Sicily '43. James Holland

off from Tunisia, logic suggested they should be in the west. Furthermore, because the eastern parts of the island were closest to Messina, it seemed likely this side would be the more heavily defended. Moreover, the Gerbini airfield complex, close to Catania, clearly held the key to the defence of the island, and both the port and the surrounding airfields had to be the overriding number one initial target priority. On this, Eisenhower and Alexander were united. Montgomery demanded an extra division for his landings around Avola, just to the south of Syracuse, and one was eventually found. As Easter approached, it seemed that a plan of sorts was emerging upon which everyone was agreed.

      Then, on 24 April, a brusque and damning signal arrived from Monty, in which he called the proposed HUSKY plan a ‘dog’s breakfast’ that had no chance of success.6 ‘Unless someone will face up to this problem,’ he told General Brooke in London, ‘there will be a first-class disaster.’ Needless to say, this caused consternation elsewhere. Both Tedder and Cunningham were seething at Montgomery’s proposed front-loading of the Eastern Task Force to focus on the Avola area because it meant moving the planned British force that had been due to land around Gela and Licata on the central southern coast. Their task had been to overrun the airfields at Comiso and especially Gela–Ponte Olivo, which had recently grown in size and sophistication. Tedder felt they posed far too great a risk to be left in enemy hands, and so too did Cunningham. ‘I’m afraid Montgomery is a bit of a nuisance,’ wrote Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord.7 ‘He seems to think that all he has to do is to say what is to be done and everyone will dance to the tune of his piping. Alexander appears quite unable to keep him in order.’

      The real gripe for Tedder and Cunningham, though, was less that Montgomery was unhappy with the plan as it existed, more the way in which he demanded changes. It was, after all, only right that individual commanders should air concerns if they had them. Perhaps Alexander could have given Montgomery a lesson in manners, but Monty had always been forthright and outspoken; and he had Brooke’s unwavering support. In any case, he was the primary assault commander and it was essential he was carrying out a plan that had his backing. Montgomery had repeatedly proved himself a highly competent operational commander and was, by some margin, the most famous and lauded British general of the war to date. He instinctively understood what could and could not be achieved by largely conscript armies whose personnel would no longer be shot at dawn should they decide they didn’t want to go into battle after all. His big failing was his total inability to show any kind of sensitivity to others. He cared not a jot about rubbing people up the wrong way, and seemed to have no awareness of his appalling rudeness.

      Much has been made over the years of tensions between the British and the Americans, but the spats that did occur rarely ran on national lines; they were nearly always over matters of differing tactical approaches or doctrine, or basic clashes of personality that had nothing to do with nationality. Almost all the senior commanders loathed Montgomery; that didn’t make him a bad commander, but it did complicate matters, especially when there was quite enough pressure and tension to deal with as it was. Even in a time of coalition warfare and diplomatic singing from the same hymn sheet, Monty steadfastly proved incapable of abiding by the rules.

      His scathing critique of the current favoured plan was, on the face of it, all the more remarkable because he had earlier appeared reasonably happy. What had changed his view had been the fighting in Tunisia. After the Battle of Wadi Akarit at the beginning of April, Montgomery’s Eighth Army had swept up the coastal plain confident of bursting through the next obvious defensive position around Enfidaville, which was held by what had once been Rommel’s Panzerarmee Afrika but was now a mostly Italian force commanded by the Italian Generale Messe. Instead of a swift victory, Eighth Army had hit a brick wall. Takrouna, a particularly well-defended strongpoint, proved an especially stubborn and hard-fought battle. It made Montgomery realize, with stark clarity, that on the home soil of Sicily the Italians might well not prove the push-over being predicted. ‘Planning so far’, Monty wrote to Alex, ‘has been based on the assumption that the opposition will be slight and that Sicily will be captured relatively easily.8 Never was there a greater error. The Germans and also the Italians are fighting desperately now in Tunisia and will do so in Sicily.’ Montgomery might have been overstating matters, but HUSKY was not the time to throw caution to the wind and gamble. It went back to the most vital of all considerations: HUSKY could not be allowed to fail.

      Expressions of caution over the likely strength of enemy defence had prompted caustic signals from Churchill, who seemed to be forgetting Gallipoli back in 1915, when the Allies had landed against what had been assumed to be comparatively weak Turkish troops. In any case, Monty’s bombshell chimed with nagging doubts as to the current plan shared by both Eisenhower and Alexander. By the end of April, however, it was clear the Tunisian campaign was nearly over and so there was now time to give HUSKY more detailed consideration. The picture was beginning to clarify. ‘It must be remembered when considering the frame of mind in which we set out on this expedition,’ noted Alex, ‘that this was the first large-scale amphibious operation in the war against a defended coastline and opponents equipped with modern weapons … No care was too great to ensure our first landing in Europe should be successful beyond doubt.’9

      While Alexander and Eisenhower now accepted Montgomery’s demand for greater strength around Avola, that did not mean they had completely accepted his plans; after all, there was the question of what to do about the airfield complexes at Gela–Ponte Olivo and Comiso. Failing to neutralize thirteen enemy airfields that could threaten shipping and landings was every bit as unacceptable as attacking under strength at Avola.

      Montgomery’s planning team went back to the drawing board and on 1 May he flew in person to Algiers, where he met with Major-General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, and suggested abandoning the western assault altogether and instead directing Patton’s Western Task Force to the southern coast at Gela and Licata. Bedell Smith was sold on this idea but initially Eisenhower refused to discuss it further without Alexander being present. Bad weather prevented Alex from reaching Algiers the following day, although a conference was held then after all. By the time Alexander finally reached Allied Forces HQ on 3 May, Ike had come round to Montgomery’s proposals.

      By now Alexander had needed little persuading. He’d already proposed such a plan early on, and only the accepted need for Palermo’s port had persuaded him otherwise. Both Tedder and Cunningham seemed content, although Tedder decidedly grudgingly so; he had long since grown weary of Montgomery – and could hardly be blamed for that. Only two concerns troubled both Ike and Alex. One was unloading directly on to the very extensive beaches around Gela; but this, it seemed, was being solved in part by the arrival of DUKWs. Pronounced ‘ducks’, these were ingenious amphibious vehicles developed by the Americans that could swim from larger vessels and then drive straight on to the beach. Large orders had been placed on 22 March with an understanding they would be available for HUSKY.

      The second concern was the perception that the Western Task Force, or more simply US Seventh Army as it was about to be renamed, should somehow be playing second fiddle. Its commander, General Patton, was as forthright as Montgomery and not known to mince his words or hide his displeasure if slighted. But when this new and final plan was presented to him, Patton was as good as gold. ‘It is an impressive example of the spirit of complete loyalty and inter-Allied co-operation’, wrote Alexander, ‘which inspired all operations with which I was associated in the Mediterranean theatre.’10

      CHAPTER 4

      Hitler’s Gamble

      GERMAN COMMANDERS IN THIS war were not widely known for their eccentricities, but the senior army officer on Sicily that May certainly stood apart from his peers. Partial to wearing a tartan kilt and a claymore sword slung by his side, Oberst Ernst-Günther Baade had been something of a legendary figure in Rommel’s Afrika Korps, known for his fearlessness, immense charm, wonderful sense of humour and penchant for tapping into British telephone conversations and having a chat in his flawless English with whoever was on the other end of the line. Another favourite trick was calling in to misdirect artillery fire.

      Born to wealth in Brandenburg in 1897, Baade had grown up an avid horseman, roaming widely on his family estates. Clever, and intellectually curious, he was immensely