straits of messina.

As it was, the Germans evacuated 3 mechanized divisions off Sicily. A total of 39,569 troops, 9605 vehicles, 47 tanks, 94 artillery pieces, over 2000 tons of ammunition and fuel and, nearly 15,000 of other supplies and materials in just a week that the evacuation took place. All of their evacuation craft were also safely withdrawn making possible the later withdrawal from Corsica and Sardinia.
The Italians brough off just over 62,000 troops, 227 vehicles and, 41 artillery pieces in the same time frame.

Had the Allied naval forces interviened even at the cost of several ships ending the evacuation early would have saved far more Allied lives and material than it would have cost fighting these troops again on the mainland of Italy. The stranding of a panzergrenadier division and a brigade of infantry along with an Italian parachute division (which remained facist after the Italian surrender) on Sardinia and Corsica would have added to this effect another 25,800 men, 4650 vehicles, 144 antitank guns, 62 tanks, 311 artillery pieces and, nearly 5000 tons of supplies the Germans would have found stranded on these islands.

It would have been worth a cruiser or two and several destroyers to finish the Axis evacutation before it got going.

 

Morison History of the United States Naval Operations in World War 2 vol IX

 

T.A.

I couldn't say it any better. The lack of action was deplorable.The Salerno Landings, the Gustof, Hitler lines in Italy would not of been as deadly, at least not in the first few months.

Best Regards,

Steve

 

Yes, and maybe then the Allies could have landed farther up the boot, and cut whatever Axis forces off that were in southern Italy. It would have been a one-two punch (bagging the forces on the Sicilian side of the straights and in the south. And the loss of shipping could have prevented pull-outs from Sardinia and Corsica, further weakening the defense of Italy.

 

I suspected it was that as I had also looked it up and your figures matched it exactly, my mention of 11' and 6' comes from Roskill's the war at sea as do the quotes from Cunningham (including the one on spotters).
Looking at some more sources .... the 11' could be coast defence mortars as the Italians had some in that caliber, (they had also a number of 15' and 12' coast defence guns removed from WW1 battleships, I recently read a history of the 15' so I think none were in the straits but have nothing on where the more numerous 12' were sited).
As for other sources, Von Ruge's (the Kriegsmarine Admiral in the Med) book was a big disappointment, he mentions the operation but does not provide any figures.
Minefields ... still looking, I had a map of Italian minefields somewhere but can't find it right now.
The Italians Taranto submarine squadron had 9 subs on 8/9/43, also at Taranto, which is just 300 Km away from Messina, were two old BBs 3 cruisers 2 flleet destroyers and 10 escorts.
An Italian source (Bernotti) reports 10 "motozattere" (the Italian copy of the Siebel ferry), two transports and one ferry as the Italian transport force so very close to Morrison's data which is not surprising as Morrison quotes Bernotti in his footnotes, one MTZ was lost to aerial bombing. There are also reports of an MTM unit (midget MTBs) stationed at Messina in addition to MAS and MS boats.

TA where did you find the Italian para unit that went RSI? I think that, like the X-MAS, the RSI para unit had little more than the name of the original. Also while I have no confirmation I doubt very much that the same ships were used for the Messina and Sardinia/Corsica evaquations, there were additional MTZ and Siebel's in the North of Italy and the no need to do a beach operation as fully functional ports were available at both ends so using faster conventional ferries and transports makes more sense, Sardinia to mainland lasts many hours even with modern ferries and fully qualifies as "blue water". The Villa San Giovanni for one was definetly not used as she was scuttled in her namesake Villa San Giovanni harbour as her engines were damaged by salt water due to a near miss.

 

thanks for your input guys.cheers.

 

Landing farther up the boot.

Q: What about Air cover?
Q: What about availiable landing craft? (remember simultainious landings, and Overlord looming ahead)
Q: How many forces availiable for multiple landings?
Q: How many men did the Axis have on the mainland?

... further weakening the defence of Italy.

Q: How many divisions availiable to contain Avalance, and how would a penny packet force fare against them?
Q: Is it possible that the defence of Italy would have been good even if the germans were cut off in Sicilly ?


These wishful suggestions was just the steamengine strategies (powered by hot air) that paper commanders like Ike devised. (Giant two springs to mind)

There was nothing wrong with the Huskey plan. But a lack of grip by Alex and Ike (they were in way over their head) let the situation deteriorate. And the final punsh never happened.

 

If you look at the loss of the forces on Sicily, Sardinia and, Corsica, the Salerno landings would have faced one less (1) panzer division (Hermann Göring) and two (2) less panzergrenadier divisions (15th and 90th). That is a loss of about one third of the defenders there. Their absence would have been sorely felt especially as HG had the only Tigers present.

 

I could be wrong and it's too late to look up the actual facts, but I thought the Herman Goering Division was brought over to Italy from the Russian Front. They were beat up and regrouping, If true, they were already on the mainland and probably a bunch of mean and agitated troops.

Also the reason the Allies picked Salerno was it was the most northern bay that could be protected from the airbases in Sicily. Naples was the original choice but too far north.

Regardless, our discussion of the facts shows we blew the Messina escape. Compound that with the fact that these brave, well trained soldiers in Italy had to fight under Alexander, Clark, and Keys........... well what a waste of brave men.

