Galleries
WWII – Italian Campaign
The Italian Campaign lasted from 1943 to 1945. It is estimated that between September 1943 and April 1945, 60,000–70,000 Allied and over 100,000 German soldiers died. The invasion of Sicily in July 1943 led to the collapse of the Fascist Italian regime and the fall of Mussolini, who was incarcerated on July 25th, 1943. German forces soon took control of northern and central Italy. Mussolini was rescued from captivity by German paratroopers, and Hitler assisted him in setting up a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic, to administer the German-occupied territory. Italy fell into a civil war even as Allied and German armies clashed on its territory.
U.S. and British political leaders hoped that an invasion might knock Italy out of the war. The defeat of Italy would enable Allied naval forces, principally the Royal Navy, to dominate the Mediterranean Sea, securing the lines of communication with Egypt and Asia while forcing Axis divisions to transfer troops from the Eastern Front to defend Italy. This assistance had been promised to the Soviet Union, then facing the great majority of German and also Italian troops.
The land forces involved were the US 7th Army under General George Patton, and the British 8th Army under General Bernard Montgomery. They started with the liberation of Sicily in 1943. Allied forces continued with the invasion of mainland Italy, which precipitated the fall of Mussolini’s government and also provoked a German invasion of the north that blocked the Allies from Rome.
Mountainous Italy was a hard place to fight and mistakes were made by both sides, even before the main focus of fighting in Western Europe shifted to France in June 1944. The result was that difficult, hardscrabble fighting in Italy lasted almost to the end of WWII.
Gallery Artifacts
M3A1 Scout Car
The M3A1 Scout Car, was a lightly armored, open topped, machine gun armed, four wheel drive vehicle designed to be used in the reconnaissance…
M5A1 Stuart
The M5 “Stuart” was an extension of the original M3 Stuart Light Tank line of 1941. The British called it ‘Stuart’ in honor of…
Type 166 Schwimmwagen
Early in WWII, German command saw the need for a vehicle that could combine four-wheel drive and amphibious capability. Looking at the rear of…
Type 82 Kübelwagen
The Kubelwagen, designed by Ferdinand Porsche, produced by German manufacturer Volkswagen, was to the German military what the Jeep is to the U.S. Despite…