Word: mainlands
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...What but an invasion would follow the unprecedented pounding of southern Italy? General Eisenhower said that his battle-seasoned armies, now three miles from the European mainland, "were ready to go at any minute...
...midmorning the U.S. Seventh and the British Eighth Armies had entered Messina in force. Then from the pine-covered hills on the Italian mainland, three and a half miles across the Strait, German big guns lobbed over their shells. Quickly the bulk of the Allied troops withdrew from the city...
...Messina's civilians the fall of the city was a relief. Two hundred of them came out in their rags and gave a feeble cheer. When the enemy guns started shelling from the mainland, they scurried out of town. It is unlikely that many will come back for a long time. There is nothing for them to come back to. Of all the wrecked cities of Sicily none is so thoroughly wrecked as Messina. From one end of the town to the other, I have not seen a building that has not been damaged...
...Defeated 300,000 enemy troops. Thereby they eliminated the Italian Sixth Army,* of which more than half deserted, most of the remainder being killed, wounded or captured. Of 75,000 Germans, perhaps 40,000, led by one-armed General Hans Valentine Hube, escaped to the Italian mainland. Estimated Allied casual ties...
...steady bombardment from sea & air rained on the small boats ferrying the Germans from Messina to the mainland. While Allied light and heavy warships steamed into the straits to shell the skittering small craft, Allied aircraft bombed and strafed them from above. The Germans had massed hundreds of ack-ack guns at the straits, as well as heavy batteries of coast artillery-but there was little opposition to the Allies from...