Operation Husky
Sicily conference report published
An 85–page report on the proceedings of The Sicily Peace, Security & Prosperity Conference on 7-8 July has been published this week. It covers a total of 40 speeches and presentations and the conference’s recommendations. You can see the report here: The Sicily Peace, Security & Prosperity Conference report
Read MoreStars in the Sicilian campaign: Audie Murphy
Seething with frustration, 18-year-old Corporal Audie Murphy landed on the Seventh Army’s western-most landing beach at Licata on 10 July 1943 three hours after his battalion’s first wave. “…the timing got snarled in the predawn confusion; and we came in late, chugging ashore like a bunch of clucks in a ferryboat.” Murphy wrote in his…
Read MoreStars in the Sicilian campaign: Christopher Lee
At six foot five inches, it was almost impossible for Christopher Lee to go unnoticed and that helped make him a star best known for playing the part of Count Dracula 10 times. But in the Second World War, he played a less obtrusive role as an RAF intelligence officer which brought him to Sicily…
Read MoreStars in the Sicilian campaign: Douglas Fairbanks Jr
The transition of Douglas Fairbanks Jr from Hollywood action hero to combat veteran was completed off the coast of Sicily near Gela in the early hours of 10 July 1943. Among those on the deck of Admiral Henry Hewitt‘s flagship USS Monrovia in the darkness before dawn, Fairbanks had spent the previous evening coaching Seventh…
Read MoreStars in the Sicilian campaign: Alec Guinness
Famous as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, Oscar-winner Alec Guinness had a starring role in the landings in Sicily on 10 July 1943. Born to an unmarried mother in April 1914, Guinness left school aged 18 to work in a London advertising agency. Determined to…
Read MoreRemembering the dead of the Sicily campaign
The CWGC Catania War Cemetery, the largest in Sicily, has 2,135 graves The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries in Catania and Syracuse contain the remains of 2,410 men who lost their lives between the start of the Sicilian campaign on the night of 9 July and the end of August 1943. The overwhelming majority…
Read MoreThe December 1941 Arcadia conference and the Irish Brigade
On 13 December 1941, a Royal Navy convoy comprising the battleship HMS Duke of York and three destroyers set sail for America from the River Clyde. The Duke of York was taking UK prime minister Winston Churchill on a tryst with destiny in Washington and a conference with US president Roosevelt. America had been Britain’s…
Read MorePeace walk to commemorate Sicily campaign
The 80th anniversary of Operation Husky and the start of the Sicilian campaign will be commemorated next summer in a 325km walk that will follow the route of the 1st Canadian Division and 1st Canadian Tank Brigade from landing beaches near Pachino to Adrano. The Walk for Remembrance & Peace (WRAP) is organised by the…
Read MoreCatania conference to commemorate Sicily campaign
A two-day conference is to be held in Catania next summer to mark the 80th anniversary of Allied landings in Sicily in July 1943. It will be one of a series of events on the island that will highlight a turning point in the history of Italy and Europe. The Sicily 1943: Peace, Security &…
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