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| "Operation Husky": The Invasion of
Sicily The first step in the second front would be to launch an attack on the island of Sicily, then use it as a base to attack the Italian mainland. On July 9, 1943, American and British troops landed at Galena, in southern Sicily. American and British forces then divided—the Americans heading west to Palermo, the British eastward to cut off Nazi escape route though the port of Messina. |
| "Operation Avalanche": The Invasion
of Italy Salerno
In September, the British and Americans crossed the Straits of Messina and invaded Italy at Salerno. It took U. S. Rangers and British Commandos two days to liberate the airfield, but the Germans had rendered it unusable. The Allies then moved inland toward Naples and Rome.  Monte Cassino  Between the Allies and Rome, however, lay the mountain fortress of Monte Cassino. Topped by a medieval Benedictine monastery, the mountain gave the Germans artillery fire over the entire Rapido River valley. After undergoing heavy casualties, the Allies made the controversial but necessary decision to bomb the mountaintop, destroying the historic birthplace of the Benedictine order. Anzio In one of the most controversial operations of the war, code-named Shingle, the Allies tried to outflank the German bottleneck at Cassino by making an amphibious landing on the coast at Anzio, 60 miles west. Churchill thought it was a brilliant gamble, but it failed miserably. Field Marshal Kesselring halted the British and American advance 10 miles inland, pushing the invaders back towards Anzio. For three months, the Allied troops remained on their narrow beachhead under constant German fire, until they were finally reinforced in May and broke out to join the push towards Rome. Rather than see Rome bombed, the Germans declared it an “open city” and abandoned it before the advancing Allies. On June 4, 1944, Allied troops entered Rome, just days before the invasion at Normandy. The Italian campaign had proved costly: thousands of men sacrificed for what Churchill had mistakenly labeled the “soft underbelly” of Europe. But the campaign had diverted German troops and materiel from France—a valuable objective in itself. |
 General mark Clark enters Rome on June 4, 1944 |
[WWII in Europe: IV] [WWII in Europe: VI]