To the east, despite its small size, a party of British paratroopers seized Ponte Grande, but proved too few to prevent the Italian defenders from regaining the bridge. By the morning of the second day, both the British and Americans had a firm foothold on the eastern and southern shores of the island. Only at Gela were the Germans putting significant pressure on American troops. As a result George S. Patton ordered that the 504th Regimental Combat Team be dropped in to reinforce the line. That order led to one of the worst incidents of friendly fire during World War II. Despite careful efforts at coordination to ensure that the U.S. Navy would not fire on the incoming aircraft, the troop carrier formations came under intense anti-aircraft fire from the Allied fleet off Gela.

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Allied naval and merchant units had been under attack by formations of Ju-88s and other Axis aircraft all day, including a major raid that ended immediately before the troop carrier aircraft arrived overhead. The slow-flying formations, clearly illuminated by a quarter moon, were sitting ducks for anxious naval gunners. Once one ill-disciplined gun crew opened up, everyone in the fleet, on the beaches and in the landing zones fired. It was mass slaughter. By the time it was over, the troop carriers had lost 23 out of 144 aircraft dispatched, with a further 37 aircraft badly damaged. Six of the aircraft shot down had their full load of paratroopers on board. Altogether, the 504th lost 81 dead, 132 wounded and 16 missing. Under intense anti-aircraft fire the transport crews once again dropped paratroopers all over southeastern Sicily; by evening on the 12th the regiment still only numbered 37 officers and 518 men.

The difficulties encountered in mass parachute drops in Sicily did not deter the continuation of the buildup of Allied airborne forces. In an era when military organizations and political leaders were more willing to accept casualties than is the case today, senior officers such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Patton and Sir Alan Brooke wrote off the high casualty rates and flawed employment to a lack of experience rather than to a flawed concept. Moreover, the successful reinforcement of the Salerno bridgehead by a regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division in a short period of time also helped to strengthen the idea that paratrooper formations could be very useful in future military operations.

Normandy
The great moment for the Allied airborne forces came with Operation Overlord in June 1944. Their contribution to that effort alone more than justified the considerable resources that both the British and U.S. armies had poured into development of airborne tactics and training.

At the end of 1943, the Allies made a major command shift. The team that had been running the war in the Mediterranean was brought to the British Isles to plan and execute the great invasion of France. Eisenhower became the supreme Allied commander, with British Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder as his deputy. Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery returned from the Mediterranean as well, to assume control of the initial phase of ground operations.

When they arrived in England, Eisenhower and his deputies inherited a scheme that was largely driven by what were thought to be the available resources. The initial plan for the invasion called for a three-division amphibious landing, supported by the drop of one airborne division. Both Eisenhower and Montgomery found the planning assumption of a four-division attack completely unacceptable. They even implied that they were not willing to command the invasion unless those numbers were substantially increased. They got their way. The Combined Chiefs of Staff found the logistical and amphibious resources to increase the invasion force to a six-division landing force — three American, two British and one Canadian — supported by a drop of three airborne divisions.

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