As we have seen in the preceding chapter, Hitler thought that the first objective of the Anglo-American invasion would he Sardinia. General Amhrosio’s inspection of the island’s defences in early May would seem to indicate that the Comando Supremo agreed with the Fiihrer. After the event, Marshal Badoglio gave it as his opinion that the strategists in London and Washington had made a great mistake in preferring the easier way of a landing in Sicily.
This would he correct if the two Western powers had proposed an immediate conquest of Italy, for the occupation of Sardinia means that the peninsula south of a line La Spezia-Ancona cannot he defended and allows, through Corsica and after landings in Liguria, the turning of the Apennine bastion.
But when plqns were being drawn up for Operation "Husky”, the Anglo-Americans were proposing nothing of the sort. They anticipated, first of all, clearing the
Sicilian Channel, and then securing a bridgehead, including Naples and Foggia, whose great aerodromes would allow bombing raids on the Rumanian oilfields. But at the "Trident” Conference on May 12-25 in Washington, attended by Roosevelt and Churchill, which was to decide on the follow-up to "Husky”, the Americans expressed their conviction that the British had "led them down the garden path by taking them into North Africa”. "They also think,” continued Alanbrooke in his diary, "that at Casablanca we again misled them by inducing them to attack Sicily. And now they do not intend to be led astray again.”
And the American President agreed, apart from a few minor reservations, with the thinking of the Pentagon. According to Alanbrooke, Roosevelt admitted, it is true, "the urgent need to consider where to go from Sicily and how to keep employed the score or more of battle-trained Anglo-American divisions in the Mediterranean. But the continuing drain involved in any attempt to occupy Italy might prejudice the build-up of forces for a cross-Channel invasion, and, though there now seemed no chance of the latter in 1943, it would have to be launched on the largest scale in the spring of 1944.”
After long arguments between the British and the Americans, it was agreed that while an invasion of France in late spring 1944 remained the principal Allied operation against Germany, the Allied forces in the Mediterranean after "Husky” were to mount "such operations as are best calculated to eliminate Italy from the war and to contain the maximum number of German divisions”.
For "Husky” General Eisenhower kept the same team which had brought him victory in Tunisia. Under his control General Alexander would direct the operations of the 15th Army Group, the number being the sum of its two constituent armies, the American 7th (Lieutenant-General Patton) and the British 8th (Montgomery): an experienced and able high command.
According to the original plan, the British 8th Army was to land between Syracuse and Gela and the American 7th Army on each side of Trapani at the other end of the island. Montgomery, however, objected because, as he wrote to Alexander on April 24: "Planning to date has been on the assumption that resistance will be slight and Sicily will be
A A Loading up the landing-craft at Sousse in Tunisia before the descent on Sicily.
A Supply from the air: Douglas C-47 transports are loaded.
Captured easily... If we work on the assumption of little resistance, and disperse our effort as is being done in all planning to date, we will merely have a disaster. We must plan for fierce resistance, by the Germans at any rate, and for a real dog fight battle to follow the initial assault.”
The original plan had therefore to be concentrated so that the two Allied armies could give each other mutual support if either ran into trouble. Credit is due to both Eisenhower and Alexander for having accepted without too much difficulty Montgomery’s reasoning. The revised plan set Scoglitti, Gela, and 'Licata as Patton’s first objectives, whilst Montgomery moved his left flank objective over from the Gela area to Cape Passero so as to be able to seize this important promontory at the southeastern tip of Sicily in a pincer movement.
The British 8th Army comprised the following:
1. XIII Corps (Lieutenant-General Dempsey), made up of the 5th Division (Major-General Bucknall), the 50th Division (Major-General Kirkman), and the 231st Brigade (Brigadier-
General Urquhart); and
2. XXX Corps (Lieutenant-General Leese), made up of the 51st Division (Major-General Wimberley) and the 1st Canadian Division (Major-General Simmonds).
The American 7th Army comprised the II Corps (Lieutenant-General Bradley), made up of the 45th Division (Major-
A U. S. soldiers head in to the beaches.
V Bombs and shells explode around ships of the invasion fleet as it nears the coast of Sicily.
General Middleton), the 1st Division (Major-General Allen), and the 2nd Armoured Division (Major-General Grit-tenberger), plus also the 3rd Division (Major-General Truscott), unattached to a corps.
Each army had an airborne spearhead of brigade strength, and one division held provisionally in reserve in North Africa.
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