How did the Allies achieve air superiority on Sicily?
Upvote:5
The battles leading up to the invasion had a significant impact on Axis operations in general in the Mediterranean. The failed Siege of Malta was a significant cost to their forces, both military and merchant. These losses were compounded in the subsequent battles and defeat in North Africa. The tide had turned and they no longer had the initiative.
In addition, they could not compete with the production and replenishment of men and machinery provided by the USA, which was obviously a major factor in all fronts during the war.
Finally by this point in the war, the Luftwaffe was overall largely on the decline, thanks to flawed mission objectives (e.g., narrowly defining how they were to be used), lack of vision for the future (no long range bombers and the obsession with dive bombers), loss of trained men, and the general draining of its power during the aforementioned battles as well the Russian campaign (attrition, compounded by the inability to strike Russian factories out of reach of their air forces).
I'm sure I'm missing some things here, hopefully others can chime in to help out.
Upvote:31
To begin with, when the air campaign ahead of Operation Husky (the campaign that culminated with the invasion of Sicily) began, the Allies already had a significant numerical superiority over the Axis air forces in the theatre:
Operation HUSKY air planners had nearly 5,000 operational aircraft at their disposal compared to the 1,500–1,600 Axis aircraft based in Sardinia, Sicily, and southern Italy.
- Francois H. Roy II: The Mediterranean Crucible, 1942-1943
Once the campaign in North Africa was over, after the final defeat of Axis forces in Tunisia, the Allies began strategic bombing of targets in Sardinia, Sicily and the south of the Italian mainland. These targets included all the principal airfields available to Axis air forces in those areas. The principal targets of the Northwest African Air Forces (NAAF) in Sicily are shown below:
Click to enlarge
- Image source Wikipedia
Another preliminary objective prior to the invasion was to secure forward bases for allied air forces. Long-range bombers were operating from bases in north Africa, but the operational range of allied fighters was much less. Malta was already held by the Allies, despite having been subject to a long-term siege by the Axis naval and air forces.
To supplement these positions, Operation Corkscrew was executed with the objective of capturing the island of Pantelleria, which lies almost equidistant from Tunisia and Sicily:
The acquisition of the airfields in Pantelleria ... was the critical first step to acquiring the necessary basing for fighter support for further operations northward in the Mediterranean.
- Francois H. Roy II: The Mediterranean Crucible, 1942-1943
Axis troops on Pantelleria surrendered on 11 June, with the smaller islands of Lampedusa and Linosa to the south of Pantelleria falling on 13 June, and the island of Lampione on 14 June.
Thus, while Axis air forces had largely been driven off Sicily by Allied bombing raids (by 10 July, only two of the nineteen airfields in Sicily remained fully operational, and more than half the Axis aircraft had been withdrawn), the Allies now had forward bases from which fighters could operate in support of the landings. These islands served the function of aircraft carriers for Allied air forces, and had the advantage of being much harder to sink!
Operations from these islands were combined with continued bombing operations launched from bases in North Africa.
As a result, the Allies were able to operate with almost complete air superiority. The report Lessons From The Sicilian Campaign compiled immediately after the conclusion of Operation Husky concluded:
Except during the initial landing phase, the enemy air activity was almost negligible. This fact, in connection with the limited road net which was used to capacity because of the prevailing terrain, played an important part in the rapid and successful advance of our forces.
- Lessons From The Sicilian Campaign
An article in Warfare Magazine, titled Allied air power lays the foundation for the conquest of Sicily emphasises the scale of Allied dominance in the air at the start of the invasion:
On 9/10 July the night and morning of the invasion, the Luftwaffe could manage no more than 300 sorties by all aircraft. In the three days 10-12 July, the Desert Air Force alone exceeded 3,000 sorties. ...
By the middle of July the Luftwaffe was restricted to only 25 aircraft based in Sicily. In comparison at 30 July the Allies were operating 40 squadrons from 21 airfields on the island.
On 17 August the last of the Axis forces retreated across the Straits of Messina to the toe of Italy
Sources
- Stephen R Cote: Operation HUSKY: A Critical Analysis, 2001
- Francois H. Roy II: The Mediterranean Crucible, 1942-1943, 2012
- Wesley Frank Craven & James Lee Cate (Eds): The Army Air Forces In World War II, Volume 2, 1949
- USSAF Historical Division: Airborne Missions In The Mediterranean, 1942-1945, 1955
- Western Naval Task Force: Action Report: Operation HUSKY July-August, 1943
More post
- 📝 Did Crusaders' siege Nablus and then massacre Muslims?
