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This book tells the story of how in the summer of 1943 the Allies began their invasion of the European Continent by landing on Sicily. Spearheading the assault were four airborne drops by the troops of the British 1st Airborne Division and the American 82nd Airborne. This would be the biggest aerial assault in history up to that time. Four drops were planned and they all ended up in terrible disaster. Some pilots in the towing aircraft let the tows drop too early and gliders plunged helplessly into the sea. Nervous gunners in the Allied invasion fleet knocked planes carrying their own paratroopers out of the sky by the score. Unnerved Allied aircrews dropped their paratroop cargoes all over Sicily, and even as far afield as Sardinia and Southern Italy. Losses were terribly high - an estimated 23 to 30 percent of the assault force - and in every case, the objectives of the shaken paras were finally taken by the seaborne "straight legs", as the US paras contemptuously called the ordinary infantry. Indeed, after the debacle it was seriously intended in Washington that all parachute formations over the strength of a battalion should be disbanded.