World War II - Part 8 Military history of the United States during World War II - continued. Invasion of Sicily and Italy (1943) The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis Powers (Italy and Nazi Germany). It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign. Husky began on the night of 9–10 July 1943, and ended on 17 August. Strategically, Husky achieved the goals set out for it by Allied planners; the Allies drove Axis air, land and naval forces from the island and the Mediterraneans sea lanes were opened. As a result of the invasion, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was toppled from power in Italy. It opened the way for the invasion of Italy. Background Allies The plan for Operation Husky called for the amphibious assault of the island by two armies, one landing on the South Eastern and one on the central Southern Coast. The amphibious assaults were to be supported by naval gunfire, as well as tactical bombing, interdiction and close air support by the combined air forces. As such, the operation required a complex command structure, incorporating land, naval and air forces. The overall commander was the American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces North Africa. The British General Sir Harold Alexander acted as his second in command and as the Land Forces / Army Group commander. The American Major General Walter Bedell Smith was appointed as Chief of Staff. The overall Naval Force Commander was the British Admiral Andrew Cunningham. Land Forces The Allied land forces were from the American, British and Canadian armies, and were structured as two task forces. The Eastern Task Force (also known as Task Force 545) was led by General Bernard Montgomery and consisted of the British Eighth Army (which included the 1st Canadian Infantry Division). The Western Task Force (Task Force 343) was commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton and consisted of the U.S. Seventh Army. The two task force commanders reported to Alexander as Commander of the 15th Army Group. The Seventh U.S. Army consisted initially of three infantry divisions organized under U.S. II Corps commanded by Major General Omar Bradley. The U.S. 1st Division and U.S. 3rd Division sailed from ports in Tunisia, while the U.S. 45th Division sailed from the United States via Oran in Algeria. The U.S. 2nd Armored Division, also sailing from Oran, was to be a floating reserve and be fed into combat as required. On 15 July, Patton reorganized his command into two corps by creating a new Provisional Corps headquarters commanded by his deputy army commander Geoffrey Keyes. The British Eighth Army had four infantry divisions and an independent infantry brigade organized under XIII Corps commanded by Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey and XXX Corps under Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese. The two divisions of XIII Corps (5th Division and 50th Division) sailed from Suez in Egypt. The formations of XXX Corps sailed from more diverse ports: the 1st Canadian Division sailed from the UK, the 51st Division from Tunisia and Malta, and the 231st Independent Infantry Brigade Group from Suez. The 1st Canadian Infantry Division was included in the Allied invasion of Sicily at the insistence of the Canadian Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, and the Canadian Military Headquarters in the UK. This request was granted by the British, displacing the veteran 3rd British Infantry Division. The change was not finalized until 27 April 1943, when General Andrew McNaughton, the commanding the First Canadian Army, deemed Husky to be a viable military undertaking and agreed to the detachment of both the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the 1st Canadian Tank Brigade. The Red Patch Division was added to British XXX Corps to become part of the British Eighth Army. In addition to the amphibious landings, airborne troops were to be flown in to support both the Western and Eastern Task Forces. To the east, the 1st British Airborne Division commanded by Major General George F. Hopkinson were to seize vital bridges and high ground. The initial plan dictated that the American 82nd Airborne Division commanded by Major General Matthew B Ridgway was held as a tactical reserve in Tunisia. Naval Forces The Allied naval forces were also grouped into two task forces to transport and support the invading armies. The Eastern Naval Task Force was formed from the British Mediterranean Fleet and was commanded by Admiral Bertram Ramsay. The Western Naval Task Force was formed around the United States Eighth Fleet, commanded by Admiral H. Kent Hewitt. The two naval task force commanders reported to Admiral Cunningham as overall Naval Forces Commander. Air Forces At the time of Operation Husky, the Allied air forces in the North African and Mediterranean were organized into the Mediterranean Air Command (MAC) under Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder. The major sub-command of MAC was the Northwest African Air Forces (NAAF) under the command of Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz with headquarters in Tunisia. NAAF consisted primarily of groups from the United States 12th Air Force, 9th Air Force, and the British Royal Air Force (RAF) that provided the primary air support for the operation. Other groups from the 9th Air Force under Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton operating from Tunisia and Egypt, and Air H.Q. Malta under Air Vice-Marshal Sir Keith Park operating from the island of Malta, also provided important air support. The US Army Air Force 9th Air Forces medium bombers and P40 fighters that were detached to NAAFs Northwest African Tactical Air Force under the command of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham moved to southern airfields on Sicily as soon they were secured. At the time, the 9th Air Force was a sub-command of RAF Middle East Command under Air