The Battle for Sicily 1943
The invasion of Sicily was code named Husky. This was a major campaign that involved joint naval landings as well as airborne assault with combined Allied forces. This was the first true test of the Allies ability at invading a prepared defender. In many ways this was the prelude to June 6, 1944 and the lessons learned from this invasion would carry over into Normandy. Having defeated the Germans in North Africa the British wanted to pursue they enemy into the Balkans and into Italy. The Americans wanted to prepare for the invasion of France from England. A compromise was reached and it was decided to invade Sicily and after it was secured to shift into preparing for the Invasion of France.
The plan for the invasion involved an amphibious invasion by the American and British Army on the Southern Coast of Sicily. British and American Airborne forces were also to land just behind enemy lines. Primary Allied commanders were General Eisenhower, General Patton and General Montgomery. The forces landing on the Eastern side were British and identified as TF 545. This was mostly composed of the British Eighth Army plus the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, commanded by Montomery. The Western invasion force code named TF 343 and commanded by Patton. The allies had air superiority and this enabled a large airborne operation to take place by the british 1st Airborne Division and the American 82 Airborne Division. The plans for this invasion were intitially developed from the Casablanca Conference January 1943. Initially the Husky plans had a large number of Brigade sized amphibious landings taking place all across the Southern Coast of Sicily. The idea being that this would help capture many objectives quickly. General Montgomery was very much against this plan and felt that forces should be concentrated rather than scattered. In the end, he made a convincing arguement and the plans changed to concentrate landings towards the East.
The invasion of Sicily will ultimately lead to Victory and the Allies being in full of control of the island, this would also be a difficult and bitter fight. Partly due to a stubborn and well trained German Army executing an amazing defense, but also in part to the many errors and problems that arose from conducting for the firts time such a complex opersation with combined Allied armies and their combined complex leadership structure. Many lessons would be learned from the invasion of Sicily that would be later applied to Normandy.
Landings
While the naval landings of troops went relatively smoothly with little initial defense from Germans and Italians, this quickly changed and both British and American forces found they were fighting German Airborne troops and the Herman Goring Armored Division. Battles at or near the beach were ferocious often only seeing the Germans withdraw due to massive Allied shore bombardment. Allied airborne units had difficulties as well. American airborne troops were scattered over the island due to high winds and the British Airborne troops had similar difficulties. Of the 147 British gliders only 12 reached their target, they rest being scattered.
Land Battles The Sicily Campaign
Military History
As someone who loves history, I often find it frustrating to find good or interesting information online for the topics that I have an interest in. So I decided to created this website with the information I have found on the topics I find most interesting. It is really all for person use, but if it is helpful or interesting to others that is great.
I will include all of the sources for the information I gather so that others can review them also. This has resulted in something unexpected for me. I find that I want the information on this site to be as good as possible and interesting to others and this has resulted in me digging deeper into each topic than I normally would. The result has been fascinating. There is an enormous amount of information collected in the world on every topic I have an interest in, however, it is often difficult to located, or difficult to read or the website is so over loaded with information that navigating the site is difficult. It is my hope that I can bring back some of the more useful pieces of information and present it here in an easily read format.
Some topics are particularly upsetting and disturbing and I am sure my personal feels will leak over into the article and I apologyze for that.
U-Boats Nortway
Russian Gold and World War 2 make for good stories and movies, but most people do not realize that there are real stories from this time that involve gold, U-Boats and mystery. HMS Edinburgh, a British cruiser a German U-Boat are at the heart of this story. U 456 is responsible sinking the Edinburgh, firing three torpedos, with two hitting the cruiser. Several days laster the Edinburgh sinks in the Arctic Sea. The HMS Edinburgh was part of convoy QP11 leaving Murmansk heading to England. April 1942.
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The many causes of World War 1.
It is easy to say that Gavrilo Princips assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was the cause of World War 1. This is however, far to simple. The entire continent was poised for a global war. Complex alliances and royal familys of different major powers being related are just some of the reasons for the outbreak of World War 1.
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General Bernard Law Montgomery
One of the few highly respected British military leaders. Few people realize just how long he served inn the British Army. A vetern of World War 1, and severally wounded on the Western Front with the expectation that he was going to die, he recovers and goes on to serve with the British Army long past the end of World War 2. He participated in most if not all major Allied military operations throughout the war.
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M4 Sherman Tank
Most widely produced and used tank of the Western Allies. Used throughout the war with a large number of models and versions being built. Generally considered inferior to its German counterpart.
The Sherman often won battles through shear weight of numbers on the battlefield.
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U-Boats were the greatest threat to the Allies in the Atlantic and remained a threat right up to the end of the war.U-Boats were extremely effective in sinking Allied shipping in the first few years of the war, even finding success againts battleships and aircraft carriers.
U-Boats were relatively simple in design at the beginning of the war, however by the end, they had developed into truely powerful weapons of destruction. The Type XXI and XXIII were years ahead of anything the Allies had and if they had gotten into the seas in large enough numbers might have turned the tide of the war.
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Picture by Chris Flodberg
The sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse was another sad day of defeat for England and another day of celebration for Japan. The evening of 10 December 1941 there were great parties and celebration at Japanese airfields near Saigon and in Singapore and England a day of remorse and pain. The Repulse sank with 513 men lost and the Prince of Wales sank with a loss of 327 men. The main driving Japanese force to sink the two ships was surely the Bettys of Kanoya Air Corps squadron. This squadron scored nine torpedo hits on the two ships within three minutes of attacking at a loss to themself of two Bettys shot down.
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Tirpitz - The sister ship of the Bismark.
The Tirpitz was laid down for construction in November 1936. It took two and a half years to complete her. She was a massive ship and armed with eight 38 centimeter guns in four turrets. The Allies, especially the British always considered her a serious threat towards convoy shipping and made many efforts over the years to sink her. Unlike the Bismark, the Tirpist did not sink untilNovember 1944.
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Tirpitz - The sister ship of the Bismark.
The Tirpitz was laid down for construction in November 1936. It took two and a half years to complete her. She was a massive ship and armed with eight 38 centimeter guns in four turrets. The Allies, especially the British always considered her a serious threat towards convoy shipping and made many efforts over the years to sink her. Unlike the Bismark, the Tirpist did not sink untilNovember 1944.
Read More »
U-Boats were the greatest threat to the Allies in the Atlantic and remained a threat right up to the end of the war.U-Boats were extremely effective in sinking Allied shipping in the first few years of the war, even finding success againts battleships and aircraft carriers.
U-Boats were relatively simple in design at the beginning of the war, however by the end, they had developed into truely powerful weapons of destruction. The Type XXI and XXIII were years ahead of anything the Allies had and if they had gotten into the seas in large enough numbers might have turned the tide of the war.
Read More »
Tirpitz - The sister ship of the Bismark.
The Tirpitz was laid down for construction in November 1936. It took two and a half years to complete her. She was a massive ship and armed with eight 38 centimeter guns in four turrets. The Allies, especially the British always considered her a serious threat towards convoy shipping and made many efforts over the years to sink her. Unlike the Bismark, the Tirpist did not sink until November 1944.
Read More »
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