Talk:Allied invasion of Italy

Marker Page
This is just a marker page for now, which I intend to expand on over the next few days. DJ Clayworth 18:14, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

THE LAST (ROYAL) ITALIAN  RESISTANCE
The Operation "Baytown" started by a huge shell-fire of the coast (one of the most important of WWII): the 211th Italian coastal division (rather weak indeed) collapsed after a small resistance: only a platoon defended Reggio Calabria. The Italian Air Force intervened by 35 fighters. However General Mario Arisio (commander of the Italian 7th Army) ordered to resist and two further resistances did happen: one in Sant Stefano d`Aspromonte (9th battalion of paratroopers)on September 4, one near Platì (8th battalion of paratroopers)on September 8. It was the last battle of the Royal Italian Army in WWII:400 paratroopers fought against 5,000 Canadians. When the Italians had no munitions any more, they attacked using rifles as Indian clubs. A few of hours later the government accepted to surrender (after a turbulent discussion in the Royal Palace in Rome and where General Giacomo Carboni asserted the necessity to reject the agreement of September 3 and to carry on the war). So the next Italian resistance in South Italy did happen on October 30 near Mondragone, when 700 soldiers of the RSI attacked the units of the 5.th US-Army. (sources: Giuseppe Marcianò, Giorgio Pisanò)

The naval battles which never took place.
Though admiral Carlo Bergamini, commander-in-chief of the Italian Navy wanted to fight, the surrender hindered the last naval battles in front of Salerno (3 Italian battleships against 4 battleships and 7 aircraft-carriers of the United Nations) and in front of Taranto (2 Italian battleships against 2 British battleships).

Cleanup & more
Hi, I'm currently working on cleaning up & refining this article, in order to eventually remove the top cleanup tags. I've done some formatting, rewriting, image locating and stuff, and I have recently added a standard infobox. Calling out to all you wiki-historians: Please help fill in missing or erroneous data! My regards, --Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 00:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I will also try to merge Operation Avalanche (World War II) with this article soon...--Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 01:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have merged Operation Avalanche (World War II) with this article now, and redirected Operation Avalanche (World War II) to here, for the same reason Operation Overlord redirects to Battle of Normandy. --Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 18:32, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the tag, since I think the cleanup need is not so dire anymore. Nevertheless, I'm sure the text could flow better, so please help out! Regards --Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 18:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Article name
Wouldn't it be more correct and consistent with similar articles to call this one Invasion of the Italian mainland (1943)? Since Sicily is part of Italy and articles about battles/campaigns are usually prefaced with battle/siege/invasion/etc rather than the name of one of the sides involved. And disambiguation for battles of the same name is usually by date. Grant65 | Talk 15:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The fall of Brindisi.
Brindisi, the provisional Italian capital, seat of the King and of Marshal Badoglio, was taken by the British on September 11, 1943.

Removal of "expert attention" tag ?
(This message has also been sent to User:Kirrages and User:Buckboard1).

I have noticed that there have been many edits in this article, and missing information has been filled in. Considering User:Kirrages's and User:Buckboard1's edits, I could safely say that you two know much more about the Invasion of Italy than I. Therefore, I ask if either one of you, or both, can assess the article, with hope of removing the "ugly" "need of attention"-tag? My feeling is that this tag is not very urgent anymore, but I personally know too little to be bold enough and remove it. I am sure you two can make a decision. My regards, --Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 22:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, had the eye off the ball doing other things. In the past I wasn't sure what the etiquette was on the "needs attention" tag - had assumed maybe that whoever put it on would take it off at the appropruiate time. Still, I don't think the article merits the tag anymore so will remove it. The worst that can happen is someone gives me an earful of grief and puts it back!! Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 23:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot, Kirrages! If anyone blames you, you can always blame me as the instigator... :) My regards, --Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 00:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

ERRORS
According to the official U.S. Army History, a book by Albert N. Garland and Howard McGaw Smyth entitled SICILY AND THE SURRENDER OF ITALY, the name of the two aborted airborne operations were Operation GIANT I & II ( not "Operation Grant I & II" as is listed in this article).

Also according to the Garland & Smyth book, General Taylor was not at that time the 82nd Airborne Division Assistant Division Commander as is listed in this Wikipedia article. He was actually the 82nd Airborne Division Artillery Commander.

