Pantelleria : Italy
The Romans occupied the island as the Fasti Triumphales record in 255 BC, lost it again the next year, and recovered it in 217 BC. Under the Empire it served as a place of banishment for prominent persons and members of the imperial family. The town enjoyed municipal rights. In 700 the Christian population was annihilated by the Arabs, from whom the island was taken in 1123 by Roger of Sicily. In 1311 a Spanish fleet, under the command of Requesens, won a considerable victory here, and his family became princes of Pantelleria until 1553, when the town was sacked by the Turks.
Its capture was regarded as crucial to the Allied success in invading Sicily in 1943 due to the fact that it would allow more planes to be based in range of the larger island. Pantelleria was heavily bombarded in the days before the scheduled invasion by bombers and warships, and in the end the garrison surrendered as the landing troops were approaching. It then indeed played a part as a vital base for Allied aircraft during Operation Husky.
See Orsi, “Pantelleria” (in Monumenti dei Lincei 1899, *x-193-284).
