Word: sardinia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Some of the reports of activity in the Mediterranean may have been mere puffs of smoke. But there was much kindling on the islands-on Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, Lampedusa, Pantelleria, Sicily-and there was fire near the kindling...
...Sardinia, reinforced by the enemy by air from the continent, could seriously harass any Allied invasion of Italy. It is a big parallelogram of more than 9,000 square miles, nine-tenths rugged mountains, with so few harbors and such bad communications that its defense rests on isolated strong points. Cagliari is one of the Mediterranean's major naval bases, La Maddalena a minor one. There are several important airfields, such as Elmas and Monserrato, near these bases...
...strategic air force, operating against enemy supply lines, continued to bomb ports both on the sending and receiving ends of Axis supply, but they also bombed and claimed to have put out of action two Italian cruisers, the Trieste and Gorizia, as they sat in La Maddalena harbor, Sardinia...
Tooey Spaatz was probably kidding himself. He looks forward to action. After Tunisia is cleared out, Axis bases on Pantelleria and Lampedusa must be blasted off the face of the Mediterranean, the great Axis strongholds on Sicily and Sardinia reduced, Italy or the Balkans-whatever the route-pummeled and softened for the invading Allied armies. It will be a long time before Tooey Spaatz floats up & down on the tidewater of the Potomac...
...advanced base of military operations . . . the deserted coast of Galicia, with its many small harbors, provides superb opportunities for fueling U-boats. ... In 1942 even heavily armed convoys were getting through to Malta only with severe losses. Most of the planes which inflicted them seemed to be based on Sardinia, but the Balearics also certainly were used...