embarking for Sicily. Sicily The 45th Division was under Omar Bradley's II Corps, which in turn was subordinate to Patton's Seventh Army. Overall command of the Sicilian invasion, called Operation Husky, was with British General Sir Harold Alexander, and the British forces were organized under the British Eighth Army commanded by General Bernard Montgomery. The 45th Division consisted of three infantry regiments, the 157th, 179th and 180th, and numerous other elements. Fighting alongside the 45th Division were the First Infantry Division, Third Infantry Division, and the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) (with the 3rd Battalion of the 504th PIR and numerous other support units attached), part of the 82nd Airborne Division. The 45th departed Oran on 4 July 1943, with little attention paid to the fact that it was Independence Day. The six-day trip to Sicily was smooth at first, then turned fairly rough, with seasickness prevalent among the troops. The weather calmed as several troop ships rendezvoused near the town of Scoglitti, on the western side of Sicily's south coast. At 2 a.m. on 10 July the landing craft were filled with infantrymen, and as the craft approached the shoreline, the Navy opened up with a volley of preparatory fire. The primary mission of the 45th was to capture two airfields needed for Allied aircraft. Comiso Airfield, about eleven miles from the shore, was captured in a day and was being used by American planes the next day. It took four days for the division to capture Biscari Airfield, about twelve miles inland. The next objective of the 45th was to fight German and Italian forces en route to the north coast of Sicily. The plan was to use Highway 124, one of Sicily's four major highways. This highway, originally in the American sector, had been usurped by Montgomery, with no word of the change of boundaries given to Middleton. Word eventually came down from Alexander that the boundaries had been changed, which meant that when the 45th reached the highway, they became frozen in place with no opportunity to advance. Middleton, not willing to sit out the remainder of the battle, moved his division from the right of II Corps to the left, traveling ninety miles out of the way through back areas of the other American divisions, to get in position for the march north. On 23 July the first elements of the 45th reached the north