

To quote Skorzeny, from After the Battle No. 22.

" However, although our speed increased and we were rapidly approaching the end of the strip, we failed to rise. I swayed about madly and we had hopped over many a boulder when a yawning gully appeared right in our path. I was just thinking that this really was the end when our bird suddenly rose into the air. I breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving.

Then the left wheel hit the groung again, the machine tipped downwards and we made straight for the gully. Veering left, we shot over the edge. I closed my eyes, held my breath and again awaited the inevitable end. The wind roared in our ears.

It must have ben all over in a matter of seconds, for when I looked round again, Gerlach had got the machine out of its dive and almost on a level keel. Now we had sufficient air speed, even in this thin air. Flying barely 30 metres above the ground we emerged in the Arezzano valley."

Gerlach was awarded the Ritterkreuz on Skorzeny's recommendation.

The rescue was re-staged for German propaganda a few days later, after Skorzeny and his SS detachment had left the area. Hence most of the pictures you see of the event only show Fallschirmjager.

_______________

As always, victory finds a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan - Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's Foreign Secretary

 

It's also very funny that all the men of Skorzeny had to push the Fiesler Storch (FS). It was so heavy that it couldn't start normally.

So the FS gave gas, but the men of Skorzeny held the plane, untill the motors were warmed up and they would have enough speed.

After falling 150 meters the FS began to fly and nearly made with the heavy load.

 

Actually it was Oberleutnant Georg von Berlepsch of Fsch.-Lehr-Btl. who was the Commanding Officer of the Operation. The Skorzeny was attached to it along with 18 men.

Some sources even say that it were one Lt. with two of his paratroopers who found Mussolini.

Skorzeny claimed all the fame for himself.

http://www.luftwaffe-hist.demon.co.uk/mainscreens/1Para-Ops-Gran%20sasso43.htm

Cheers,

 

Nice sit andyw

 

Many of the photos avilable are staged and filmed/ photographed after the rescue as Sniper says.

Further, some of the paratroopers were using rifles equipped with silencers.

http://www.forces70.freeserve.co.uk/Fallshirmjager/Rescue.htm

regards

[ 16. November 2002, 04:21 AM: Message edited by: charlie don't surf ]

 

Dont forget that the Gebirgejagers also played a big part in his rescue.

[ 16. January 2003, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: C.Evans ]

 

Weren't they used to capture the Hungarian regent Admiral Horthy? I know Skorzeny captured him. But whith wich troops.

 

Hmmmm..I also remembered he kidnapped the Admiral himself but this is kinda interesting..several articles claim Skorzeny only got his son and not the Ddmiral and several claim he did get his man, the Admiral...

Got his book so we´ll see how Skorzeny himself feels about this...


" In October 1944 Skorzeny masterminded "Operation Panzerfaust" which was brought about to keep Hungary an ally of Germany. It was becoming more and more evident that Admiral Miklos Horthy the Hungarian regent was trying to disassociate Hungary as an ally of Germany and Hitler appointed Skorzeny as the man to carry this task out. It would involve members of Fallschirmjäger Battalion 500 and the newly formed Fallschirmjäger Battalion 600 as well as the 22nd SS Kavallerie Division "Maria Theresa" which was forming in Hungary at the time, Panzergrenadier division "Feldhernhalle" and a number of troops from the Weiner-Neustadt Officer Cadet School. Skorzeny, in the disguise of a Dr Wolff successfully captured the Admiral's son in a bid to hold him hostage and force his father to remain a German ally. Admiral Horthy did not give way, calling an armistice in a speech that same day. An assault was planned for his castle in Budapest and led by Skorzeny, the assault was successful but Admiral Horthy had escaped. Hs abdication allowed Germany to install Count Szalasi who was a pro-German as prime minister who immediately cancelled the armistice and Hungary remained allied to Germany for the rest of the war. "

http://www.forces70.freeserve.co.uk/Waffen%20SS%20Text+Images/kcholders/skorzeny.htm

[ 17. January 2003, 08:47 AM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

 

I think it is the following story:

First Skorzeny capture the son and afterwards he, together with a few jeeps and one or two tanks, goes to the castle where the Admiral is staying.

There istn't a fight and the Admiral is being captured. That's what I know and think.

 

Skorzeny says he was only ordered to capture the son by OKW. Reich Adminstrator Horthy had escaped from the castle and sought protection at 5:45 am in the house of General der Waffen-SS Graf Karl von Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, and later lived in Hirschberg castle in Upper Bavaria. Skorzeny met him later on in in Nuremberg prison 1945.