Full Narration - The Situation in Italy in World War II and Kesselring's Plan (V)

But this bookish plan is not brilliant when implemented. First of all, the landing was too hasty, the Allies had no plan for a large-scale landing in Italy, only a small landing plan made by the British, which was also because the Americans were worried that if the Italian operation went too smoothly, then the British would have to put forward a plan to open a second European battlefield from the southern front. So the American army led by Eisenhower was not prepared to land in Italy at all, on the contrary, the Americans had been busy making a Sardinian landing plan during this time, hoping to delay the war by attacking Sardinia first. But in the end, it was the Italians who acted too strongly, and they willingly signed an agreement of unconditional surrender, so that the Americans wanted to keep a low profile and did not allow it in terms of strength.

The second is a mistake in the selection of landing sites. Judging from the landing sites at that time, the landing across the Strait of Messina was the safest but also the most unpromising, and the Italians who loved football compared their land to a leg for playing football, but in fact the soles of this leg were not strong enough, not like athletes, but like a beautiful woman in high heels. Landing on the tip of this lady's toe is equivalent to placing herself on a narrow strip of land, and there is a mountain range on this narrow toe, and only the two coastal roads on both sides of the mountain range can run a large number of vehicles, so that the area cannot advance rapidly, so the attack in this direction can only be auxiliary.

Cut off the toes and land, there are three remaining locations: the first Taranto Port, this deep-water port located on the heel of the beauty high heels, is the best port on the east coast of Italy, and is also the main anchorage of the Italian Navy. Germany had no troops on the ground, and the Allies could safely land with the cooperation of the Italian army and navy, then transport a large amount of supplies ashore and advance rapidly north and west along the road. Landing at this location, however, had little chance of encircling the German forces on the west coast—it turned out that, with the cooperation of the Italians, the British had taken control of the harbor with only one paratrooper division, an area that was very safe, almost risk-free, and had good roads, but the main allied offensive was not here.

The second target was Naples, a coastal city with excellent port facilities and Kesselring's biggest feared landing site. If the Allies had landed here, Kesselring's plan to establish a defensive line between Rome and Naples would have failed, and the only way out for the Germans in southern Italy was to seize all the time to flee and flee to the Alps, hoping that Rommel would come to the rescue in time. But this landing site was also the most dangerous, and the Germans would not allow such an important location as Naples to be undefended, and the area was beyond the range of Allied fighters and bombers, which was an important reason why Kesselring dared to continue this gamble - he believed that the Allies would not dare to conduct large-scale operations in areas beyond the scope of air support.

The third target is salerno Bay. If Naples is the middle of the calf, then salerno Bay is equivalent to the ankle, the beach and coast are good (and the season is good at the time), the Allied landing craft can dock smoothly, but compared with Naples and Taranto, there is no large port, and the speed of allied follow-up troops and supplies will be limited. And there was a lot of mountain around, which was convenient for the defenders to block. The landing in this place was less risky than Napoli, and the possibility of annihilating the Germans compared to Taranto seemed to be an option that balanced risk and opportunity. But if I choose, then I may choose Taranto, a safe landing in a well-equipped port, and then crush the German army in weight with a huge number of troops, in any case, Roosevelt has signaled that there is no hurry to fight Italy, so as long as the American people hand over a series of successful landings and the news of the occupation of a number of Italian cities, it is enough, but the leader of the entire military plan may be the "masterpiece" of the British general Alexander, and the British are eager to win a quick victory in Italy.

So the Allies finally chose salerno Bay, the least well-equipped port, and abandoned two excellent ports, that is, to avoid risks, but also to surround the German army, both to perform, but also not to bear the cost of risk. Theoretically, the plan did have a good chance of encircling the Germans, but this was based on the fact that the Italians performed well and the German commanders were poorly skilled. Due to the limited port conditions in the landing area and the surrounding mountains, the Allied military plan depended on the cooperation of the Italian army on many issues, and the Italians not only had to help the Allies land safely on the beach, but also to ensure the smooth flow of the road from salerno Bay to Naples, so that the Allies could use it to attack quickly, and at the same time to block the German retreat road to the north and prevent the German army from approaching the landing field of salerno Bay. But can italians really do just that? Or in the United States or the United Kingdom, locals often see sows climbing trees in the summer to cool off.

At the same time, the Allies must also rely on the Commanders in Germany to allocate their forces according to their ideas, concentrate the main force on the attack of Montgomery's Eighth Army crossing the sea from the Strait of Messina, and then take the opportunity to land from salerno Bay and stab the Germans in the back. But such a trick was soon recognized, and the Germans knew full well that the toes were not conducive to the Allies' superiority in their forces, so they had long concluded that the offensive in this direction was only to force their own troops, and in fact there were very few German troops on the toes of Italy to resist the attack of the British Eighth Army, and the work of these Germans was to delay the British attack, not to prevent the British attack. They accomplished the task well, based on three favorable conditions: only two coastal roads available in the area; excellent bridge blasting and laying skills by German sappers; and Montgomery's command. The german main force was deployed in the northern part of salerno Bay, and their plan was to give the landing Allies a head-on attack, prevent them from approaching Naples, and use the time to disarm the Italians, destroy the port facilities of Naples, and then fight and retreat until a defensive line was established between Rome and Naples.