Transcript Battle of Salerno

Battle of September
Salerno
3, 1942 – September 16, 1942
Zoee Davis Period 5
Allies
• General Sir Harold Alexander – December 10th, 1891 - June 16th, 1969
• General Sir Bernard Montgomery – November 17th, 1887 - March 24th, 1976
• Lieutenant General Mark Clark – May 1st, 1896 - April 17th, 1984
189,000 men total
• Unitied Kingdom, Unitied states, Canada
• 2009 killed
• 7050 wounded
• 3501 missing
Axis
• Field Marshal Albert Kesselring - November 30th, 1885 – July 16, 1960
• General Henrich Von Vietinghoff – December 6th, 1881 – February 13th, 1952
100,000 Men
• Germany, Italy
• 3500 casualties
3rd Infantry Division
• Untied States combined arms, based in fort Stewart, Georgia.
• Direct subordinate unit of xvii (17) airborne corps & u.s. army forces
command fought in ww2.
• Its current organization includes two brigade combat teams, one aviation
brigade, a division artillery and support elements. The division has a
distinguished history, having seen active service in both World War I and
World War II.
D-Day Plan
• Day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. The best D-Day
plan is ww2.
• D-Day means day whereas& H-Day means hours on which.
Full Story
• British and American armies invaded southern Italy, striking at the heart of a
major Axis nation and breaching Hitler's "Fortress Europe." Behind the
invasion lay long months of hard-won Allied victories. When British and
American armies annihilated the German and Italian forces cornered in
Tunisia. Sicily, the stepping stone from Africa to Europe, was next conquered
in a 38-day battle, and on 17 August the last of its German fled across the
Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland. On 3 September the British Eighth
Army crossed the Strait in pursuit and drove up the Calabrian Peninsula.
Coordinated with the Eighth Army's attack, Allied landings at Salerno by the
United States Fifth Army and at Taranto by the British 1 Airborne Division were
made on 9 September. In the Salerno landings, strong American forces were
fighting on the continent of Europe for the first time since 1918.
More on the war
• U.S. 5th Army under Lt. Gen. Mark Clark landed along the Salerno coastline
while British Commando units and their American counterparts, the U.S.
Rangers, landed on the peninsula itself. Salerno had been chosen as the first
site for invasion of the peninsula because it was the northern-most point to
which the Allies could fly planes from its bases in Sicily, which they had
already invaded and occupied. Rockets launched from landing craft provided
cover, and the beach landings went relatively smoothly. It wasn’t until two
days later that the Germans, with some Italian troops coerced into service,
mounted a heavy counterattack on the beachhead.
Background
• With the conclusion of the campaign in North Africa in the late spring of 1943,
Allied planners began looking north across the Mediterranean. Though
American leaders such as General George C. Marshall favored moving forward
with an invasion of France, his British counterparts desired a strike against
southern Europe. Pushing inland, the troops of Lieutenant General George S.
Patton's Seventh Army and General Sir Bernard Montgomery's Eighth Army
pushed back the Axis defenders.
Bibliography
• N.p., n.d. Web. Jan.-Feb. 2017.