Sorry, I don't have the time to get my books out and cite certain things, but here's what I believe. I don't think we had the landing craft available at that time to make a massive assault on the same scale as D-Day a year later.

...

Nic

Also air superiority (for the allies) would have been less at that time if I remember my history. And think of what an additional year had done to Germany on the Eastern front. They had lost much by mid-1944.

Jim

Well, we should have invaded Italy only to the line slightly north of Foggia. Taking the rest of the country diverted and consumed valuable resources (men, materiel, time). And for what? I support the trend that says the German Air Force was a formidable foe in 1943. Without air supremacy, the invasion could never have achieved the tactical surprise the June 1944 invasion attained. We had no where near the landing craft required in 1943. I ask that you consider we could not mount the invasion of southern France until well after the Normandy invasion due to the crisis in Anzio. 1944 was the best we could do. The Brits were justifiable edgy about any seaborne invasion -- they got killed at Gallipoli in 1915, stopped the Germans from doing it in 1940, and got the crap kicked out of them at Dieppe in 1942. They had reason to be cautious.
DJ

In terms of size of the operation, the landings on Sicily were actually a bit larger than the Normandy invasion!

I know we always hear that the Overlord operation was the biggist amphibious assult, but if you look at the numbers I think you will find Sicily was a bit larger.

Steve

I know you seldom hear this in online debates. But man I think you may have sold me on this concept. I did look up the statistics as you noted the initial Sicily landing (in terms of manpower) was three times larger than the initial Normandy landing. Geeese. 500,000 men....talk about overkill for the German forces on Sicily. I will never again be able to watch the movie Patton again and think for a minute the Jerry's had a chance.

So, perhaps we did make an error in retrospect. I think it was the case in 1943 that the Axis forces still had that aura of invincibility about them. The reality is that if we had the equipment (which apparently we did) then we could have certainly made the Normandy invasion sooner IF all the plans and preparations could be made in that time frame. That is probably the sticking point you see. I think all the planners wanted every detail worked out before they tried to step one foot in France. And that obviously took longer than anyone would have liked. "So why not go after Italy in the mean time?" some adjutant probably piped up.

Jim

Quoted Text

---

Well, we should have invaded Italy only to the line slightly north of Foggia. Taking the rest of the country diverted and consumed valuable resources (men, materiel, time). And for what? I support the trend that says the German Air Force was a formidable foe in 1943. Without air supremacy, the invasion could never have achieved the tactical surprise the June 1944 invasion attained. We had no where near the landing craft required in 1943. I ask that you consider we could not mount the invasion of southern France until well after the Normandy invasion due to the crisis in Anzio. 1944 was the best we could do. The Brits were justifiable edgy about any seaborne invasion -- they got killed at Gallipoli in 1915, stopped the Germans from doing it in 1940, and got the crap kicked out of them at Dieppe in 1942. They had reason to be cautious.
DJ

---

As far as the number of landing craft, they had to get all those guys to Sicily and Italy somehow. Certainly, if they were lacking more could have been built in a short time if the plans for invasion had been pushed up to '43.

Not sure what you mean by the crisis in Anzio. There would have been no Italian campaign and therefore no Anzio landings. (Why the hell didn't Clark decide on a landing NORTH of Rome anyway?)

It was the Brits who were cautious. Certainly Stalin wanted a second front as soon as possible! And the Americans actually wanted to invade in '42! (Now, I don't think that would have worked.)

As I mentioned, it might not have been easier in '43...

Steve

...

Germany's forces were pretty well fully mobilized after four years of war and, though it is true more German troops were sent to France as 1944 drew on, many more were sent to Russia, where they were suffering setbacks already.

...

I was not aware that more Allied soldiers landed in Sicily than in Normandy, but what exactly does this fact tell us?

...

Nic

Guys,

Really good thinking and good writing in this post ! Though I can give anadditional "YES" to invasion in 1943, there are a couple things that come to mind, that could have made invasion in 1943 a disaster :

Bearing the weather for safe passage and good supply posibilities in mind, the invasion would have too place around may or juni 1943.

German airpower was far more intense at that period, than it was a year after. There would be far more air-resistance than they experienced in 1944.

Besides that Germany still had a lot of factories producing war material. In 1994 most factories where severely damaged or even destroyed bij Bomber Command. Invading in 1943 would have given the Germans more recourses than they had in 1944.

And finaly, let's not forget about German moral in 1943. Like said before, they really thought they where invincible at that time.

just my 2cents

The turning of the tide, which resulted from Allied victories in Africa, Italy, and the Pacific, created the context within which D-day must be viewed.

The Allies could make their supreme attempt--a major cross-Channel invasion of France--only after gaining experience in the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

It is my opion that we, the Allies, were in no way prepared nor experienced to take on the Nomandy invasion prior to '44.

I'm going to make one last post here and then, I think, I'll be spent.
One thing we have seen from this thread is that even history is opinionated and our views on it are always changing. This is one of the great things about the subject. New perspectives can be found on events that took place many years ago. This thread was not an argument, but a debate (and a good one at that). No one here is really trying to make everyone else see things his way. This is why I am majoring in history, because I love it!

Having said that, I have a few last comments to make regarding this topic on Operation Overlord. Asking "what might have been" is not history. Debating whether an invasion would have been possible in 1943, by analyzing and comparing the situations facing the waring nations in that year and 1944, is, in my opinion, a legitimite historical debate. However, what Ken mentioned about "context" is entirely correct. We can't just say that the campaigns in North Africa and Italy were stupid, so they never should have happened. The fact is, they did happen, and this has a profound impact on the discussion here. To me, going so far to say that the Allies shouldn't have been in the Mediterranean is nothing more than fantasy and not very useful to historical debate. Italy had colonies in Africa; so did the British. When Italy declared war, North Africa became a theatre of war. For Mussolini, the North African campaign was fought for prestige and land. His forces failed. Hitler was forced to send aid (for a number of reasons: preserve the aura of invincibility the Axis had, maintain control over the Mediterranean, a vital body of water for thousands of years before WWII, seizing the Suez Canal (yes I'm going to say it, it was another valid strategy), and reaching the oil of the Middle East). These are facts, which set up the context in which the invasion was forced to take place. They can not be dismissed, or we get into a completely different debate; one that perhaps would be just as well placed in the Spaceship Talk forum as History Talk.

Nic

With Italy in the war, if North Africa was lost, the underbelly of Europe (which really wasn't that soft) would be open to invasion. Control of the Mediterranean was also important, enabling German and Italian subs to roam those waters destroying British shipping passing through Suez.

Nic