 

I wasn't implying that allied landing farther up the Italian boot was to be in place of the landings in Sicily, or to be simaltaneous with Operation Husky. Landing further up the boot from Salerno was my suggestion. After re-reading my first post, I see that clarification was needed. Thank you for pointing that out. Your assumptions are correct as given in that scenario, and more than likely for my fanciful scenario as well. My boo boo.

 

Most gracious of you A-58, rep is on it's way.

 

tedder,who i have never had a high regard for,was busy planning the strategic bombing of italian ports,with the other bomber barons.
this planning was happening before the invasion of sicily.he took his eye off the ball,and was unable to grasp the changing situation as regards to attacking the german barges,and passed the buck happily,as usual.cheers.

 

4thwilts, if what you say is the case, and Bomber Command had targeted the concentrated German forces waiting to cross the straights, and those after who had just disembarked and were on the road north, things would have been a little different in the subsequent campaigns on the Italian peninsula. They might not have been able to prevent the evacuation of Sicily, but would have wreaked havoc on their vehicles as they were on the road and in the open. A missed opportunity indeed.

 

Your so right it was a disaster that the allies paid dearly for later on.

 

I think the problem was also, that the Allies had not made a decision early enough - after Sicilly what next.
Sicilly was necessary to finally open up the Med to allied shipping.
Problem was that the US was opposed to involvement in the Med., they were impatient to get on with the cross channel invasion. They were apprehensive that further campaigns in the Med might compremise that.
The British on the other hand wanted to play on German fears of landings here or there, in order to spread out their forces away from Northern France.
In OTL the Sicilly campaign was complete what next - Salerno & Messina landings - totallly predictable. But, the western side of Italy was the worst geographically.
IMHO follow up landings on the mainland should have taken place, before the Sicilly campaign was finished - indeed, it could have been treated as a feint to suck in Axis forces. Seize Taranto - thrust to the west coast to block Messina reinforcements & evacuation, and with a follow on landing at Brinidisi (?) to head north to capture the Foggia airfield complex.
Monty, for the Sicilly landing, and Patton for the Taranto landing, and further landings later by the French on Sardinia and Corsica!
That will give the Germans something to think about.

 

The Allied Naval Forces dare not venture too close to the Italian mainland near Messina in fear of German Air power. They didn't have sufficient Fighter Air coverage for ships so far from North Africa. While the Germans had plenty of nearby airfields that could easily cover the extraction of German Army from Sicily. Shameful that this event wasn't planned for, at least Allied submarines could have done extreme damage to the transport ships.
I feel a small landing at the tip of the boot in Italy would have been enough to hold Germans in place and the Allies should have landed two invasion Forces North of Rome working both sides of the peninsula towards the middle, thus cutting off any retreat and cutting any and all supplies from Germany.
John P

 

Rover411, first welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately this is unrealistic for two reasons however desirable it might have been. To begin with the Allies were unprepared to attempt any landing they could not reliably support with land based air power. Rome itself was beyond the range of allied fighters based in Sicily, so a landing north of this point was a no go. In the Pacific Carrier aviation was used extensively but they always tried to make landings within range of land based aviation if possible. In the Atlantic most carriers were small escort types used either to prosecute the Anti-submarine war or to ferry aircraft. Unlike the Pacific, they spent less time training/practicing for the role of invasion support and often employed second line aircraft types that would be at a disadvantage to first line German fighter. This covers the west coast of Italy.

As for landings in the Adriatic side of Italy, the same as above applies but also present their own problems. Any invasion fleet would be vulnerable to both attack from the west (Italy), but from the Dalmatian (Yugoslavia) coast as well. They would also be at threat of small craft such as MTB's and E-Boats. Operating in such constricted waters would have not gone over well with Allied naval commanders. A final factor would be the availability of Landing craft. The could pull off one landing (just barely) but two multi-division simultaneous landings was just too much for them to pull off in 1943.

Certainly if it could have been done it might have led to a much easier move up the Tough Old Boot, but you sometimes do only what you can do and not what you wish to do.

Again, welcome aboard.

 

Belasar beat me to it. If available air cover would not allow fast warships to interdict shipping in the Straits of Messina, it would hardly be able to support amphibious forces making and sustaining a landing nearby.

Even after Sicily was secured and Allied aircraft established thereon, Salerno was as far north as they felt they could make a landing. One point about fighter cover for a landing, it doesn't just need to be within the combat radius of your fighters, they also have to have a reasonable amount of loiter time to provide continuous cover over the operations area.

For the Salerno landings, the Royal Navy employed a force of four escort carriers and the light carrier Unicorn to provide close air cover; they were equipped with Seafires. They were further supported by a couple of fleet carriers further out to sea. However, this was in additon to land-based air which provided the majority of air support. This was in September 1943, not sure if they would have been available any earlier.

Welcome aboard, Rover411!

 

In 1943 the Allies were overall stronger, but not strong enough to carry off high risk operations with small forces. Any small scale operations had better hope the Germans didn't decide to react in force, the Germans were too weak to crush a well supported multi division landing but smaller operations like those attempted in the Aegean could be defeated..