The Soft Underbelly of Europe. From North Africa, the plan was to invade Sicily and then on to mainland Italy and move up the so-called “soft underbelly”

The Soft Underbelly of Europe

World Wars: World War II

From North Africa, the plan was to invade Sicily and then on to mainland Italy and move up the so-called “soft underbelly” of Europe.Victory in the

region would also do a great deal to clear the Mediterranean Sea of Axis shipping and leave it more free for the Allies to use.

North Africa as a Launching Pad

Sicily, invasion of (1943). HUSKY had been on the agenda ever since the Casablanca Conference of January 1943.

North Africa as a Launching Pad

The success of the TORCH landings in French North Africa the previous November had encouraged Franklin D. Roosevelt and Churchill to plan for a seaborne assault as soon as the Axis had been defeated in Tunisia.

Operation HUSKY

Although TORCH had been virtually unopposed, Sicily was reckoned to be a tougher nut to crack, with the Italians fighting on their home ground, stiffened by good German troops.But the mood was optimistic.

Operation HUSKY

A blend of the battle-hardened men of Eighth Army under Montgomery, the profusion of US war matériel, and American troops of the Seventh Army under Patton were considered enough to overwhelm the island garrison and bring the war to mainland Italy.

Operation HUSKY

Amphibious ships and landing craft were the resource that defined Allied military strategy in 1943-44, and it took six months to assemble enough for the main component of HUSKY, an operation involving 150, 000 men and 3,000 ships

Operation HUSKY

The two Allied armies were to attack on 10 July, landing on two separate 40 mile (64 km) strips of beach, in Sicilya mutually supporting operation.

Operation HUSKY

July 5, 1943—U.S. under Patton and British under Montgomery invade Sicily.Was the largest amphibious operation to that

date in the war.

Operation HUSKY

Difficult undertaking—Sicily fortified with 300,000 German and Italian troops.After a successful landing on July 9, German

counterattacks with Panzer Tanks…were beaten back by U.S. and British Destroyers.

Operation HUSKY

Patton attacked west—in two weeks the U.S. had captured the city of Palermo.

Operation HUSKY

Montgomery, after taking Syracuse in the east, gets bogged down versus the Germans.Patton and Montgomery driving toward the

most important strategic point on the island…Messina.

Operation HUSKY

Messina is heavily defended by the Germans in vicious fighting as they give ground.Patton becomes frustrated due to the slowness

of the campaign toward Messina.

Operation HUSKY

Patton cursed and berated, finally slapping and threatening to shoot a private in a field hospital.Thought the private was a coward—actually

had malaria and fever.Patton was to be in trouble, but the incident

was covered up until after he had beaten Monty to Messina.

Operation HUSKY

The Sicily Campaign had yielded 31, 158 Allied casualties.

Operation HUSKY

The Italian Campaign—July 1943-May 1945Allies had begun heavy bombing raids over

Italy—including Rome in 1943.

The Italian Campaign

The Italians had become sick of Mussolini’s military government.In August, 1943, Mussolini

was removed from power, then arrested and imprisoned.King Victor Immanuel

becomes Italy leader.

Mussolini with Victor Immanuel III


New Italian (King Victor Emmanuel) leaders wanted to sign a peace agreement with the Allies.Surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on

Sept. 8, 1943Germans refused to leave. Occupied Italy as

they readied for a defense of Italy at all costs.


British invade Southern Italy first on September 3, 1943 and swept easily northward.


September 9, 1943—Americans and British attack at Salerno along Italy’s western coast.Met with heavy tank and artillery—vicious

fighting resulting in heavy losses.U.S. troops under General Mark Clark nearly

withdrew.


U.S. fighter’s and bombers attached to the Tuskegee Airmen arrive and hammer German artillery emplacements.Germans withdrew by September 15, 1943.


Following victory at Salerno, the Allies moved north and take Naples unopposed.Monty’s British forces capture airfields at

Foggia and turn them into Allied airfields.


Along the Italian west coast—Germans now stiffen.Encountered fierce resistance by Germans dug

into rocky hillsides.Decision was made to try to flank the Germans 30

miles south of Rome.

Anzio Campaign

During the early morning hours of 22 January 1944, troops of the Fifth Army swarmed ashore on a fifteen-mile stretch of Italian beach near the prewar resort towns of Anzio and Nettuno.

Anzio Campaign

The landings were carried out so flawlessly and German resistance was so light that British and American units gained their first day's objectives by noon, moving three to four miles inland by nightfall.

Anzio Campaign

The ease of the landing and the swift advance were noted by one paratrooper of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, who recalled that D-day at Anzio was sunny and warm, making it very hard to believe that a war was going on and that he was in the middle of it.

