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What do we do next?
After the North Africa Campaign the question was
Casablanca
• The U.S. decided at the Casablanca Conference of 1943 to invade Italy
• The meeting between FDR and Winston Churchill in Casablanca, Morocco decided the allies next move
• To Invade Italy
The Invasion of Italy• Also known as
“The Italian Campaign”
• The plan was to invade
Sicily and all Italian
mainland until the surrender of Italy
• The Invasion began on
September 3rd of 1943 an ended on May 8th, 1945
AFHQ Involvement
• Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ) were responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre
• The AFHQ made the plans for taking Sicily and the mainland in late July
-Both U.S. Airplanes and Ships landed on the Gulf of Gela in Southern Italy
-The main goal was to
open up the allied traffic
for shipping
- Would allow allies
to ship goods to Soviets
Taking Sicily
- Invaded Italy through Gela on July 10th of 1943 prior to the invasion of the mainland
-Codename “Operation Husky”
- After taking Sicily they would work their way up the toe of Italy
- Attack the air force were carried down after midnight of July 9
- Strong winds up to 45 MPH scattered them off course
- Troops spread out all along the southern coast of Italy between Syracuse and Gela
- Attacked vital points and created widespread panic
- July 27th the Axis commanders decided the outcome of the campaign would be
evacuation
Evacuation
• Hitler transferred over 12,000 men
• 4,500 vehicles
• 5,000 tons of equipment
• All done between August 1st-10th
Operation Baytown
- British Eighth Army would depart from the port of Messina on Sicily
- Go across the Straits of Messina
- Land near tip of Calabria ("toe of Italy”)
- On September 3rd 1943
Operation Avalanche
• One week later on 9 September
• Would land in Salerno on western coast
• Seize the port of Naples to ensure resupply
• Cut across to the east coast, trapping Axis troops further south
Germans Fight Back
• On September 13th
• The main attack was on the boundary between the Allied Corps (which ran from Battipaglia to the sea)
• The Attack failed
Salerno• Invaded Salerno on September 9th 1943
• The landings were resisted nearly failed
• Germans exhausted their resources in unsuccessful
counterattacks
• Which led to their new plans
New Plans
• September 16th, Allied air and naval superiority dominated the Axis troops
• Von Vietinghoff told Kesselring
that they needed to end the battle of Salerno
• Pivot on Salerno to form a
defensive line
• The allies had then secured Salerno beach
Cold Winter
• Second amphibious landing north of Salerno
• Allies wanted to advance through the great chain of mountains through central Italy
• Not wanting to wait and deal with freezing winter weather
• Decided to leave in October
Stalemate
• Winter had began
• Allies had failed to break the Gustav Line
• The Italian
Campaign was
stalemated in
December of
1943
Anzio
• January 22nd 1944, Allied ground commander in chief, Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, launched an amphibious end run behind the German lines at Anzio
• Wanted to catch them off guard
• Kesselring quickly contained the Allied threat
• Held them off throughout February
• Stalemate went on through Spring with few attacks
An Opening
• May resulted in the
collapse of the Gustav
Line
• German forces retreated into northern Italy
• A final Allied offensive resulted in the surrender of all German forces in Italy on May 2nd, 1945
Aftermath
• The Italian campaign lasted 602 days
• Allied casualties were 312,000
• German losses were estimated at 434,646
Battle of the Atlantic
• Was the longest campaign of WWII
• Germany used the U-boats to try to sever the allied sea lines of communication
• Tried to end the trade of Britain and Allies
-The Allies made ASDIC (Allied Submarine Detection Investigating Committee)
-Nazis then make U-boat wolf packs to attack ASDIC and
other allied ships
-Battle then became battle between the German U-boat and allied Merchant ships
Phase I
• September 1939 – June 1940
• U-boats went west of British Isle into Bay of Biscay intercepting Allied merchant ships
• U-boats attacked at first according to prize rules, providing safety for the crew
• Allies then equipped merchant ships with weapons to fight back causing surprise attacks
Phase I
• Karl Donitz the U-boat commander planned to attack with his wolf packs
• With small numbers of U-boats and insufficient torpedo's the U-boats had failed
Phase II
• July 1940 – May 1941• The U-boats again used the “Wolf Pack”
plan• They began to attack the weak convoy ships• Royal Navy couldn’t help out they were
guarding against a German invasion• German air forces also had major attacks on
the British Harbors
Phase II
• Germans got support from Italian Submarines at Bordeaux
• Spring of 1941 the British invasion began to crumple so they sent out destroyers
Phase III
• May 1941 – December 1941
• Destroyers made U-boats fight from greater distances form shore
• British able to escort the convoys
• Able to push U-boats down to West Africa
Phase III
• March 1941
• Allies Captured cipher materials
• May 7th Royal Navy captured German Arctic meteorological vessel
• German U-boats seemed to decline as battle went on
• Now able to save 1.5 million gross tons of shipping with Atlantic becoming safer
Phase IV
• January 1942 – July 1942
• U-boats began sinking unescorted individual ships off the U.S. east coast in the gulf of Mexico
• Interlocking Convoy system ended the mass sinkings
Phase V
• July 1942 – May 1943
• Became battle of technology
• Germans introduced M-4 Cipher machine and were now able to decrypt Allied convoy signals
• March 1943 the U-boats achieved greatest success against the convoys
Phase V
• Allies countered back with dispatch of surface and air escorts supporting convoys
• Allies developed more weapons and high-frequency direction findings
• Fall of U-boat offensive May 1943
Phase VI
• June 1943 – August 1943
• Allies began to block U-boats in Bay of Biscay
• Forced U-boats
to distant areas
Phase VII
• September 1943 – June 1944
• Allies strengthen Cipher and made it hard to be located
• German ships
began attacking
in North Atlantic
and then in
Gibraltar
• Failed
Final VIII Phase
• June 1944 – May 1945• Allied invasion of Normandy• U-boat
construction
was delayed
by allied
bombings• German
defensive collapsed
Statistics
• Lasted 69 months without stop
• 2,850 Allied and neutral merchant ships sank
• 2,520 of them sunk in Atlantic or Indian Oceans
• Germans lost 1large battleship, 1 pocket battleship, and 650 U-boats (522 sunk in Atlantic/Indian Ocean)
- Allies won this battle due to superior resources in battleship and airplane building
- Also due to superior antisubmarine detection equipment