Posts Tagged ‘Operation Husky’
Minneapolis family heads to Sicily for WWII commemoration
Marian Johnson (right) with daughter Hayley and grandson Owen Three generations of an Edina family are heading to Sicily next month to join the commemoration of Allied landings on the island, which took place at a turning point in the Second World War, 80 years ago. Mother of five, Marian Johnson, will be joined on…
Read MoreTop speakers to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Sicily landings at Catania conference
More than 30 speakers from Italy, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US will address the Sicily Peace, Security & Prosperity conference in Catania on 7-8 July organised in partnership with Museo Storico dello Sbarco in Sicilia 1943 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the landings in Sicily. The event will be followed by…
Read MoreSwift success in Sicily was built on the lessons of the Tunisian campaign
At 1445 local time on 13 May 1943, 18 Army Group Commander General Harold Alexander sent the following signal to UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill in London: “Sir, it is my duty to report that the Tunisian campaign is over. All enemy resistance has ceased. We are masters of the North African shores.” One week later, American,…
Read MoreCountdown to Husky: Operation Mincemeat
Charles Cholmondeley (left) and Ewen Montagu with the van taking the body of Glyndwr Michael to Scotland on 17 April 1943 At 0415 on Friday 30 April 1943, the body of Glyndwr Michael was taken out of a sealed container on the deck of the Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph which had surfaced off Huelva on…
Read MoreCountdown to Husky: Canada joins the campaign
The sun was shining brightly on the afternoon of 23 April 1943 when Commander of the First Canadian Army Lieutenant General Andrew McNaughton (see left, below) strode into the War Office in Whitehall. It was St George’s Day and it had been more than two years since the last German bombing attack on Britain’s capital. The…
Read MoreCountdown to Husky: the false start and the final plan
Original plans called for widely dispersed landings and the early capture of both Catania and Palermo. The final plan concentrated Allied forces in the south-east of Sicily (Source: www.canadiansoldiers.com) Fully-engaged with the effort to defeat Axis forces in Tunisia in the spring of 1943, Allied commanders in North Africa were nevertheless presented with plans for…
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: Alan Whicker
Holding his camera over his head, Alan Whicker waded ashore near Pachino from a tank landing craft soon after dawn on 10 July 1943. “I took my first sodden steps on the long march towards the Alps,” Whicker wrote in his 2005 book Whicker at War. “So far, so surprisingly good…Standing tense on that soft…
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…
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