Allied invasion of Italy

• 1. Introduction

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  The Allied invasion of Italy began at half past three in the morning on the 9th of September 1943. A loudspeaker on the beach at Paestum called out in English: "Come on in and give up. We have you covered." The soldiers of the U.S. 36th Infantry Division landed anyway, wading toward a shoreline the Germans had already spotted from the hills above. Six days earlier, on the 3rd of September, a separate British force had already crossed from Sicily onto the toe of Calabria. At the same time as the Salerno assault, a third contingent came ashore at the port of Taranto aboard British warships. Three landings converged into one campaign, meant to knock Italy out of the war and pull German divisions south to fight for it. Why did British and American commanders disagree so sharply about whether this invasion should happen at all? How close did the beachhead at Salerno come to collapsing in its first days? And what did holding that beach cost the men who were ordered to do it, while help was still on its way?

• 2. The Soft Underbelly Debate

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  Covers Churchill's 'soft underbelly' quote vs. Clark's 'one tough gut', the Stalin/second-front pressure, Marshall's opposition and the Overlord tradeoff, the Trident Conference, Mussolini's fall, Eisenhower's order to proceed, and the escaped Axis troops whose propaganda 'success' meant fighting in Italy continued past the fall of Berlin in April 1945.

• 3. Three Landings, One Plan

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  Covers the shift from a cautious Taranto-only plan to the two-pronged strategy, the fighter-range constraint that dictated Salerno over the Volturno basin, the Baytown crossing and Montgomery's correct prediction of wasted effort, the repeatedly cancelled airborne drops (Giant, Giant II, Taylor's secret Rome mission), the Avalanche force structure and naval task force, Taranto's reversal into 'Operation Bedlam', and the plan's real risk factors (six German divisions, a 35 mi front, the Sele River gap, 45 days of planning, no naval bombardment, the deception plan Top Hat/Boardman).

• 4. Three Fronts Open

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  Covers the German 10th Army's order of battle under von Vietinghoff, the light Calabria fighting apart from the 185th 'Nembo' paratroopers, Kesselring's misjudgment of where the real blow would land, and the near-bloodless Taranto landing marred only by the sinking of HMS Abdiel and the death of Major-General Hopkinson.

• 5. The Fight for the Beaches

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  Covers the Rangers' and Commandos' unopposed capture of Salerno town, the harder fighting at Paestum (LST 336's 18 hits, the 141st Infantry's loss of cohesion, the naval barrage that reached eleven thousand tons), and the inconclusive first-day gains on both sides.

• 6. Fighting in Sea and Sky

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  Covers the Luftwaffe's dawn strafing, the Montecorvino airfield that was captured but unusable, Hewitt's 'Air situation here critical' report during 450 sorties in 36 hours, the Fritz X glide-bomb hits on USS Savannah, USS Philadelphia and later HMS Warspite, and the arrival of the battleships Valiant and Warspite.

• 7. The German Counterattack

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  Covers Alexander's 'not satisfied with the situation at Avalanche' warning, the 13th of September German counteroffensive that overran units at Persano, Clark's shelved evacuation plans (Brass Rail, Sealion, Seatrain), the paratroop drops of the 504th and 505th PIR directly into the beachhead that stabilized the line, and Balck's and von Vietinghoff's own accounts of being beaten by Allied naval gunfire, ending in Kesselring's approval of a withdrawal.

• 8. After the Beachhead

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  Covers the Salerno mutiny and its court martial, the Eighth Army's link-up advance, the relief of General Dawley, the fall of Naples on the 1st of October and the Fifth Army reaching the Volturno River on the 6th of October, Hitler's decision (backing Rommel, then reversing to give Kesselring command of all Italy and hold Rome as long as possible), the road to the Gustav Line and Monte Cassino, and closes on Clark's Distinguished Service Cross for his front-line leadership.