OPERATION GALIA - ITALY

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Apennine Range, also called the Apennines a series of mountain ranges bordered by narrow coast lands that form the physical backbone of peninsular Italy. On 27th December 1944, 33 soldiers of A Troop, 3 Squadron, 2 SAS jumped from a DC 47 ‘Dakota’, in broad daylight into the Rossano Valley in Northern Italy where they were met by a British Liaison Officer, Gordon Lett, and partisans of the International Battalion. 

The parachutists and their equipment were dropped in daylight in an attempt to deceive enemy forces into believing that a much larger force of troops had been dropped behind their front line. The success of this deception along with the following offensive actions saw 6,000 German and Italian Fascist troops deployed to hunt down the 33 British parachutists, Liaison Officer and members of the International Battalion.

On February 10th 1945 the 33 soldiers of A Troop began their withdrawal, through hostile enemy territory, back towards the Allied front line, The Gothic Line, which was crossed in the early hours of 15th February 1945. During the ex-filtration/ evasion enemy forces constantly pursued them over extremely difficult ground and in very harsh winter weather. The operation officially ended on 24 April, by which time the main Allied armies had broken out onto the Po plains and the Germans were in full retreat away from the operational area.