Chief Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas. Middle East Command, like NAAF and Air H.Q. Malta, were sub-commands of MAC under Tedder who reported to Eisenhower for NAAF operations and to the British Chiefs of Staff for Air H.Q. Malta and Middle East Command operations. The defenders The island was defended by the two corps of the Italian 6th Army under General Alfredo Guzzoni, although specially designated Fortress Areas around the main ports (Piazze Militari Marittime), marked as Port Defensive Areas on the map below, were commanded by admirals subordinate to Naval Headquarters and independent of 6th Army. In early July, the total Axis force in Sicily was about 200,000 Italian and 32,000 German troops, and 30,000 Luftwaffe ground staff. The main German formations were the Panzer Division Hermann Göring and the 15th Panzergrenadier Division. The panzer division had 99 tanks in two battalions but was short of infantry (with only three battalions), while the panzergrenadier division had three grenadier infantry regiments and a tank battalion with 60 tanks. About half of the Italian troops were formed into four front-line infantry divisions and headquarters troops; the remainder were support troops or in poor quality immobile coastal divisions and brigades. Guzzonis defence plan was for the coastal formations to form a covering screen to take the initial impact of an invasion, and allow time for the more centrally located field divisions to intervene. By late July, the German units had been reinforced, principally by elements of two further divisions (1st Parachute Division and 29th Panzergrenadier Division) and a corps headquarters (XIV Panzer Corps) under General der Panzertruppe Hans-Valentin Hube, bringing the number of German troops to around 70,000. Until the arrival of the corps headquarters, the two German divisions were nominally under Italian tactical control. The panzer division, with a reinforced infantry regiment from the panzergrenadier division to compensate for its own lack of infantry, was under Italian XVI Corps and the rest of the panzergrenadier division under Italian XII Corps. In reality, the German commanders in Sicily were contemptuous of their allies, and German units took their orders from the German liaison officer attached to Italian 6th Army HQ, Generalleutnant Frido von Senger und Etterlin who was subordinate to Albert Kesselring, the German Commander-in-Chief Army Command South (OB Süd). Von Senger had arrived in Sicily in late June as part of a German plan to gain greater operational control of its units. Once Hube arrived, Guzzoni agreed from 16 July to delegate to him control of all sectors where there were German units involved, and from 2 August Hube was given control of the whole Sicilian front. Planning At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, with the end of the North African Campaign in sight, the political leaders and the military Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. and Britain met to discuss future strategy. The British Chiefs of Staff were in favour of an invasion of Sicily or Sardinia, arguing that it would force Germany to disperse its forces and might knock Italy out of the war and move Turkey to join the Allies. At first, the Americans opposed the plan as opportunistic and irrelevant, but were persuaded to agree to a Sicilian invasion on the grounds of the great saving to Allied shipping that would result from the opening of the Mediterranean by the removal of Axis air and naval forces from the island. The Combined Chiefs of Staff appointed General Eisenhower as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General Alexander as Deputy C-in-C with responsibility for detailed planning and execution of the operation, Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham as Naval Commander, and Air Chief Marshal Tedder as Air Commander. The outline plan given to Eisenhower by the Chiefs of Staff involved dispersed landings by brigade and division-sized formations in the south-east, south and north-west areas of the island. The logic behind the plan was that it would result in the rapid capture of key Axis airfields that posed a threat to the beachheads and the invasion fleet lying off them. It would also see the rapid capture of all the main ports on the island, except for Messina, including Catania, Palermo, Syracuse, Licata and Augusta. This would facilitate a rapid Allied build-up, as well as denying their use to the Axis. High level planning for the operation lacked direction because the three main land commanders, Alexander, Montgomery and Patton, were fully occupied in operations in Tunisia. Effort was wasted in presenting plans that Montgomery, in particular, disliked because of the dispersion of forces involved. He was finally able to articulate his objections and put forward alternative proposals on 24 April. Tedder and Cunningham opposed Montgomerys plan because it would leave 13 landing grounds in Axis hands, posing a considerable threat to the Allied invasion fleet. Finally, Eisenhower called a meeting for 2 May with Montgomery, Cunningham and Tedder, in which Montgomery made new proposals to concentrate the Allied effort on the south east corner of Sicily, discarding the intended landings close to Palermo and using the south-eastern ports. After Alexander joined the meeting on 3 May, Montgomerys proposals were finally accepted on the basis that it was better to take an administrative risk (having to support troops by landing supplies across beaches) than an operational one (dispersion of effort). Not for the last time, Montgomery had argued a sound course of action, yet done so in a conceited manner, which suggested to others, particularly his American allies, that he was preoccupied with his own interests. In the event, maintaining the armies by landing supplies across the beaches proved easier than expected, partly because of the successful introduction of large numbers of the new amphibious DUKW