The ANNOTICO Report
As many notable historians have claimed over the last
50 years, the utter
devastation caused to Italy, which was FAR greater than
the damage done to
France or England, and was caused by the Invasion of
Sicily, was Totally
Unnecessary Undertaking, more a result of Churchill's
Mediterranean
Geo-political ambitions, than by military necessity
or desirability.
The author, Follain dispels some popular myths. Sections
of the Italian
army fought courageously in the first few days of the
invasion. They
surrendered in huge numbers not because they were cowards
but because they
had little or no enthusiasm for fascism, or for a war
Against the Americans
(whom they felt a kinredship because of all their American
relatives),
British or France, or as an Ally of the Germans .This
was not just the view
of the troops in the trenches. The Fascist Grand Council
in Rome, many of
whom did not want Italy to join the war in the first
place, reacted to the
invasion by sacking Mussolini and placing him under house
arrest.
[RAA Note: Aside from the ordinary definition of the word
"job", it is used
here meaning more: (8) a bad or unsatisfactory piece
of work (9) a state of
affairs (10) a criminal act (11) something ostensibly
done for public
welfare but actually done for improper private gain]
Book Review
Reviewed by Gordon Brewer for
The Scotsman
Sun 24 July 2005
MUSSOLINI'S ISLAND
John Follain
Hodder & Stoughton, £20
THE invasion of Sicily in July 1943 was the first time
the Allied powers
seized territory in the homelands of their enemies. So
it is perhaps
surprising that in the popular imagination of the Second
World War it plays
such a subordinate role.
The reason lies as much in what the campaign did not achieve
as in what it
did. It did not open up a route to Berlin - although
it is unclear whether
anyone seriously thought it would. It did not force Hitler
to move large
numbers of divisions from elsewhere. And it did not,
as John Follain
chronicles in his extremely readable new book, even lead
to the destruction
of important sections of the German armies. Protected
by anti-aircraft guns
and artillery on either side of the narrow Strait of
Messina, the vast
majority of surviving German soldiers were able to withdraw
with their
equipment, safe from the Royal Navy and all but the most
adventurous
British or American fighter pilots.
The Sicily campaign also brought to the surface latent,
and shifting,
tensions among the Allies. The Americans were doubtful
about the whole idea
of invading Italy, suspecting Churchill had imperialist
ambitions there,
or, more likely, in the Balkans. Later, beyond the scope
of this book, the
Russians would lay down markers for the future in a dispute
over what
involvement, if any, they should have in the Allied military
occupation of
Italy.
This sense of ambiguity runs through and adds spice to
Follain's book, not
just in his fairly cursory account of the geopolitics,
but in the
fascinating collection of eyewitness accounts he has
assembled. For
Lieutenant David Fenner of the Durham Light Infantry,
there was no sense
this was a decisive contest. "Sicily was just another
bloody battle. The
idea of the war ending one day was so remote that all
he could think about
was the job at hand, the next meal, and the next night's
sleep." Similarly,
Lance-Corporal Werner Hahn, a Tiger tank gunner, is unperturbed
even when
he realises the Axis forces are retreating from Sicily.
It all seemed so
remote from a threat to Germany proper.
MILITARILY, THE invasion of Sicily, like more and more
of the set-piece
confrontations as the war wore on, reflected the overwhelming
superiority
of the Allies in the industrial production of firepower.
It is true the
Italian and German defences were depleted because of
a British ruse which
led Hitler to believe the attack would come either in
Greece or Sardinia,
but there were errors aplenty on the Allied side.
Aircraft-towing gliders packed with airborne troops were
shot out of the
sky by the Allied armada massed off the coast, and the
gliders - as later
during the D-Day landings - often came down many miles
from their
objectives. The Allied command was plagued by petty squabbling
between
Montgomery and Patton. Patton dashed off on a mission
to take Palermo,
which Follain considers to have been more about winning
headlines in the
New York Times than any strictly military objective.
The tensions were eased when Montgomery gave Patton the
lead role in taking
Messina, but this was largely because the Eighth Army
was tied down by
fierce German resistance in the east of the island. The
Germans often had
better equipment, but there was simply not enough of
it, although in this
case that was partly because the Nazi High Command decided
to stage a
fighting retreat, an operation Follain credits them with
carrying out at
least as successfully as the Allies did the invasion.
Follain dispels some popular myths. Sections of the Italian
army fought
courageously in the first few days of the invasion. They
surrendered in
huge numbers not because they were cowards but because
they had little or
no enthusiasm for fascism. This was not just the view
of the troops in the
trenches. The Fascist Grand Council in Rome, many of
whom did not want
Italy to join the war in the first place, reacted to
the invasion by
sacking Mussolini and placing him under house arrest
in the most remote
locations they could think of. "You are the most hated
man in Italy," King
Victor Emmanuel III told Il Duce just before the dictator
was bundled into
the back of an ambulance, his power having evaporated
into thin air. It was
one of the King's few accurate assessments. He went on
to make a fairly
successful attempt to claim the honour of being the most
hated man in Italy
for himself.
Follain's account is racy, and what it lacks in depth,
it makes up for in
atmosphere. Sometimes it reminded me of those old book-club
war memoirs
those of us of a certain age read as children, but here
we are given the
views of all sides involved and there is none of the
jingoism. Some of the
accounts are distressing, particularly the story of the
sinking of the
British hospital ship Talamba. But then, these days we
have no time for
sanitised accounts of war. Sometimes, particularly in
his account of the
fall of Mussolini, Follain writes like Bob Woodward going
to the Second
World War, and his book is none the weaker for it.
Much of the fascination here is in the often bizarre details
of what
happens to Follain's eye-witnesses. Werner Hahn and some
of his comrades,
trapped behind enemy lines with their tank written off
by shellfire, run
into a unit of the US Army. Instead of taking them prisoner,
the Americans
chat with them and start a drinking bout. The Germans
are careful to stay
sober, then slip away in the night, blow up their tanks
and make it back to
their lines safely.
Tony Snell, a Spitfire pilot shot down over Sicily, is
captured by a German
unit, which decides to shoot him as a spy. He runs off
as they begin
firing, wanders for several hours badly wounded and is
then captured by the
same men, who decide to let him live and send him to
a prison hospital in
Pisa.
Sergeant Alfred Johnson of the US Army puts a dozen German
prisoners under
the guard of some of his men during the battle for Troina.
He returns a few
hours later to find the prisoners lying on the ground
with their throats
slit. There is little he can do other than threaten the
main suspect.
Follain sticks closely to his story, except in telling
us what happened to
Mussolini. This is a shrewd move, as the toppling of
the Duce was probably
the main, if unforeseen, immediate effect of the invasion.
The tale of
Hitler's attempt to rescue his old pal is just as readable
as the rest of
this thoroughly recommendable book.