You should probably list the Garland & Smyth book in your list of sources. 28 March 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.116.10.13 (talk) 15:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If you have a copy of the book please feel free to make the suggested changes yourself (with appropriate footnotes referring to the book). Sadly I don't have a copy and it's not one of the CMH publications they have online - only a brief content summary at http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/11-9/6-2.htm - otherwise I'd do it myself. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 17:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Revised History
"Italian (and more so German) resistance proved relatively strong, and fighting in Italy continued even after the fall of Berlin."
 * While reading this article, I came across this staggering line in the "Strategy" section! I thought WW II in Europe finished with the fall of Berlin. And I thought the Italians surrendered in September, 1943. If the words " up to" replaced "even after" in this sentence, it might be a little more accurate. RASAM (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

actually a german general was hiding in the mountains, and finally surrendered a few days after berlin fell, italy's goverment surrendered in 1943, but rebels helped german troops.--75.63.2.206 (talk) 18:47, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

allied strength
189.000 men on 16 september includes the men already lost? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.176.145.41 (talk) 01:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Article name
A point was made above which does not seem to have gained any attention so re listed here, the Allied invasion of Italy must have started with Allied invasion of Sicily as the article states it launched the Italian Campaign. So the name of this article is a bit misleading Allied invasion of mainland Italy or Invasion of the Italian mainland (1943) may be better names. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Missing words
"The overthrowing of Mussolini and the Fascisti made a more ambitious plan feasible, and the Allies decided to supplement the crossing (my emphasis) of the British Eighth Army with a seizure of the port of Naples." This sentence appears in para 5 of the 'Allied plan' section; it doesn't seem to make any sense - crossing what? I don't understand it. I think there are a couple of words missing between 'British Eighth Army' and 'with', such as ... crossing the British Eighth Army 'to the eastern part of the country'... with 'the simultaneous' seizure of the port of Naples.RASAM (talk) 21:24, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Tried to clarify geography
They were planning to land at Taranto go up the west coast? Taranto is closer to the east coast. I realized in doing this that the Allies must have made little allowance for the existence of the Italian mountains -- which run all up and down the peninsula's middle and reach the coast in may places (such as Sorrento). I limited myself to editing for clarity as I haven't made that close a study of the Italian campaign, though I do have a book on order. There has been a lot written in recent years with the opening of various archives, I understand. Mballen (talk) 08:00, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Article Title
This was mentioned earlier: this article is about the invasion of mainland Italy only - we have a separate article on the Invasion of Sicily, which this article does not encompass. Does anyone object to moving the article to Allied invasion of mainland Italy? DeCausa (talk) 08:28, 7 May 2021 (UTC)


 * A quick tells me it's the WP:CommonName for the event, so my non-vote is for it to stay at this title. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:09, 7 May 2021 (UTC)


 * If so, then wouldn’t that mean it needs to be expanded to also cover Invasion of Sicily, with that article being a sub-article of it per WP:Summary style. To state the obvious, Sicily is part of Italy. DeCausa (talk) 20:35, 7 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree with GraemeLeggett that the current title appears to be the common name. I don't think that Invasion of Sicily should become a pure subarticle, but I do think the Sicily invasion could be covered a bit better in this article than it currently is. Hog Farm Talk 21:03, 7 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Perhaps unhelpfully, I agree with both DeCausa and GraemeLeggett here. DeCausa is right in that this title is flawed given that Sicily is part of Italy. However, Graeme is correct that it's also the common name - historians tend to refer to the invasion of Sicily and the invasion of Italy. Given that we are guided by WP:COMMONNAME, I'd suggest that the article remain where it is. A hat note pointing to the Sicily article would likely be in order, and might help to minimise readers' confusion. Nick-D (talk) 23:10, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Concur with Nick-D. Thewellman (talk) 23:34, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Understood. I agree, having now had a quick look at the sources, that there is a COMMONNAME issue. The only thing I would say is that COMMONNAME isn’t the be all and end all. There is a Recogizability/Naturalness/Precision (WP:CRITERIA) issue with the name - I think the vast majority of readers would be surprised that Sicily is out of scope with this name. This cropped up for me as a practical issue when I was editing another article where there was a tangential/peripheral reference to the invasion of “Italy”, but the context (timing-wise) really meant the invasion of Sicily. I needed to link the phrase to an article - but to change the wording to “the invasion of Sicily” (to correctly link it) required too much further explanation (in the context of that article where it was really only a tangential reference) for it to make sense. So I found myself pipe-linking “Invasion of Italy” to Invasion of Sicily, which seemed problematic. That said, I can see there’s clearly no appetite to change it so happy to drop it on the basis of COMMONNAME - but agree with the hatnote idea.. DeCausa (talk) 09:18, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I've just added the hat note. If this discussion evolves and support for moving the article develops, I'd of course have no concerns with the hat note being removed. Nick-D (talk) 02:13, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I concur with where this has headed. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 05:34, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Bombing of Pompeii
Hello I'm currently working on a section of another article which describes how the archaeological site at Pompeii was mistakenly damaged as a result of allied bombing raids during the invasion and details how the damage done by these raids and the presence of leftover ordinance has posed a threat to the site's conservation. If anyone who has worked on this article thinks that info would be a nice addition here (perhaps under the aftermath section) I will go ahead and add it. Patroklean (talk) 05:41, 28 April 2022 (UTC)