Anzio Campaign

The location of the Allied landings, thirty miles south of Rome and fifty-five miles northwest of the main line of resistance running from Minturno on the Tyrrhenian Sea to Ortona on the Adriatic, surprised local German commanders, who had been assured by their superiors that an amphibious assault would not take place during January or February.

Anzio Campaign

Thus when the landing occurred the Germans were unprepared to react offensively. Within a week, however, as Allied troops consolidated their positions and prepared to break out of the beachhead, the Germans gathered troops to eliminate what Adolf Hitler called the "Anzio abscess." The next four months

would see some of the most savage fighting of World War II....59,000 U.S. casualties.

Anzio Campaign

During March, all of April, and the first part of May 1944, recalled one veteran, the Anzio beachhead resembled the Western Front during World War I. The vast majority of Allied casualties during this period were from air and artillery attacks, including fire from "Anzio Annie," a 280-mm. German railway gun which fired from the Alban Hills.

Anzio Campaign

During March, shrapnel caused 83 percent of all 3d Division casualties, and other units experienced similar rates. The Anzio beachhead became a honeycomb of wet and muddy trenches, foxholes, and dugouts.

Anzio Campaign

In the winter of 1943-44, the Allies found themselves confronting the Gustav Line, which crossed Italy south of Rome.

Monte Cassino Campaign

For much of its length the line ran along rivers, with the Garigliano, Gari and Rapido strengthening its southern sector. It crossed Route 6, the Rome-Naples highway,

which ran on to Rome along the Liri valley, between the Abruzzi and Aurunci mountains.


The entrance to the Liri valley was dominated, then as now, by the great bulk of Monte Cassino which is crowned by an ancient Benedictine monastery.Behind the monastery, the ground rose even

more steeply to form what the military historian John Ellis has called 'a vile tactical puzzle'.


In front of the hill stood the little town of Cassino, and the rivers Gari and Rapido.On the Allied side was Monte Trocchio which

was known as ‘Million Dollar Hill' for the fields of view it offered to artillery observers.


It takes about two hours to reach its summit, and the view is staggering. It was one of the strongest natural defensive positions in military history, with the monastery, like some great all-seeing eye, peering down on everything.


The Allied plan for the breaching the Gustav line was hurriedly conceived.On Churchill's insistence, it would use an

amphibious hook round the German flank, to be launched before the landing craft were withdrawn for use in Normandy.


American divisions of 5th Army would attack at Cassino to draw German reserves southwards.This accomplished, an Anglo-American corps would

land at Anzio, about 30 miles south of Rome.It was expected that the shock would provoke the

Germans into giving up the Gustav Line and falling back north of the Eternal City.


The first phase of the operation (the First Battle of Cassino) comprised an attack across the Gari south of Cassino by the US 36th Division, which was savagely repulsed.


Then a longer thrust into the mountains north of Cassino by the US 34th Division, and a heroic attack by the North African troops of the French Expeditionary Corps on the high ground further north.


With German reserves duly drawn south, on 22 January 1944 Major General John Lucas's US VI Corps landed at Anzio and Nettuno.


The First Battle of Cassino dragged on until mid-February.'It was more than the stubble of beard that told

the story; it was the blank, staring eyes. The men were so tired that it was a living death. They had come from such a depth of weariness that I wondered if they would quite be able to make the return to the lives and thoughts they had known.'


The second battle began on 15 February, with the controversial destruction of the monastery by heavy and medium bombers.On the one hand, it seems likely that there were

no Germans in the monastery at the time.Furthermore, the nearest Allied troops were too

far away to take advantage of the shock of the bombing.


It was not until May that the Allies at last brought their full might to bear on Cassino. They did it by moving much of the 8th Army from

the Adriatic coast, while 5th Army shifted its weight to reinforce the Anzio beachhead, now under the command of Major General Lucian Truscott.


The new offensive, Operation Diadem, smashed through the neck of the Liri valley by sheer weight, and the Polish Corps took Monte CassinoBetween the Liri and the sea, the French Corps

made rapid progress through the Aurunci Mountains, and by the third week in May the Germans were in full retreat.


Although the Gustav Line was broken and Rome was liberated, the hard-fought battle of Cassino was indeed a hollow victory.


“Soft Underbelly” Operation HUSKY7th Army SicilyPalermo MessinaPatton Victor EmmanuelMark Clark SalernoAnzio Abscess Anzio AnnieTuskegee Airmen Million Dollar HillMonte Cassino Lucian TruscottOperation Diadem Casablanca ConferenceGustav Line

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The Soft Underbelly of Europe. From North Africa, the plan was to invade Sicily and then on to mainland Italy and move up the so-called “soft underbelly”