Customer Reviews

The Battle Of Sicily: How The Allies Lost Their Chance For Total Victory

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was written for the U.S. Army War College at Carlyle with the express purpose of providing a history of the battle of Sicily from the Axis perspective. Considering the fact that three German divisions (and a handfull of worthless Italian divisions) managed to hold the island for about 40 days and to escape in good fighting order (at least the German divisions, not the Italian) this topic is well worth teaching to U.S. Officers on the way up the chain of command.

The book provides a very good overview of not only axis but alied pre Sicily campaign strategies, overview of the battle as it unfolded (not just from ground battle perspective but air and sea), the main personalities involved including backgrounds and the post-battle results (including what alternative strategies in lieu of a direct assault on sicily may have achieved). In all of these the book succeeds. Unquestionably one of the best english language books on this campaign.

With respect to weaknesses, the main one (and why it receives four instead of five stars) is that all the research used comes only from english language sources. There is very little primary research in this book. This is a shame as the german and italian archives have voluminous information regarding this campaign that could have added further to an understanding of the campaign from the axis perspective. In addition, the book uses quite a bit of narrative (i.e., Patton or Montgomery thought or said this or that) that is not attributed to any source in footnotes. Considering the fact this book was intended as a scholarly work on the campaign, as opposed to a "pop" history book on the subject, this is an oversight of more than minor significance.

From a tactical standpoint, this book is 5 stars and I wanted to give it 5 stars for that's where my interest lies but some people will consider this endeavor as dry and lacking the flair of a Clark or D'este's book. But the fact is, there is battle coverage in this book that will not be found in those other books.

The author has a deliberate introduction starting with the defeat of the Axis Army in North Africa where approximately 250,000 men became POWs. Hitler, like always, would not fall back even when the situation was hopeless; he even made things worse by reinforcing Arnim from garrisons on Sicily and Italy, depleting their numbers. Rommel tried to persuade Hitler to fall back from Africa, knowing that it was only a short matter of time before the Allies would conquer. This loss is on the same magnitude as Stalingrad; if Rommel could have pulled back to Sicily, Italy and Southern France the outcome of Operations Husky, Avalanche and Shingle would have turned out much differently. If you also consider the destruction of the Rumanian, Italian and Hungarian Armies in the Uranus offensive then Hitler lost a million men within a few months period. It was clearly a turning point. Much of that loss could have been avoided if Hitler was not the fanatic who persisted to hold ground regardless of the circumstances.

The Allies fought among themselves and delayed their invasion of Sicily for a half a year, giving Kesselring time to reorganize his defense.

As usual, Mr Mitcham does a nice job in providing short bios of the key Axis commanders, both German and Italian, that Patton and Montgomery will be facing. The bitter fighting between the Allies is mention but not in a big way like other books provide but the author is more deliberate in setting up steps taken by the Axis in preparing for the invasion. The author also does a very good job, better than most books, in presenting the tactical 38 day conflict in a balanced manner that gives both sides credit. Except for the bios of the Axis commanders, there will be no anecdotal experiences shared.

Beside the land coverage, the author develops the naval and air action as well. The navy bombardment near Gela on D+1 probably saved Patton, while he had only a few troops on shore, from being pushed back into the sea. And just like it will be at Normandy the aid from the air force will have mix results on Sicily.

The author provides his appraisal of the campaign as well as comments from German generals that were given while in captivity after the war. They all agreed attacking Sicily first was a mistake. Sardiinia would have been the better island for it was barely defended and it would have given the Allies better possibilities in attacking Italy. It has been suggested that if Sicily were to be taken first that the Allies should have landed in Southern Italy where it was not defended; the Allies could have set defenses across from Messina and locked the Axis troops on Sicily, preventing the escape to fight another day. Interestingly, the author and these German generals would have bypassed Italy altogether and landed in northern France in 1943. They're convinced it would have been successful.

There are a number of black and white maps that help show the action and a few good photos. The photos show key personalities on both sides as well as a few battlefield scenes that show the terrible terrain the men had to fight on.

The last chapter describes what happened to the German commanders after Sicily and after the war. Some were lucky and died of old age while some died a miserable death in Soviet prisons. And some were executed as war criminals after the tirals.

These is also a detailed Order of Battle, Appendix, Notes section, an extensive Bibliography and Index.

If your interest is the tactical / operational aspect then this book is a must; if you prefer a book like Lloyd Clark's, you still should consider getting this book and use it as a reference for it has dramatically more battle coverage and info on German commanders.

I found the above book to be a great resource book which compliments a book written well by Carlo D'Este very well. The book contains only half the numbre of pages but answers a lot more of the questions.

After the Allies deprived Germany and Italy of North Africa, they attacked the slightly head island of Sicily. A bolder initiative would have been to invade Sardinia or the Italian mainland. They were also lightly held, and might have forced an invasion of Nazi Germany. The Allies were not bold enough, amd thus were stuck fighting a attrition war on Sicily.

Montgomery and Patton were not made out to be great generals. Patton was the bolder of the two. However, Bradley comes across as a decent general with a concern for his soldiers. Hube was the best general. He evacuated Sicily with minimum loss of life for the Germans. He held the alliance with the Italians together. He was a brilliant tactician.

This is an OK read about the campaign in Sicily. It was written from the German perspective. It is very detailed, and that may take off some of the interest.