1 Good stuff. Thanks man.

2 This is a great example of the resolve that ultimately won the war for the allies.

Not much went right, yet we pushed on.

3

I hate to see the blood and sacrifices made by earlier generations be wasted by the continuing erosion of our freedoms.  This country is no longer worthy of the lives that were lost.  Truly a sad day in America.

 

4 Roosevelt lied, young men died! Those soldiers (who I totally support but continually oppose and point out wrong instead of any good they do) were put in a quagmire by a stupid chimperor based on lies told to the American people! We should immediately surrender to the Axis people and end our empire-building with an apology to the Nazis! They aren't a threat to us, we are weakening our war in the Pacific by fighting the Nazis!!!
/leftist

5 Patton and Montgomery should be thanking me!  As should Seal Team 6.  You're welcome, boys!

6 And here I thought Operation Husky was a reference to Christie.

7 I thought that Operation Husky was Roseanne Barr and Michael Moore attempting to corner the doughnut market.

8 Our military did not take Sicily. Someone else did that for them.

When you gonna get that right, DiT?

9 Roosevelt lied, young men died! Those soldiers (who I totally support but continually oppose and point out wrong instead of any good they do) were put in a quagmire by a stupid chimperor based on lies told to the American people! We should immediately surrender to the Axis people and end our empire-building with an apology to the Nazis! They aren't a threat to us, we are weakening our war in the Pacific by fighting the Nazis!!!
/leftist
---

There were no Jews killed at Pearl Harbor.

10 >>/leftist

You forgot to work in the bit about the brainwashed killbots having no choice to  because FDR's domestic policy crushed their dreams of finding respectable work, and moreover flamers should be allowed to serve openly and flamboyantly. Lol.

11

"The Italians were organized into six coastal divisions, four infantry divisions, and a variety of local defense forces. Many of these units were woefully deficient in equipment, training, and morale and would prove incapable of putting up serious resistance. In fact, many Italian soldiers were tired of Mussolini's disastrous war and would surrender at the first opportunity. The German troops were divided into two divisions, the 15th Panzer Grenadier and the Hermann Goering Panzer. They formed the hard core of Sicily's defenses. The 15th Panzer Grenadier Division was essentially combat ready, but the Hermann Goering Division was significantly understrength and contained some inexperienced personnel."

 

 

It's not fair that the Italians were suffering from low morale and that the Goering Division was understrength and manned by inexperienced personnel.  I think we need to go back in time and even things up to be more equitable.  If not give the Axis the outright victory, we could at least have a do over!!  The U.S. military was segregated.  They certainly didn't deserve to win.

12 Halp me. I am stuk in Sissaly.

13 Check out "The man who never was"

14 A very good book about Sicily and Italy is Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson, the second of his intended trilogy about the US Army defeating Hitler.  Atkinson is or was a NYT reporter but this book is pretty well balanced.  He certainly tells us about the stupidity and incompetence of the high command but there is a lot of good old fashioned guts and American know how as well.  the only one who comes out smelling like a rose is Eisenhower.  Mark Clark gets a well deserved drubbing.

15 eman, heh.

16 First, fuck general Mark Clark, a self-promoting bastard who got a lot of Americans killed due to his ego and bullheadedness.  Second, as one German general said after the war, next time you invade Italy, don't start at the bottom.  (Italy was notoriously difficult for the Army to traverse, given its long, narrow, mountainous stretches.  Frankly, we should've done what Churchill wanted and invaded the Balkans.

17

The ability of the American people to triumph while handicapped by horrible political leadership is astounding.  Of course, massive superiority in logistics and raw numbers are pretty darn helpful as well.  And, of course, Ivan did his part, grinding down the Germans in the East in a war of such epic scope and horror that we in the West will never really understand it. 

 

 

Alas, the Democrats then went ahead and gave away half the world to the Communists, who were no better than the Fascists and ultimately killed a lot more people.  They left us with a Cold War that would not end until Reagan decided to get serious.  Those so-called Allies of ours in Western Europe (except England) turned traitor on us as soon as the Soviet threat disolved, making our sacrifices on their behalf seem a bit misplaced.

 

 

Hoover was right.  We should have armed to the teeth, built The Bomb, and defended our own hemisphere.  Had we done that, and if England had not tied its fate to that of Poland - the US, the western hemisphere, and the British Empire would have been preserved in tact while the fascists and commies ground each other down.

18 Frankly, we should've done what Churchill wanted and invaded the Balkans.

Posted by: SFGoth at July 18, 2012 11:17 AM (dZ756)

 

 

 

This. 

19 Eh? I thought Churchill wanted an Italian campaign. The soft underbelly of Europe or something like that. This is the first I've heard that he preferred a Balkans campaign.

20 A belated thank you to Lucky Luciano should be in order. 

21

Halp me. I am stuk in Sissaly.

 

Ow.  Ow.  Ow. 

 

Things I Learned From The Horde.  Crackers really fucking hurt going down your windpipe. 

