1000 Men, 1000 Stories : Website: Sicily, Operation HUSKY, July 1943

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Website: Sicily, Operation HUSKY, July 1943

Sicily 1943

Front Cover of Brochure

The link provided below will take you to an online history book/brochure prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History by Andrew J. Birtle. A short introduction by GORDON R. SULLIVAN, General, United States Army, Chief of Staff, leads the way.

Though the book is a part of a series of books about the U.S. Army Campaigns in WW2, readers interested in locales where Canadians in Combined Operations (in four landing craft flotillas) were also active may enjoy the history lesson as well.

Four Canadian flotillas of landing craft (ALCs and LCMs), manned by members of

Combined Ops., participated in British Eighth Army Landings, lower right on map

The online book begins as follows:

On the night of 9-10 July 1943, an Allied armada of 2,590 vessels launched one of the largest combined operations of World War II, the invasion of Sicily. Over the next thirty-eight days, half a million Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen grappled with their German and Italian counterparts for control of this rocky outwork of Hitler's "Fortress Europe."

We read that the invasion of Sicily was at the heart of much conflict between UK and US (Allied) counterparts:

The British strongly supported the invasion because Britain had long-standing political and strategic interests in the Mediterranean. They argued that Sicily's conquest would not only reopen Allied sea lanes to the eastern Mediterranean, but also give the Allies a base from which to launch further offensives in the region. Moreover, the occupation of Italian national territory might shock the war-weary Italians into dropping out of the war altogether.

American strategists, led by Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, argued that the Allies should focus their energies upon a direct thrust at Nazi Germany and not waste their time nibbling at peripheral Axis outposts like Sicily. Marshall wanted to launch a cross-Channel attack into northern France as soon as possible, and every man, tank, and ship sent to the Mediterranean reduced the forces available for an invasion of northern Europe.

After much argument and negotiation a final plan was set:

The final plan called for over seven divisions to wade ashore along a 100-mile front in southeastern Sicily, while elements of two airborne divisions landed behind Axis lines. The British Eighth Army would land four divisions, an independent brigade, and a commando force along a forty-mile front stretching from the Pachino Peninsula north along the Gulf of Noto to a point just south of the port of Syracuse. A glider landing would assist the amphibious troops in capturing Syracuse. To the west, Patton's Seventh Army would land three divisions over an even wider front in the Gulf of Gela. The assault would be supported by parachutists from the 505th Parachute Infantry Regimental Combat Team and the 3d Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry.

Troops and supplies unloading near Gela on D-day. Page 9 (National Archives)

Though one will have to look elsewhere for records of successful landing by Canadians in Combined Ops, some of the flavour of the entire operation and invasion are contained in this U.S. online history. For example:

After landing on a hostile shore, they had repelled several counterattacks, forced the enemy to withdraw, and relentlessly pursued him over sun-baked hills until the island was theirs. In thirty-eight days they and their British colleagues had killed or wounded approximately 29,000 enemy soldiers and captured over 140,000 more. In contrast, American losses totaled 2,237 killed and 6,544 wounded and captured. The British suffered 12,843 casualties, including 2,721 dead. Sicily was also a victory for the logistician and the staff planner. Although overshadowed by the Normandy invasion a year later, Operation HUSKY was actually the largest amphibious operation of World War II in terms of the size of the landing zone and the number of divisions put ashore on the first day of the invasion.

For those interested in further reading from a more complete point of view, the history book ends with some recommendations, including the following:

For the official British and Canadian views of the campaign, see C. J. C. Molony, The Mediterranean and Middle East, volume 5 (1973), and G. W. L. Nicholson, The Canadians in Italy, 1943-45 (1967).

Please link to Sicily, July 9 - August 17, 1943