15th Panzergrenadier divisions surrounded by mostly third-rate Italian units, geared to coastal defense and equipped with 38 obsolete Fiat 3000 light tanks. The only Italian mobile division was the 4th Mountain Infantry Division Livorno, supported by the Italian Mobile Group E equipped with 12 Renault R 35 light tanks under Captain Giuseppe Granieri; they were joined on the afternoon of the first day by 9,000 troops of the Panzer-Division Hermann Göring with 46 Panzer III and 32 Panzer IV medium tanks coming from Caltagirone, and reinforced with a battalion of the 15th Panzergrenadiers (III. / Panzergrenadier-Regiment 129). The Germans and Italians engaged in counter-attacks at the amphibious Battle of Gela on 10 and 11 July, being forced back by heavy Allied naval bombardment. On 11 July 1943, after a 10-minute artillery preparation, the Italian Livorno Division attacked the US Rangers in three columns from the west side of the Gela River, supported by obsolescent Renault R 35 light tanks, while the Hermann Göring Division attacked the 1st Infantry Division beachhead on the east side of the Gela River. The attack was contained and then abandoned. The Germans reinforced Sicily with the 29th Panzergrenadier Division, a veteran of Stalingrad flown in from mainland Italy, and the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division brought from France. The HG Division then engaged into heavy street fighting from 2–4 August with the British Battleaxe Division in the city of Centuripe, retreating to Messina afterward. The Allies steadily pushed the Axis back and the Hermann Göring formed part of the rearguard, providing cover to German units being evacuated to mainland Italy; being one of the last German units leaving Sicily. Surprisingly, despite the heavy fighting in which it had been involved, and the intensive bombing of the port of Messina through which it was being withdrawn, the bulk of the HG troops and most of its heavy equipment were successfully evacuated. Italy The division was stationed near Naples for resting and reffiting, but was almost immediately put into alert due to the Armistice of Cassibile. On 3 September 1943, the British landed in Calabria and five days later the Italian government surrendered to the Allies. Berlin quickly implemented a contingency plan to occupy strategic points in the peninsula and to disarm Italian troops - Operation Achse. The following day, on 9 September, the US 5th Army landed in Salerno and successfully established a beachhead. German efforts to destroy