vehicle. Alexander was later to write It is not too much to say that the DUKW revolutionized the problem of beach maintenance. On 17 May, Alexander issued his Operation Instruction No. 1 setting out his broad plan and defining the tasks of the two armies. Broadly speaking, his intention was to establish his armies along a line from Catania to Licata preparatory to a final operations to reduce the island. He later wrote that at that stage it was not practicable to plan further ahead but that his intentions were clear in his own mind what the next step would be: he would drive north ultimately to San Stefano on the northern coast to split the island in two and cut his enemys east-west communications. The American Seventh Army was assigned to land in the Gulf of Gela, in south-central Sicily, with 3rd Division and 2nd Armored Division to the west at Licata, site Baia di Mollarella, 1st Division in the center at Gela, and 45th Division to the east at Scoglitti. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division was assigned to drop behind the defences at Gela and Scoglitti. Seventh Armys beach-front stretched over 50 kilometers (31 mi). The British Eighth Army was assigned to land in southeastern Sicily. XXX Corps would land on either side of Cape Passero, at the very southeastern corner of Sicily, while XIII Corps would land in the Gulf of Noto, around Avola, off to the north. Eighth Armys beach front also stretched 40 kilometers (25 mi), and there was a gap of some 40 kilometers (25 mi) between the two armies. Preparatory operations Once the Axis forces had been defeated in Tunisia, the Allied strategic bomber force commenced attacking the principal airfields of Sardinia, Sicily and southern Italy, industrial targets in southern Italy and the ports of Naples, Messina, Palermo and Cagliari (in Sardinia). The attacks were thus distributed in such a way as to maintain uncertainty as to where the next move of the Allied land forces would be, in order to pin down Axis aircraft and prevent them from being ordered to Sicily. Bombing attacks were stepped up on northern Italy (by aircraft based in the UK) and Greece (by aircraft based in the Middle East). From 3 July, bombing attacks increasingly focused on Sicilian airfields and Axis communications with Italy, although beach defences were left alone to preserve surprise as to exactly where the landings were to take place. By 10 July, only two airfields in Sicily remained fully serviceable and over half the Axis aircraft had been forced to leave the island. Between mid-May and the invasion, allied airmen flew 42,227 sorties that destroyed 323 German and 105 Italian aircraft for the loss of 250 of their own aircraft, mostly to anti-aircraft fire while operating over Sicily. Heavy air operations were also conducted in May against the small island of Pantelleria, some 70 miles (110 km) south-west of Sicily and 150 miles (240 km) north-west of Malta, to prevent the airfield there being used in support of Axis troops attempting to withdraw from North Africa. From 6 June, attacks were further stepped up and on 11 June, after a naval bombardment and seaborne landing by British 1st Infantry Division (Operation Corkscrew) the island surrendered. The Pelagie Islands of Lampedusa and Linosa, some 90 miles (140 km) west of Malta, followed in short order on 12 June. Headquarters The Allies used a network of underground tunnels and chambers located below the Lascaris Battery in Valletta, Malta (the Lascaris War Rooms”), for the advance headquarters of the invasion of Sicily. In July 1943, General Eisenhower, Admiral Cunningham, Field Marshal Montgomery, and Air Marshal Tedder occupied the war rooms. Earlier, the war rooms had served as the British headquarters for the defence of Malta. Deception To distract the Axis, and if possible divert some of their forces to other areas, the Allies engaged in several deception operations. The most famous and successful of these was Operation Mincemeat. The British allowed a corpse, disguised as a British officer, to drift ashore in Spain carrying a briefcase containing fake secret documents that supposedly revealed that the Allies were planning to invade Greece and Sardinia, and had no plans to invade Sicily. German intelligence accepted the authenticity of the documents with the result that the Germans diverted much of their defensive effort from Sicily to Greece. Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel was sent to Greece to assume overall command. The Germans transferred a group of R boats (German minesweepers and minelayers) from Sicily, and laid three additional minefields off the Greek coast. They also moved three panzer divisions to Greece – one from France, and two from the Eastern Front. (The latter move reduced German combat strength against the Russians in the Kursk salient.) Even so, there were a large number of German and Italian soldiers on Sicily when the invasion started. The Germans in particular had soldiers in Sicily that they had withdrawn from North Africa and had not yet reassigned to the Eastern Front. COMING UP - Battle; Allied landings & Airborne landings Picture 1 - The U.S. Liberty ship Robert Rowan explodes after being hit by a German bomber off Gela, Sicily, 11 July 1943 Picture 2 - Allied leaders in the Sicilian campaign. General Eisenhower meets in North Africa with (foreground, left to right): Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, Admiral Sir Andrew B. Cunningham, and (top row): Mr. Harold Macmillan, Major General W. Bedell Smith, and unidentified British officers. Picture 3 - Canadians in Sicily: Troops of The Loyal Edmonton Regiment enter Modica. Picture 4 - Kesselring (right) with Erwin Rommel (left). Picture 5 - Sicily (red) in relation to the Italian mainland Picture 6 - Map of the Allied landings in Sicily on 10 July 1943 Picture 7 - Lascaris War Rooms
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 19:51:41 +0000
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