Battles and Campaigns of World War II
Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944
Copyright © 2006, Henry J. Sage
Because Italy's military forces were not nearly as powerful as those of Germany, the decision to continue the advance through Italy—the so-called “soft underbelly” of Europe, made sense. The Italian Army had suffered large losses in North African, including a number of its best divisions. The Americans were less enthusiastic about attacking Sicily than the British, whose focus was on maintaining control of the Mediterranean to ensure contact with the Middle East. Sicily was heavily defended and therefore the German staff was surprised when Sicily was attacked.
Operation Husky, as the attack on Sicily was named, involved two airborne divisions and eight ground divisions which would land from the sea. The airborne operations, always complicated and difficult, did not fare well, but the landings on the south coast of Sicily were very successful. General Patton's Third Army advanced up the western side of the island while British General Montgomery's forces advanced east of Mount Etna; both armies were advancing toward Messina on the northeastern tip of the island of Sicily, just across the Strait of Messina from the toe of the Italian boot. German and Italian resistance was stiff in the mountainous terrain, which required the Allies to use a series of amphibious “hooks” to get around heavily defended areas. The campaign in Sicily began on July 9, 1943 and by August 11 the German and Italian forces had evacuated their remaining troops and equipment to the Italian peninsula as Patton and Montgomery entered Messina..
The capture of Sicily did no serious harm to the German and Italian forces, most of which were evacuated, but it did cause the Italian government to rethink its loyalty to Hitler's Germany. Not long after the fall of Sicily the Italian government decided to throw in its lot with the Allies.
In September 1943 the Allies began their invasion of Italy when American troops landed at Salerno. Prior to that General Montgomery's Eighth British Army had begun its invasion of the toe of the Italian boot just across from Sicily. General Marshall and the American staff in Washington had been hesitant to invest large forces in Italy because they believed that an invasion of northwestern Europe, which eventually took place on D-Day, June 6, 1944, was the quickest route to the defeat of Germany. But Hitler had sent substantial forces into Italy, and in order to keep them from reinforcing the western defenses, the Allied staffs felt it was necessary for the Italian operation to move forward to keep that portion of the German Army tied down..
Field Marshal Kesselring, the German commander in Italy, made excellent use of the rugged terrain of Italy which favored the defense. The combination of mountains, rivers and deep valleys made it very difficult for the Allies to advance against the well placed defenders. The American Fifth Army under the command of General Mark Clark began advancing up the coast after the initially successful landings, but they were soon met by strong German counterattacks. As allied reinforcements continued to arrive, however, the Germans were obliged to withdraw to the north. In October the American Fifth and British Eighth Armies established a line across the Italian peninsula and began to advance on a united front.
The winter of 1943-44 proved a difficult one for the allied forces as a combination of terrain and weather made the advance extremely slow and painful. In January 1944 the Allies executed a second landing at Anzio designed to disrupt the German forces from the rear. Impeding the allied advance was the great fortress monastery of Cassino, which lay on the path to Rome. Throughout early 1944 the allied advance in Italy was slow, and at times the entire operation seemed in jeopardy. During the spring, however, allied commanders used a combination of maneuver and close air support, eventually captured Monte Cassino, and fought their way into Rome, which they entered on June 4, 1944. The German Army under Kesselring was obliged continued to retreat northward and withdrew to a position 150 miles north of Rome. The Allies, however, were unable to pursue closely because Operation Overlord (D-Day) and Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France which was to serve as a distracter for the main D-Day operations, were about to get underway, and allied troops were withdrawn from Italy to participate in those landings.