Operation Husky was designed by the Allies to force Italy out of the war. But the American and Canadian members of the military found conditions much more severe than they had anticipated when they anded from the sea. For a detailed account of Operation Husky, click this link.
By: Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
“Operation Husky” — the Allied invasion of Sicily — begins on July 9, 1943, with the U.S. 82nd and the British 1st Airborne Divisions making the first landings on the island, at night. However, due to navigational errors, hundreds of U.S. paratroopers are dropped into the sea and drown, while many others dropped over land are widely scattered and miss their assigned targets. The island is defended by 230,000 Italian and 40,000 German troops. In Russia, the Soviets say that the German attack at Kursk has been held and claim that they have destroyed 2,000 German tanks in four days (a major exaggeration).
On July 10, “Operation Husky” is fully underway, with 12 divisions (160,000 men and 600 tanks) of the British Eighth Army (under Gen. Sir Bernard Montgomery) and the U.S. Seventh Army (led by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton) being brought ashore by 3,000 landing craft (200 of which sink in rough seas) on the southeast coast of Sicily. The Italians are caught by surprise, not expecting an attack during stormy weather. Landings are assisted by a new amphibious truck — the DUKW (widely known as the “Amphibious Duck”). The British, approaching the Sicilian port of Siracusa (Syracuse), meet with little German resistance. U.S. forces, however, are held back by strong counterattacks by the German Hermann Göring and the Italian Livorno divisions.
The attacking German forces at Kursk, Russia, are depleted by heavy losses in men and armor and have nearly spent their momentum, even though the 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf, in the southern sector, succeed in capturing the pivotal town of Prokhorovka. To prevent further attrition, especially of the vital armored forces, Field Marshals von Kluge and von Manstein on July 11 urge Hitler to call off the operation, but der Führer refuses. In Sicily, a thrust by the German Hermann Göring Panzer Division almost reaches U.S. forces on the coast near the landing sites of Gela and Licata. The German attack is turned back by U.S. paratroopers.
What historians call “the largest tank battle in history” takes place on July 12 near Prokhorovka, Russia. The Red Army’s Central, Bryansk and West Fronts begin a massive counteroffensive around Orel, Bryansk and Kursk. (The Soviets call Army Groups, consisting of several armies, “Fronts”). As many as 615 Soviet and 430 German tanks are involved. At Krasnogorsk, a Moscow suburb, a group of captured German officers — including Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus — and exiled German communists form a “National Committee for a Free Germany” that calls for overthrowing Hitler and ceasing hostilities against the Soviet Union.
The Japanese on July 13 sink the destroyer USS Gwin and damage three U.S. Navy cruisers at the Battle of Kolombangara, an island in the Kula Gulf, off New Georgia in the Solomons. In Russia, no further German gains are made despite a maximum effort to break through the Soviet defenses at Kursk.
In Krasnodar, in southwestern Russia, the first war-crimes trial of the global conflict begins on July 14. Evidence is presented against 11 German defendants accused of the mass murder of Soviet civilians. The trial is witnessed by Allied journalists, who file the first reports detailing Nazi atrocities to the West. (Eight of the Germans will be sentenced to death and shot.) In Sicily, two groups of soldiers of the U.S. 180th Infantry Regiment perpetrate the Biscari Airfield Massacre near the village of San Pietro. In two separate incidents, 73 unarmed Italian and German prisoners of war are summarily executed by the GIs involved. In the Caribbean, Free French administrators take over the former Vichy French governments on the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Martin and Saint Barthélemy.
On July 15, Brig. Gen. Renzo Chierici, chief of police in the Italian-occupied sector of France, agrees to Nazi demands to turn over all German Jews who had fled over the border of German-occupied France into his area of control.
