Operation Husky, better know as the Invasion of Sicily

Let’s hope it’s the last one!

On 9^th July 2023, Sicily commemorated the 80^th anniversary of operation Husky, codename for the invasion of Sicily by the Anglo-Canadian-American troops. A day that marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War. For the first time —eighty years from that evening— I discover what happened on that ominous day, at a conference organised  by the local authorities in Caltagirone, a town 39 km away from the shores, where the Anglo-American troops landed. Apparently, the invasion of Sicily was the biggest landing operation in the history of Europe. In the first three days of the invasion, 150,000 troops, 7,000 vehicles, and 300 tanks were transported by sea, on 2600 vessels; while 4000 airplanes were ready to take off from the African basis.

On paper, the war had been lost already, but for a series of circumstances, Sicily had to pay a heavy price before the ‘liberation’.

Alfio Caruso, the author of ‘Un viaggio nella memoria – Caltagirone ’43’, talks about the number of bombs dropped, “on June 10 alone, the island was rocked by 1,500 tons of bombs”, about the carpet bombing going on for days on end, the deaths, the destruction, the mayhem, the terror. He talks about the battle between the Canadian troops and the Axis Force, who were retreating in a hurry,  trying to reach the north of Italy, where the fascists were still in charge.