22 The Italian campaign was full of mistakes that cost thousands of lives, but what was learned from them probably saved more lives during Overlord. One thing we never learned was how god-awful a general Mark Clark was. He should have been removed from command in 1944.

23 This is the first I've heard that he preferred a Balkans campaign.

Posted by: joncelli, heartless Con and all around unpleasant guy at July 18, 2012 11:21 AM (RD7QR)

 

 

 

 

This is correct.  He wanted not only an easier landing, but also to cut off the Soviets before they could penetrate too far.  The Germans were already beaten in 1944 - the question was how to secure the peace.  We blew it.

24

Husky was, objectively, a failure.  Ill-conceived, ill-planned, very poor leadership (Clark, in particular, was inept), which led to very poor execution. 

Italy was already out of the war in all but name, so there was no threat.  Liberating the Italians was never a war aim - they were the enemy.  The terrain was - and remains - a defender's dream.  "Soft Underbelly..."  How many times did Churchill have to send young men to die in that section of the world, for no appreciable gain?

Stalin never viewed it as a second front worthy of the name. 

The men fighting in Italy knew fully well that they were in a backwater, second only the the Stillwell fiasco in China.  It got to the point that by late 1944 they were near mutiny.  They saw no reason to die in Italy. 

Truscott arrived in late 44 and showed what good leadership could do, but that never changed the fact that it was the wrong place for Americans to be.

Eisenhower and Marshall can be blamed for letting Clark get a lot of men killed, and for not having the Army as prepared as they should have been, but the real blame for this meaningless meat grinder falls on Churchill and Roosevelt.

We should have taken Sicily to control the Med, but there was no reason to continue onto the boot of Italy.

25

crank, at #13, an updated version of that story was written a year or so ago (a bunch of documents were released by the family of one of the planners of Operation Mincemeat, which was the plan behind "The Man Who Never Was"). It is such a great book, and it reads like fiction, as it should, since Ian Fleming (author of the James Bond series) was one of the architects of the plan.  I finished it in one day.

"Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and A Bizzare Plan Fooled The Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory" by Ben McIntyre.

26 I'm always struck by the different ROE in those times: win, dammit!

Today's soldiers must envy that.

27

Bleh!  I left a nasty sock on!!!!

 

28 But O'Bumbles says they didn't do it on their own.  They had the help of many. They had the roads and bridges which were built by the taxes and government of Italy to see them through.  It takes a village!  We're all in this together!  (Insert other Socialist tripe here.)

29 20 His role has always been overblown. The mafia had no control over pre-invasion Sicily and was in no position to assist the invasion. The US Army unwisely allowed a newly empowered Mafia to take over local governments after liberation, to the detriment to Sicily and Italy as a whole in the post-war era.

30

Halp me. I am stuk in Sissaly

 

Thread winnah! 

31 Whenever the government and the Mafia disagree about collaboration on a point of mutual interest, I'm always inclined to believe the Mafia version of events.   

32 Churchill was actually the prime proponent of the Italian invasion. He proposed a Balkan invasion as well. The Americans wanted nothing to do with any of these "soft underbelly" campaigns and only grudgingly supported the invasion of Italy. They felt that all efforts should be put into the invasion of France. It's a testament to America's war economy that material and men could be allocated to the Italian campaign without effecting planning for Overlord. The Italian campaign was incredibly wasteful. Italy's topography was suited for defense and the Germans managed to inflict far more casualties on the Allies with a considerably smaller number of troops.

33 After reading "Day of Battle," I was slightly more sympathetic towards Clark.  Yeah, he was a self-promoting bastard, but he was pretty much given a big ol' shit sammich. 

34 After reading "Day of Battle," I was slightly more sympathetic towards Clark.  Yeah, he was a self-promoting bastard, but he was pretty much given a big ol' shit sammich.

35 Think of all the free breakfast and lunch programs for underprivileged children, midnight basketball centers, reproductive education providers, computers for inner city schools, WIC benefits, Meals on Wheels and other essential services that could have been provided if the United States didn't waste all that money fighting World War II. 

36 I wonder if the Italians were hindered by having to bring their tanks and trucks into the shop for repairs every few hours.

37 Our grandparents didn't take any shit did they? I miss them.

38 32 That lying chimp bastard Roosevelt. Flag waving, neo-con, rethuglican.

39

Whenever the government and the Mafia disagree about collaboration on a point of mutual interest, I'm always inclined to believe the Mafia version of events.

 

 

I prefer the Mafia too.  They are a lot more open, transparent, and accountable than the Gubamint.  Plus they donate a lot of money to charity.

40

I wonder if the Italians were hindered by having to bring their tanks and trucks into the shop for repairs every few hours.

 

Not to mention their abbreviated work days and commitment to vacations and the dolce vita.

