Invasion of Sicily The initial plan was for landings in the south-east, south and north-west areas of the island which would lead to the rapid capture of key Axis airfields and except for
Messina, all the main ports on the island. This would allow a rapid Allied build-up, as well as denying their use to the Axis. This was altered into a reduced number of landings but with more concentration of force. The Allied invasion of
Sicily, Operation Husky, began on 9 July 1943 with both amphibious and airborne landings at the
Gulf of Gela. The land forces involved were the
U.S. Seventh Army, under
Lieutenant General George S. Patton, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade under the command of Major-General
Guy Simonds and the
British Eighth Army, under
General Bernard Montgomery. The original plan required a strong advance by the British northwards along the east coast to Messina. The Canadians took the central position, with the British on their right and the Americans on the left. The Canadian War Cemetery in Agira is testament to the sacrifice made driving the Germans from the rugged terrain. The Americans had the important role of pushing Axis forces out of mainland Sicily on left flank. When the Eighth Army were held up by stubborn defences in the rugged hills south of
Mount Etna, Patton amplified the American role with a wide advance northwest toward
Palermo and then directly north to cut the northern coastal road. This was followed by an eastward advance north of Etna towards Messina, supported by a series of amphibious landings on the northern coast that propelled Patton's troops into Messina shortly before the first units of the Eighth Army. The defending German and Italian forces were unable to prevent the Allied capture of the island, but they succeeded in evacuating most of their troops to the mainland, with the last leaving on 17 August 1943. Shortly thereafter, American Colonel Fairfax Kirkwood Dillon received the surrender of the island. As a result of the invasion, the Allied forces gained crucial experience in opposed amphibious operations, coalition warfare, and large airborne drops.
Invasion of mainland Italy Forces of the British Eighth Army, still under Montgomery, landed in the 'toe' of Italy on 3 September 1943 in
Operation Baytown, the day the Italian government agreed to
an armistice with the Allies. The armistice was publicly announced on 8 September by two broadcasts, first by General Eisenhower and then by a
proclamation by Marshal Badoglio. Although the German forces prepared to defend without Italian assistance, only two of their divisions opposite the Eighth Army and one at
Salerno were not
tied up disarming the
Royal Italian Army. On 9 September, forces of the
U.S. Fifth Army, under Lieutenant General
Mark W. Clark, expecting little resistance, landed against heavy German resistance at Salerno in
Operation Avalanche; in addition, British forces landed at
Taranto in
Operation Slapstick, which was almost unopposed. There had been a hope that, with the surrender of the Italian government, the Germans would withdraw to the north, since at the time
Adolf Hitler had been persuaded that
Southern Italy was strategically unimportant. However, this was not to be; although, for a while, the Eighth Army was able to make relatively easy progress up the eastern coast, capturing the port of
Bari and the important airfields around
Foggia. Despite none of the northern reserves having been made available to the
German 10th Army, it nevertheless came close to repelling the Salerno landing. The main Allied effort in the west initially centred on the port of
Naples: that city was selected because it was the northernmost port that could receive air cover by
fighter planes flying from Sicily. In the city itself, anti-Fascist Forces began an uprising, later known as the
Four days of Naples, holding out despite continuous German reprisals until the arrival of Allied forces. As the Allies advanced, they encountered increasingly difficult terrain: the
Apennine Mountains form a spine along the Italian peninsula offset somewhat to the east. In the most mountainous areas of
Abruzzo, more than half the width of the peninsula comprises crests and peaks over that are relatively easy to defend; and the spurs and re-entrants to the spine confronted the Allies with a succession of ridges and rivers across their line of advance. The rivers were subject to sudden and unexpected flooding, which had the potential to thwart the Allied commanders' plans.
