What happened to the allied landing in Sicily during World War II?

On July 9th, 1943, the allied escort formations from Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt arrived at the assembly areas on the east and west sides of malta island respectively. But at this time, the climate deteriorated sharply, and a strong northwest wind blew on the sea. Soon, the landing craft stumbled in the rough waves, and even the bow of the large transport ship was hidden in the rough waves from time to time. Bad weather is extremely unfavorable for allied airborne operations and amphibious landings. The weather forecast shows that the wind speed will decrease at sunset. General Eisenhower decided to land as planned. Although the voyage was extremely difficult, the assault fleet maintained its basic formation and approached the designated beach as scheduled.

10 at 2: 30am on July, the allied forces parachuted 1 division in the Anglo-American landing zone, which opened the curtain of the Sicilian campaign. Due to the excessive wind speed and poor navigation system, 47 gliders crashed into the sea, and most of the airborne troops failed to land at the designated place. Several airborne troops who arrived at the target area as planned delayed the advance of the Italian reserve team to land on the beach, but failed to stop its action.

At the same time, the allied amphibious assault ship team successfully reached the scheduled landing point. After the airborne troops landed 15 minutes, under the cover of night and storm, the allied forces landed at Sicily coastline 160 kilometers with the huge strength of the eighth division: Montgomery commanded the British Eighth Army to land south of Syracuse, and Barton's American Seventh Army landed in Gera Bay. In the face of the allied raid, the German and Italian troops were caught off guard and the beach defense line was quickly destroyed. The Italian division defending the coast retreated in panic with little resistance. In this way, almost all the defense burdens fell on the shoulders of German divisions.

On the morning of August 17, the 3rd Division of the US Army entered Messina. Part of the Eighth Army also arrived in this city soon. On that day, the remnants of all the Axis countries on the island were wiped out. The German and Italian armies lost about 6.5438+0.6 million people (more than 6.5438+0.4 million Italian troops were captured), including 6.5438+0.2 million Germans. The total number of allied casualties and missing persons exceeded 22,000 (the British army lost nearly 1.2 million).

The Allies achieved most of the goals of the Eskimo campaign at a cost of less than 5%, which completely guaranteed the safety of the Allied communication lines in the Mediterranean.

Allied forces captured Sicily on July 1943, and on July 19, more than 500 bombers from the US 19 Air Force from North Africa and the Middle East bombed Rome for the first time, dropping 1000 tons, killing about 2,000 people and causing great damage to the ancient building of San Lorenzo Palace in the city. In view of Italy's defeat, other Italian fascist leaders put forward a bill authorizing the king to dismiss Mussolini and appointing Marshal Badoglio to take over as Prime Minister. The new Italian government dissolved the fascist party, declared martial law throughout the country and banned all political gatherings. Italian fascist rule, which lasted for 2 1 year, finally ended.

The victory of the landing campaign in Sicily led to the collapse of Italian fascist Mussolini, which greatly improved the status of the Allies in the eyes of neutral countries. Unfortunately, the allies failed to make full use of the air and sea control rights, and their actions were slow, resulting in the escape of nearly half of the Axis forces.