230. From Husky to Overlord, Sicily to the D-Day beaches

In 1943, Britain didn’t feel the Western Allies were ready yet for an invasion of France, and with its influence at the highest point it ever reached, it was able to persuade the Americans reluctantly to postpone it for the moment. Instead, they went for an invasion of Sicily, which went well overall, though with significant casualties. Bertram Ramsay, who’d handled the Dunkirk Evacuation so well, commanded the naval forces and learned some invaluable lessons about this kind of combined operation.

The Allies moved onto the Italian mainland next, and after overthrowing Mussolini, the government there surrendered. Mussolini, rescued by the Germans from captivity, was set up ruling a rump and unpleasant republic in the north of Italy, and the fighting continued.

The Americans, though, now finally decided that enough was enough and that preparations had to be made for the French invasion. Stalin couldn’t agree more, when the USA, Britain and the Soviet Union met in Tehran. Oddly, the Americans accepted Stalin’s invitation to accommodation, which meant that every word they said was heard by the Soviets.

The agreement was for an invasion in May 1944. There were a few obstacles on the way, but in the end it went ahead only slightly delayed, on the 6th of June.

D-day! We’ve finally got there. And Allied troops were once more back on French soil.

Illustration: 1944 Royal Navy official photo of Admiral Bertram Ramsay, Naval Commander during both Operation Husky and Operation Overlord. Public Domain

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License