Sicilia 1943

Under the code name Husky, the Allied assault on Sicily beginning on July 10, 1943, was the largest amphibious operation in history. That day, more than 160,000 British, American and Canadian troops landed or disembarked on the shores of the Italian island to begin the assault on Fortress Europe, more than would land on D-Day in Normandy a year later. Following an air campaign that consolidated a new way of warfare and marked the beginning of Allied hegemony in the European skies, the battle for Sicily was one of the most dramatic and momentous campaigns of the entire Second World War. Under the scorching sun and on an island infested by mosquitoes and disease and controlled by the mafia, the Allies engaged in unprecedented violence in hostile environments, with limited resources and against an enemy who refused to surrender. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with survivors, James Holland, leading exponent of the new generation of historians reinterpreting World War II, offers us the gripping and vivid account of one of the great turning points of the conflict: the an operation without which D-Day and Allied victory would not have been possible.