41 25 There is considerable skepticism about this man being identified as "the man who never was". Montagu's book itself is considered to have been fill of factual inaccuracies. The man who was used to represent the body of "Major Martin" died from an overdose of rat poison, not drowning. He also died days before he was supposedly chosen for this mission, and decomposition had actually begun. There's a lot of doubt this Welshman could have fooled Spanish medical examiners into thinking he drowned only a day before he was discovered. The newest theory is that Montagu "stole" a fresh corpse from a British naval disaster which coincidentally happened the day before Operation Mincemeat was to begin.

42 33 Clark wasn't given a shit sammich. He turned it into one.

43 It wasn't Husky, it was just Big Boned.

44 It is hard to imagine that a cross channel invasion in 1943 could have been anything other than a huge fiasco given the reality of the invasion of Sicily and the many disasters of D Day.

45 Sorry General Eisenhower, Congress has elected to remove funding before D Day and Obama will start withdraw in Europe just like he promised the American people that got him elected. Seig heil.

46 These Corpse Men didn't do this by themselves.

47 Damn it, now I need to watch Patton again.

48 My dad spent the war in Italy driving one of those Shermans. He never was too harsh on Clark but only had good things to say about Truscott.

49 Our grandparents didn't take any shit did they? I miss them.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet, Team Dagny at July 18, 2012 11:34 AM (9TTOe)

 

 

 

 

In terms of showing pity to the enemy, you're quite right.  It was a better way.  Unlike the current BS ROE. 

 

But they did take a lot of shit - they just handled it well because people in those days still realized that life is hard.  FDR was essentially the closest thing America ever had to a South American style Presedente for Life, doing all he could to get us into war with the Axis.  The rationing in WW2 was a tool for control and propaganda - it was never necessary for the war effort.  The political machines in the big cities enjoyed absurd levels of power.  Industrial unions would send people out at thugs to beat up company men, and vice versa.  In many areas organized crime was fairly overt. 

 

 

There were always plenty of shit sandwiches to go around, and for the most part they got eaten.

50 SCOAMF at 25

Thanks for the info.I will look fio it.

51 My Dad got his first Purple Heart fighting in Sicily.

52 Barry: My grandfather liberated Sicily. His division of the Red Army marched right in

53 Dad was in a TD in Africa.  They missed Sicily to retrain, rearm, and reman after that disaster.

Lessons were learned.  They landed in France a few days after D-Day and cut their way to czechoslovakia like grain thru a goose.

54 My Father-in-Law, RichardLong, was second man to land on Sicily, via parachute. He and a Lt "liberated" a village. The mayor gave him a pistol, which we have today. He passed in 1999.

55 My father fought in Italy.  That segment of the war is too often overlooked but it was there we learned the lessons that allowed D-day to be a success.

Once on land our troops had to fight against an entrenched and determined opposition across really rugged and mountainous terrain.

Thanks for remembering.

Of course it is hard to see why we bothered with WWII and the Cold War now that everything we fought for overseas has been given away at home.





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56

OPERATION HUSKY!!!!!

OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!!!  SEND THE TROOPS ARUGULA!!!!  WARZONES WILL NO LONGER BE FOOD DESERTS!!!! 

57 "Of course it is hard to see why we bothered with WWII and the Cold War now that everything we fought for overseas has been given away at home.'
Same enemies, they just changed tactics and eventually ground everyone down.

58

Mark Clark was not in command of Husky--which was the invasion of Sicily only.

 

It was still the first team (Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton and Montgomery) in Sicily.  Clark took over for Italy.

 

Calark was a good staff officer and trainer.  He should never have been given a high level field command.

59

I don't disagree with anyone who says that Clark was a self-promoting idiot (he was -- his stupidity in rushing his armies into Rome to beat the Brits gave the German army in Italy the ability to escape from a potential encirclement, which if successful, would have brought the Italian campaign to a close much earlier).

 

I also don't disagree that Italy was bloody slog that had much more in common with the WWI campaigns than the fast moving mobile campaigns of WWII.

 

That being said, in defense of the Allied effort in Italy, (a) Kesselring was a very, very good general in defensive operations (admittedly, the Italian terrain played into his favor, (b) the campaign tied up German divisions in defensive and occupation operations that could have been better used on the Eastern front or in France (Italy was, if anything, even less crucial and more of a resource drag on resources for Germany than it was for the Allies), and (c) politically, the Russians were hammering Roosevelt/Churchill to take some action and invading France in mid-1943 would have been very challenging to say the least.

 

You know Churchill was a brilliant man, but in some things he could be an absolute fool. Given the mountainous terrain in both Italy and the Balkans, what on earth led him to proclaim it to be a "soft underbelly". Of course, he also thought Gallipoli was a good idea -- and maybe in a theoretical strategic way it was -- but tactically it was asine.

 

60 "Clark was a good staff officer and trainer. He should never have been given a high level field command."
So he was Lt Sobel from Band of Brothers, promoted past his competence?

61

The Italian general surrendered to my grandfather, Gen. Geoffrey Keyes in Palarmo. They are in the pictures 3,4 and 5.

http://www.wc57.com/ETO%20Photos.html

62 Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.