- 📝 Did Jeanne d'Arc really tell a woman that she couldn't serve on the battlefield?
- 📝 Why didn't Eisenhower personally sign Act of Military Surrender in Reims, 1945?
- 📝 Who are the "Two Parties" of the Protestants in the Treaty of Westphalia?
- 📝 Did the deity "Horus" pre-date "Horus-Aha"?
- 📝 Why did the US release the Phillipines as a colony?
- 📝 Examples of ancient maps that gave names based on a cardinal direction
- 📝 What stood behind Maria Theresa's forestry policy?
- 📝 Is there a reason beyond the simple textbook explanation as to why the Allied forces chose to fight the Axis powers in North Africa during WWII?
- 📝 When did SHAEF / Eisenhower move HQ from London to France during WWII?
- 📝 How difficult was to escape from a naval battle after engaging into one during the Age of Sail?
- 📝 How did a few blacks and Indians attain good education during apartheid in Cape Town?
- 📝 What are some government expenditure reports from the Middle ages?
- 📝 Is the Sandracottus genus of beetles named after Chandragupta Maurya?
- 📝 How did changes in the balance of land versus naval balance of power prevent England from being successfully invaded by foreign powers after 1066?
- 📝 How could Poles from Kresy be enough to repopulate entire regions of Poland?
- 📝 How much of the Jonestown money actually got given to the USSR?
- 📝 How were ethnographic maps in the 19th century made?
- 📝 Is Wikipedia's identification of Lebed an error?
- 📝 Up to what levels were World War II commanders known for fighting at the battle front?
- 📝 When and why have the Neo-nazi view of Slavic peoples changed?
- 📝 Where can I buy a tank trap?
- 📝 Was any significant percentage of Mongol army infantry?
- 📝 What are the origins of Satanism as a religion?
- 📝 What is the original source for Vico's reference to Varro counting 30,000 pagan gods?
- 📝 Do we have any idea what people in the Middle Ages (or before them) thought the far future was going to be like?
- 📝 Have historians offered interpretations on why the disciples claimed they saw a resurrected Jesus?
- 📝 What were the civic privileges created for the Jews by Porcius Festus?
- 📝 Where, exactly, was the "Sudetenland?"
- 📝 Have there been other examples of reunification/annexation, such as in the Crimea, that succeeded without using deadly force?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How did the Allies achieve air superiority on Sicily?
- 📝 How did gold come to symbolize lower ranks than silver in the United States Air Force?
- 📝 How did the Allies communicate during World War II?
- 📝 How did native Hawaiians achieve such a high literacy rate prior to the 1850s?
- 📝 How did Allies secure southern flank during "Race to the Rhine"?
- 📝 What was the program of the Mensheviks in their later years? How did they hope to achieve it?
- 📝 Where and how did the allies scrounge enough food for the Soviets AND the British?
- 📝 How did the First French Empire and allies differ from the other European monarchies at that time?
- 📝 Did any nation have a demonstrable qualitative advantage in their soldiers of the 18th century, and how did they achieve this?
- 📝 How did the Allies locate, identify and process Nazi War criminals?
- 📝 How did the Allies deliver the Moscow Declaration to the Nazis?
- 📝 How did the Trojan allies get to Troy?
- 📝 When did the allies find out about the killing of Jews during WW2
- 📝 How and when did the word "nuclear" replace the word "atomic"?
- 📝 How did Israel win the Six-Day War?
- 📝 How did the general population of England convert so smoothly to Protestantism?
- 📝 How did the USSR manage to innovate in an environment characterized by government censorship and high bureaucracy?
- 📝 How did the Romans do division?
- 📝 How did 300,000 people survive the 3 1/2 year siege of Sarajevo?
- 📝 When and how did the USA and the UK become allies?
- 📝 How did the authorities not find the speakeasy clubs during the prohibition?
- 📝 How did such a relatively minor event as the assassination of an archduke start World War I?
- 📝 How did the Roman state verify citizenship?
- 📝 How did the Nazis plan to defeat America during World War II?
- 📝 How did the ancient Romans count with their fingers?
- 📝 How did Medieval armies survive the use of mail armor in the deserts of the Middle East?
- 📝 How did the American Civil War help the U.S economy recover from the Panic of 1857 given that civil wars are extremely destructive?
- 📝 How did the ancient Greeks synchronize time?
- 📝 How did early adopters of the automobile fill up their cars?
- 📝 How did Moscow become the capital/most important city in Russia?
