1. WAR COMES TO EUROPE THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN

6. Target Italy 43’ Once North Africa was secure Allied forces eyed Italy
Remove the German presence from Sicily
The allied invasion of Sicily began on July 10, 1943, when over 180,000 men hit the beaches or were airdropped onto the island, defended by only two German divisions

7. A base for invasion Casablanca Target Sicily The 2nd Front??
France Now??
Marshall
Alexander's 15th Army Group
U.S. Seventh Army, Patton
Montgomery's British Eighth Army.

8. OPERATION HUSKY AIR COVER FROM AFRICA BASED FIGHTERS
AMPHIBIOUS INVASION FORCE
Palermo, Catania, Augusta, and Syracuse
Eisenhower advised by Montgomery focused on the southeastern shore.
Axis forces consisted of between 200,000 and 300,000 Italian and about 30,000 German troops

9. Split on command decisions
15th Panzer Grenadier and the Hermann Goering Panzer
Field Marshal Albert Kesseling divides forces
Under prepared
Split on command decisions
Holding Sicily was almost impossible task

10. Weak resistance at best
PARATROOP DROPS
"Mussolini wind"
82nd Airborne
Weak resistance at best
DUKW amphibious truck
General Guzzoni

13. DAY 2: Congestion on the beaches hampered Bradley's efforts to send tanks forward, so that the defending infantrymen had nothing but artillery and naval gunfire to support them
Seventh Army had suffered over 2,300 casualties, the Army's greatest one day loss during the campaign

14. PATTON IS NOBODY’S BACKUP
PATTON’S ROLE AS SUPPORT
Target Messina
Etna Line
Palermo, Sicily's capital
Palermo fell in only seventy-two hours
“MUSOLINI OUSTED 25 JULY”
On 25 July 1943, His successor, Marshal Pietro Badoglio.
Montgomery bogged down at Catania south of Etna Line

15. "This is a horse race in which the prestige of the US Army is at stake,"
The battle for Troina
General Hube withdrew his XIV Panzer Corps in orderly phases toward Messina.
Full-scale evacuation of Sicily

17. ROME
MESSINA
SICILY

18. For many of the American forces this was their first time in combat
Patton wins his race but, entered Messina just hours after the last axis troops boarded ship for Italy
Casualties
Axis 29,000, with 140,000 captured.
US lost 2,237 killed and 6,544 wounded and captured
British suffered 2,721 dead, and 10,122 wounded and captured.
For many of the American forces this was their first time in combat

19. Because of the devastating effects of miss drops and poor communications further Airborne assaults would be few and carried out differently

22. INVASION OF ITALY 43’-44’ POISED FOR QUICK VICTORY AND GIVEN HELL
The Italians separated into two camps, pro-Allied and pro-German factions

23. INVASION OF ITALY FORCES FROM THE STRUGGLING SOVIET FRONT
GERMANY TO SEND TROOPS
FROM THE STRUGGLING SOVIET FRONT

24. 1st Steps into Europe Gustav Line—WINTER LINE
The Allies landed Americans at Salerno and British at Taranto
LT. GEN. MARK CLARK AND SELERNO
Blown bridges and blocked roads hampered the initial assault
300 miles in 17 days
Gustav Line—WINTER LINE
Hinged on the town of Cassino.

26. Anzio JAN. 22, 1944 OPERATION SHINGLE 4 MONTH BATTLE
A thorn in the German side
BEHIND GUSTAV & 30 MILES SOUTH OF ROME

29. Kesselring’s Reaction OUT SUPPLIED AND OUT GUNNED ANZIO ANNIES
16 JAN. 44-MONTE CASSINO
REINFORCEMENTS CALLED IN
Panzergrenadier
Kesselring’s Reaction
OUT SUPPLIED AND OUT GUNNED
ANZIO ANNIES
March 2, 1944

31. In May 1944 the Allied forces made a carefully planned assault on the Winter Line, synchronizing their thrusts with an attack from the Anzio beachhead. The drive carried all the way to Rome, which fell to the Allies on 4 June 1944

32. ROME FALLS JUNE 4, 1944 ROME FALLS ITALY DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY
Gothic Line
3 month campaign
German forces in Italy on 2 May 1945.

33. The Italian campaign involved some of the hardest fighting in the war and cost the United States forces some 114,000 casualties. But the campaign played an important part in determining the eventual outcome of the war, since the Allies, with a minimum of strength, engaged German forces that could possibly have upset the balance in FRANCE