Invasion+of+Italy

=Introduction=

Planning for the invasion code named "Operation Husky" occured only a month before the actual invasion in the Quebec Conference. The allies plan to invade Italy was for many reasons. A few were to engage German troops that may otherwise be able to be used in France or Russia, capitalize on the collapse of the Italian Resistance, and to secure airfields to bomb Germany and the Balkans. But the largest reason was to open the Mediterranean shipping lanes.

=Invasion of Sicily=

The actual invasion of Sicily occured on July 9, 1943. It consisted of American and British forces. It was an amphibious landing onto the beaches. The forces pushed in to create a beach head. In a day thousands of troops, vehicles, and tons of supplies were on shore. The island was heavily defended by the Italian Sixth Army which consisted of 200,000 and the 15th and 19th Panzer Grenadiers of the German army. Once the armies were on the island, bad communication with the British confused orders and the Americans began to push forward. The British did too but got bogged down. General Patton and the Seventh Army moved North and West. When the British got bogged down General Alexander ordered Patton to move his troops east to protect the British western flank. But Patton said the message was "garbled in transmission". He continued to push towards Palermo, the Sicily capital. Once Patton captured that the Americans and British pushed to meet at Messina. They hoped to use a two-pronged attack to prevent the last remaining troops from falling back to defend Italy. The tactic worked, they captured Messina with 140,000 POW's.

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=Invasion of Italy=

The Allies invasion of the actual Italian mainland was in September 3, 1943. This is when the British Eighth Army attacked at the point of the boot. Six days later the American Fifth Army attacked at the Gulf of Salerno. This put the allies in German occupied Europe for the first time in the war. But the fall of Sicily also caused Mussolini to lose complete power and was killed by italian resistance fighters. With the only man in power that supported the Germans killed, the Italians signed an Armistice with the Allies on September 8. This caused Italians and Germans to retreat from the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. The Allies also got the Italian navy. After a few weeks of heavy fighting the British captured Naples and a few airports. But the Germans had several powerful counterattacks that almost kicked the Allies back out of Italy. There was very fierce fighting at Volturno River but the Allies broke through. They were a mere 75 miles from Rome by December. They also got French support with French corps. This German defence at the river halted the Allies advance for the rest of the winter. With the added troops by the French they attempted to make an amphibious landing a few miles behind the German line. This tactic worked and with the help of artillery, tanks, airplanes, and naval gun ships, the last of the German counterattacks were put to rest.

=Citations=

"Italy". WORLD WAR II HISTORY INFO. 5-12-10 .