Allied Invasion of Sicily (1943): Operation Husky

The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, began on the night of 9–10 July 1943, when American, British and Canadian forces landed on the island’s southern and south-eastern coasts. In 38 days of fighting they drove German and Italian troops from Sicily, entering Messina on 17 August. The campaign opened the way to the invasion of mainland Italy and helped bring about the fall of Benito Mussolini.

Background and forces

At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill and their military chiefs agreed that once North Africa was cleared, the Allies would invade Sicily. The aims were to secure Mediterranean shipping routes, draw German forces away from the Eastern Front and increase pressure on Italy to leave the war.

The Axis surrender in Tunisia in May 1943, which followed the Anglo-American landings of Operation Torch, freed Allied armies for the operation. Sicily was an obvious target, so the British mounted an elaborate deception. In Operation Mincemeat, a corpse dressed as a Royal Marines officer was left to wash ashore in Spain carrying false papers suggesting landings in Sardinia and Greece. The Germans sent some reinforcements to those areas.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower was supreme commander, with General Sir Harold Alexander commanding the ground forces as 15th Army Group. The US Seventh Army under Lieutenant General George S. Patton was to land in the Gulf of Gela in the south-west, and the British Eighth Army under General Sir Bernard Montgomery, including the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, on the south-east coast between the Pachino peninsula and Syracuse.

Sicily was defended by the Italian Sixth Army under General Alfredo Guzzoni, with roughly 200,000 Italian troops, many in poorly equipped coastal divisions. The strongest units were German: the Hermann Göring Panzer Division and the 15th Panzergrenadier Division, later reinforced by paratroopers and the 29th Panzergrenadier Division. German strength eventually reached about 60,000–70,000 men, commanded from mid-July by General Hans-Valentin Hube’s XIV Panzer Corps under Field Marshal Albert Kesselring.

The landings

The invasion began with airborne assaults on the night of 9–10 July, in high winds. British glider troops attempting to seize the Ponte Grande bridge near Syracuse suffered badly: many gliders were released too early and fell into the sea, drowning hundreds of men. American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division were scattered over a wide area, though small groups caused confusion behind enemy lines.

The seaborne landings early on 10 July went better than expected. The same storm made defenders believe no landing was possible, and many Italian coastal units offered little resistance. About 160,000 men came ashore in the first days from a fleet of more than 2,500 vessels. The British took Syracuse on the first day.

On 11 July the Hermann Göring Division and Italian units counter-attacked the American beachhead at Gela. They came within a short distance of the beaches before being stopped by infantry, artillery and heavy gunfire from Allied warships. That night, nervous Allied naval and ground gunners fired on a formation of American transport aircraft carrying paratroop reinforcements, shooting down 23 planes and causing heavy casualties.

The campaign

Montgomery’s army advanced north along the east coast towards Catania and Messina but was held up on the Catania plain, where German paratroopers and the Hermann Göring Division fought hard around Primosole Bridge in mid-July. Montgomery then shifted part of his effort inland, west of Mount Etna.

Patton, initially given the role of protecting Montgomery’s flank, obtained permission to move west and north. His troops covered the western half of the island rapidly and entered Palermo on 22 July. The Seventh Army then turned east along the northern coast towards Messina, fighting through difficult mountain country at places such as Troina in early August.

Patton’s reputation was damaged when he slapped two soldiers suffering from combat stress in field hospitals in early August. Eisenhower reprimanded him and he was ordered to apologise.

The campaign also saw killings of prisoners. Near Biscari airfield on 14 July, American soldiers shot around 70 Italian and German prisoners in two separate incidents; one officer and one sergeant were court-martialled.

The fall of Mussolini

The invasion struck directly at Mussolini’s position. On 19 July Rome was bombed for the first time, and the same day Mussolini met Hitler at Feltre, failing to obtain more help or to tell him that Italy wanted to leave the war.

On the night of 24–25 July the Fascist Grand Council voted for a motion against him. On 25 July King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini, had him arrested and appointed Marshal Pietro Badoglio as head of government. The new government secretly negotiated an armistice with the Allies, announced on 8 September 1943.

The Axis evacuation

By early August the Germans had decided to leave Sicily. Under cover of strong anti-aircraft defences on both sides of the Strait of Messina, German and Italian forces ferried around 100,000 men across to the mainland between 11 and 17 August, roughly 40,000 Germans and 60,000 Italians, with about 10,000 vehicles. Allied air and naval forces failed to stop them, and these troops fought again in Italy.

American patrols entered Messina on the morning of 17 August 1943, just ahead of British troops, ending the campaign.

By the numbers

Key people

Harold Alexander commanded the Allied ground forces and was criticised for giving Patton a secondary role at first. George S. Patton led the Seventh Army in a fast campaign that made his name with the public, despite the slapping incidents. Bernard Montgomery, already famous from El Alamein, commanded the Eighth Army along the strongly defended east coast. Alfredo Guzzoni directed the Italian defence, and Hans-Valentin Hube organised the German fighting withdrawal and the evacuation to the mainland.

Consequences

Sicily gave the Allies airfields and ports within reach of mainland Italy. On 3 September 1943 the British Eighth Army crossed the Strait of Messina, and on 9 September American and British forces landed at Salerno, the day after Italy’s armistice was announced. German forces, however, quickly occupied most of Italy and disarmed the Italian army, so the campaign on the mainland turned into a long struggle that lasted until May 1945.

The campaign also exposed tensions between British and American commanders, especially between Montgomery and Patton, whose rivalry became part of popular legend. Planners drew lessons for later operations: better coordination of airborne drops with naval gunners, the value of amphibious trucks and landing ships, and the need to cut off enemy escape routes.

Timeline

• 1943, 30 April: Operation Mincemeat’s body is released off the Spanish coast.
• 1943, 9–10 July: Airborne and seaborne landings in Sicily begin.
• 1943, 11 July: German–Italian counter-attack at Gela is repulsed.
• 1943, 22 July: Patton’s troops enter Palermo.
• 1943, 25 July: Mussolini is dismissed and arrested.
• 1943, 11–17 August: Axis forces evacuate across the Strait of Messina.
• 1943, 17 August: Allied troops enter Messina; the campaign ends.

Why it matters

The Sicily campaign gave the Western Allies their first major foothold in Axis-held Europe, knocked Mussolini from power and pushed Italy towards surrender. Its lessons in airborne and amphibious warfare shaped later landings at Salerno, Anzio and Normandy, while the escape of the Axis garrison foreshadowed the long, hard Italian campaign that followed.