Allied advance on Rome In early October 1943, Hitler was persuaded by his Army Group Commander in Southern Italy,
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, that the defence of Italy should be conducted as far away from Germany as possible. This would make the most of the natural defensive geography of
Central Italy, whilst denying the Allies the easy capture of a succession of airfields, each one being ever closer to Germany. Hitler was also convinced that yielding southern Italy would provide the Allies with a springboard for an invasion of the Balkans, with its vital resources of oil, bauxite, and copper. Kesselring was given command of the whole of Italy and immediately ordered the preparation of a series of defensive lines across Italy, south of
Rome. Two lines, the
Volturno and the
Barbara, were used to delay the Allied advance so as to buy time to prepare the most formidable defensive positions, which formed the
Winter Line – the collective name for the Gustav Line and two associated defensive lines on the west of the Apennine Mountains, the
Bernhardt and
Hitler lines (the latter had been renamed the Senger Line by 23 May 1944). The Winter Line proved a major obstacle to the Allies at the end of 1943, halting the Fifth Army's advance on the western side of Italy. Although the Gustav Line was penetrated on the Eighth Army's
Adriatic front, and
Ortona was liberated with heavy casualties to Canadian troops, the blizzards, drifting snow and zero visibility at the end of December caused the advance to grind to a halt. The Allies' focus then turned to the western front, where an attack through the
Liri valley was considered to have the best chance of a breakthrough towards the Italian capital. Landings behind the line
at Anzio during Operation Shingle, advocated by Churchill, were intended to destabilise the German Gustav line defences, but the early thrust inland to cut off the German defences did not occur because of disagreements that the American commander,
Major General John P. Lucas, had with the battle plan, and his insistence that his forces were not large enough to accomplish their mission. Lucas entrenched his forces, during which time Kesselring assembled sufficient forces to form a ring around the
beachhead. After a month of hard fighting against German and RSI forces, Lucas was replaced by Major General
Lucian Truscott, who eventually broke out in May. It took four major offensives between January and May 1944 before the line was eventually broken by a combined assault of the Fifth and Eighth Armies (including British, American, French, Polish, and Canadian corps) concentrated along a front between
Monte Cassino and the western seaboard. In a concurrent action, Clark was ordered to break out of the stagnant position at Anzio and cash in on the opportunity to cut off and destroy a large part of the German 10th Army retreating from the Gustav Line between them and the Canadians. But this opportunity was lost on the brink of success, when Clark disobeyed his orders and sent his U.S. forces to enter the vacant Rome instead. Rome had been declared an
open city by the German Army so no resistance was encountered. enters Rome, 4 June 1944 The American forces took possession of Rome on 4 June 1944. The German 10th Army was allowed to get away and, in the next few weeks, may have been responsible for doubling the Allied casualties in the next few months.
Allied advance into Northern Italy , 3 August 1944 After the capture of Rome, and the Allied
invasion of Normandy in June, the
U.S. VI Corps and the
French Expeditionary Corps (FEC), which together amounted to seven divisions, were pulled out of Italy during the summer of 1944 to participate in
Operation Dragoon, codename for the Allied invasion of
Southern France. The sudden removal of these experienced units from the Italian front was only partially compensated for by the gradual arrival of three divisions, the
Brazilian 1st Infantry Division, the
U.S. 92nd Infantry Division, both in the second half of 1944, and the
U.S. 10th Mountain Division in January 1945. This last major defensive line ran from the coast some north of
Pisa, along the jagged Apennine Mountains chain between Florence and
Bologna to the
Adriatic coast, just south of
Rimini. In order to shorten the Allied
lines of communication for the advance into Northern Italy, the
Polish II Corps advanced towards the port of
Ancona and, after a month-long
battle, succeeded in capturing it on 18 July. During
Operation Olive, which commenced on 25 August, the Gothic Line defences were penetrated on both the Fifth and Eighth Army fronts; but, there was no decisive breakthrough. Churchill, the British Prime Minister, had hoped that a major advance in late 1944 would open the way for the Allied armies to advance northeast through the "Ljubljana Gap" (the area between
Venice and
Vienna, which is today's
Slovenia) to Vienna and
Hungary to forestall the
Red Army from advancing into
Eastern Europe. Churchill's proposal had been strongly opposed by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff, despite its importance to British postwar interests in the region, as they did not believe that it aligned with overall Allied war priorities. As April 1945 came to an end, the German Army Group C, retreating on all fronts and having lost most of its fighting strength, was left with little option but surrender. General
Heinrich von Vietinghoff, who had taken command of Army Group C after Albert Kesselring had been transferred to become Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front (
OB West) in March 1945, signed the
instrument of surrender on behalf of German forces in Italy on 29 April, formally bringing hostilities to an end on 3 May 1945, at 17:30 UTC. On 1 May, two days before the Axis forces in Italy capitulated, Marshal
Rodolfo Graziani, the Minister of Defense of the Italian Social Republic, which had sent a delegation to surrender the RSI units, ordered the
Army Group Liguria to surrender.
Progress of the campaign 1943-07-01GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg| 1 July 1943 1943-11-01GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg| 1 November 1943 1944-07-01GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg| 1 July 1944 1944-09-01GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg| 1 September 1944 1944-12-15GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg| 1 December 1944 1945-05-01GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg| 1 May 1945 ==War crimes==