None of this should be construed to mean that HUSKY was a
perfect military campaign, that there were no flaws in the planning and
execution of the operation.
In analyzing the Sicilian Campaign, one might naturally
question why the original plan was ever changed: why the Allied armies were
bunched on the southeastern coast instead of landing at widely separated points
and then converging on Messina. The final plan was based on anticipation of
strenuous Italian resistance. The whole approach toward Sicily was cautious and
conservative. Emphasis was on ensuring success and on the avoidance of
calculated risk or gamble for high stakes at little cost. The plan was also
designed to avoid the possibility of enemy ground force superiority at any
point. If any sub task force landing were to fail or miscarry through enemy
interference, the adjacent landings would guarantee numerical superiority over
the defenders.
The final HUSKY plan was for a power drive, a frontal
assault along a single sector of the coast. At no time during the course of
planning of the Sicilian invasion did the Allied commanders aim to achieve an
envelopment of the defending forces to launch the initial attacks behind the
flanks of the enemy. Even the two-pronged attack envisaged in the initial plan
was designed to gain port facilities, not to get between the enemy and Messina.
In the final plan, the two Allied armies were to land abreast and to advance
together. This was to minimize the danger of having the enemy concentrate
against one task force at a time. The risks in the plan were strictly in the
matter of supply and mainly affected the Seventh Army.
Sound, cautious, conservative, the final plan was well
designed to achieve the occupation of Sicily, the objective set by the Combined
Chiefs. At the same time, Alexander's idea of first consolidating a firm base
on the southeast corner offered little scope for maneuver with the object of
destroying the enemy garrison.
In essence, the plan as finally designed was Montgomery's.
No one except Montgomery was particularly happy with it. The strategic
conception inherent in the plan was both disadvantageous to and disparaging of
the American force. Although the original two-pronged attack was based solely
on logistical considerations, it implied a twofold advance on Messina. Each
army, having gained its port, would advance by its own route to Messina, the
hinge of Sicily. The defending forces were expected either to concentrate
against one attacking force, leaving the route of advance open to the other, or
to withdraw quickly to the northeastern corner of the island where the two
Allied armies would converge. The final plan changed all this, and embodied an
altogether different conception. There would be but one thrust against
Messina-the drive through Catania along the east coast highway by the Eighth Army.
The Seventh Army would protect the flank and rear of Montgomery's forces. Only
reluctantly and under pressure did General Alexander finally consent to release
the Seventh Army from a subordinate and purely supporting mission.
The numerous changes in the HUSKY plan during the
February-May period came about as a direct result of the command structure
which had been specifically spelled out by the Combined Chiefs of Staff at
Casablanca. For the second time-the first had been in North African Allied
military operation was to be conducted under the control of a triumvirate of
commanders, rather than under the direction of one. General Alexander (Eisenhower's
deputy) was made responsible for the ground operations; Air Chief Marshal
Tedder for air operations; Admiral Cunningham for naval activities. General
Eisenhower was to act as a sort of chairman of the board, to enter into the
final decision-making process only when the board members presented him with
unsolved problems. If the three board members agreed on policy, there was
little that Eisenhower could do to change the policy unless he was willing to
dispense with the board members' services. Eisenhower was raised involuntarily
far above the operational level; only indirectly could he influence the course
of operations once that course had been agreed on by his committee of three.
The committee system of command would have been more
palatable if the headquarters had not been physically separated- if the
committee members had established and maintained a joint headquarters at a
single location. But with the invasion of Sicily, Alexander established his
headquarters on the island; Tedder's headquarters remained in North Africa,
near Tunis; Cunningham's naval headquarters was at Malta; and General
Eisenhower's staff remained in Algiers. While the separation had little effect
on the conduct of the campaign during the month of July, although it appears logical
to assume that a joint headquarters might have prodded General Montgomery into
doing more on the east coast in the way of amphibious end runs, one result of
maintaining such widely separated headquarters became painfully evident during
the last ten days of the operation, when the Axis forces began evacuating the
island. A joint plan was not drawn up to prevent an enemy evacuation from the
island. Each of the three services operated independently of the others, doing
what it thought best to prevent the evacuation. Since the issue was not
presented to the chairman of the board (General Eisenhower), the issue remained
unsolved, and the Germans and Italians completed one of the most successful
evacuations ever executed from a beleaguered shore.
Furthermore, there was the question of air support: whether
or not Allied air plans were meshed sufficiently with ground and naval plans.
Simply put, the Allied air forces in the Mediterranean refused to work out
detailed plans in co-operation with the army and navy. This was particularly
true in the case of the Seventh Army-to a much lesser degree in the Eighth
Army, where Montgomery's relations with the British Desert Air Force were somewhat
different from Patton's relations with the U.S. XII Air Support Command. The
official air force historians explain the airman's views:
It should be noted
that the air plan dealt for the most part with broad policies and that it had
not been integrated in detail with the ground and naval plans. This was
deliberate, and the result of sound strategical and tactical considerations
emphasized by experience in the Tunisian and Western Desert campaigns. There
would be no parceling out of air strength to individual landings or sectors.
Instead, it would be kept united under an over-all command in order to insure
in its employment the greatest possible flexibility. It would be thrown in full
force where it was needed, and not kept immobilized where it was not needed.
Too, the chief immediate task of the air arm was to neutralize the enemy air
force, a fluid target not easily pinpointed in advance.
Primarily concerned with other matters -neutralizing enemy
air, strategic targets, armed reconnaissances, cover over the beaches-the
Allied air commanders devoted little thought and attention to providing close
air support to the ground forces during the campaign. During the first critical
forty-eight hours, no close air support missions were flown in support of the
Seventh Army, and no close support missions were handled by the air support parties
with the II Corps and with the assault divisions until 13 July. Even then the
cumbersome system of requesting missions, with attendant delays in transmission
and in identifying targets, proved almost unmanageable. It resulted in the
scrapping of many requested and approved missions, and sometimes worked out in
disastrous ways for friendly forces.
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