While the units were training intensively, the bombardment of Sicily had already begun. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Of course, in order not to reveal offensive intentions, the Allied bombardment was not only aimed at Sicily, but also at Greece and southern France.

All three of these places could have been the sites of Allied landings, especially in the south of France...... Because the Germans believed that the Allies had obtained 200,000 French troops and a strong French fleet, they would be eager to fight back to France, so the south of France was a good choice.

In terms of the degree of bombing, the intelligence departments of the British and US forces are still very sophisticated, after all, they are all old industrial empires, and intelligence and deception have already played very smoothly.

According to ordinary people's thinking, then the more you don't want to reveal your strategic intentions, the more you should avoid them, for example, in these three locations, because Sicily is the real landing site of the Allied forces, so the intensity of the bombing should be smaller, so as to convince the Germans that it is not the target of the Allied forces.

However, British intelligence believed that Hitler was arrogant and often liked to pretend to be clever, especially because he was very stubborn...... This is important, because stubbornness means that he does not listen to other people's opinions.

So Britain and the United States decided to do the opposite, and the bombing of Sicily was particularly fierce, but the bombing of southern France and Greece was almost symbolic.

What is even more obvious is that the British and American air forces even bombed and blockaded a small island called "Bantellella", which is located between Tunisia and Sicily, only 110 kilometers away from Sicily, and can be used as an advance base for the Allied forces to attack Sicily, that is, the equipment, supplies, troops and even air forces of the Allied forces can be assembled here.

But Hitler didn't think so.

"These idiots!" Hitler looked at the map and said, "Do they think I'm so gullible to be fooled? They can't have done it so obviously, so, their target is certainly not Sicily, I think it's more likely that it's France...... You know, those generals in France can't wait to liberate their homeland! ”

So Hitler focused on the south of France, and even more ridiculously, even later, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops had already landed in Sicily, and Hitler still emphasized: "That may be the enemy's trick!" ”

As a result, Hitler did not go all out to rescue Bantarelli Island.

In fact, even the Germans were useless in their full rescue, because the island of Banterelli had a serious flaw, that is, the lack of water supply.

There were originally more than 10,000 people living on the island, which were barely enough to rely on the island's three wells and the rooftop to receive rainwater storage when it rained...... However, the German and Italian armies deployed more than 10,000 troops here, including more than 2,000 German troops and 10,000 Italian troops.

This has increased the water burden on the island, increasing the demand for water by almost two times compared to usual.

That's why it's almost tripled...... This is because the army needs much more water to train and build fortifications than the common people, and they don't know how to save it.

The inevitable result was that the German and Italian armies had to transport fresh water by ship through Sicily.

This is not a problem in peacetime, after all, Sicily is only a little more than a hundred kilometers away from Banterelli, and ships can reach it in a few hours, but in wartime...... As soon as the British and American air forces and submarines blockaded Banterelli Island, there was a serious water shortage on the island.

To make matters worse, the British sent intelligence officers to locate the three wells on the island and sent bombers to blow them up...... So it is no longer a "serious water shortage", but a "water cut-off" problem.

This situation made the German and Italian troops stationed on Banterelli understand that it was almost impossible to hold the island, so the Germans quickly withdrew from Banterelli.

This made the morale of the Italian army, which was already low, even worse, and they raised the white flag on the radio antenna early to prepare for surrender, but the sad thing was ...... The heavy Allied bombardment left the island full of smoke and dust, and these smoke and dust persisted for a long time.

This is the case in the Mediterranean, where the humid air can envelop the islands like a sandstorm for a long time.

As a result, the Allied pilots were unable to spot the white flag hoisted by the Italians, until the Allies sent an infantry division to cautiously take the landing craft to the beach, and were surprised to find that the Italian troops were waving the white flag......

Neither side suffered many casualties, with only 56 killed and 196 wounded by the Italians and one wounded by the Allies in the air raids, and was bitten by a snail after landing on the island.

Hence the famous saying of the Allies: "We may be more careful of snails than the Italian army!" ”

Soon this quote was shattered by another incident.

This incident was actually an accident, an Allied pilot got lost during a bombing mission, and the result of getting lost at sea was that he ran out of fuel, so he saw a small island from a distance, whether it was the enemy's or his own, and landed in a plane......

After landing, the pilot found himself unlucky, as he recognized the soldiers running towards him in Italian uniforms.

But soon he found himself lucky, because the hordes of Italian soldiers who were rushing towards him did not come to arrest him, but, on the contrary, they had come to surrender to him.

So he set a record for capturing an island and capturing thousands of Italian soldiers, even as a pilot.

As a result, the Allies also found out the bottom of the Italian army...... If this is the case with the Italian troops in the surrounding islands of Sicily, then the morale of the Italian troops in Sicily is not much better.

Then there is only one question left, and that is the problem of landing in Sicily.

But it was on this issue that Britain and the United States began a debate.

"Let me tell you the details of this landing operation!" Alexander said at the meeting: "Because of the obvious results of the continuous bombing of Sicily by the Allies, we have not only succeeded in seizing air and sea supremacy in Sicily, but also basically paralyzed the communications of Sicily, so I think ...... We can use the way of surprise attack to carry out landing operations! ”

As soon as this remark came out, it caused a sensation among the US generals.

They knew what the word "surprise attack" meant, that is, a sudden landing operation without prior battleship artillery fire and the cover of naval fire.