From the bestselling author of Normandy '44, containing new and unpublished research, this is the largely untold story of the critical campaign that became a vital precursor to D-Day.
'James Holland is the best of the new generation of WW2 historians.' Sebastian Faulks
'Holland's skill lies in bringing these warriors to life with vivid prose.' The Times
Shortlisted for the 2021 British Army Military Book of the Year
_________________________________________________
This is the story of the biggest seaborne landing in history.
Codenamed Operation HUSKY, the assault on Sicily on 10 July 1943 remains the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted. That day, over 160,000 Allied troops were dropped from the sky or came ashore to begin the fight for Europe.
The subsequent thirty-eight-day Battle for Sicily was one of the most dramatic of the entire war, involving daring raids by special forces, deals with the Mafia, attacks across mosquito-infested plains and perilous assaults up almost sheer faces of rock and scree.
Made worse by virulent disease and extreme heat, the Allies also had to fight their way across an island of unforgiving landscape and limited infrastructure against a German foe who would not give up.
Victory would signal the beginning of the end of the War in the West. From here on, the noose began to tighten around the neck of Nazi Germany. The coalition between the United States and Britain finally came of age. And it was a crucial dry run for Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy on D-Day a year later.
From the bestselling author of Normandy '44, containing new and unpublished research, this is the largely untold story of the critical campaign that became a vital precursor to D-Day.
'James Holland is the best of the new generation of WW2 historians.' Sebastian Faulks
'Holland's skill lies in bringing these warriors to life with vivid prose.' The Times
Shortlisted for the 2021 British Army Military Book of the Year
_________________________________________________
This is the story of the biggest seaborne landing in history.
Codenamed Operation HUSKY, the assault on Sicily on 10 July 1943 remains the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted. That day, over 160,000 Allied troops were dropped from the sky or came ashore to begin the fight for Europe.
The subsequent thirty-eight-day Battle for Sicily was one of the most dramatic of the entire war, involving daring raids by special forces, deals with the Mafia, attacks across mosquito-infested plains and perilous assaults up almost sheer faces of rock and scree.
Made worse by virulent disease and extreme heat, the Allies also had to fight their way across an island of unforgiving landscape and limited infrastructure against a German foe who would not give up.
Victory would signal the beginning of the end of the War in the West. From here on, the noose began to tighten around the neck of Nazi Germany. The coalition between the United States and Britain finally came of age. And it was a crucial dry run for Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy on D-Day a year later.
From the bestselling author of Normandy '44, containing new and unpublished research, this is the largely untold story of the critical campaign that became a vital precursor to D-Day.
James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning
historian, writer, and broadcaster. The author of a number of
best-selling histories including most recently Brothers In Arms and
Normandy '44, he is also the author of ten works of fiction and a
dozen Ladybird Experts.
He is the co-founder of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival
which is now in its twelfth year, and he has presented - and
written - many television programmes and series for the BBC,
Channel 4, National Geographic and the History and Discovery
channels.
With Al Murray, he has a successful Second World War podcast, We
Have Ways of Making You Talk, which also has its own festival, and
is a research fellow at St Andrew's University and a Fellow of the
Royal Historical Society. He can be found on Twitter as @James1940
and on Instagram as @jamesholland1940.
Marshalling a wealth of primary and secondary sources into an
engrossing narrative, Holland fills a yawning gap in histories of
WWII. This magisterial account is a must-read for military history
fans.
*Publishers Weekly*
Perfect territory for a military historian of Holland's talents
*The Times*
Historians too often neglect that emotional tapestry. War is
characterised as arrows on a map, tables of munitions, cold
casualty statistics. Holland's skill lies in bringing these
warriors to life with vivid prose. He's a prolific historian of the
war, but each book is constructed with great care and emotional
commitment...Holland is obsessed with war, but fortunately does not
seem to love it. He recognises its beauty, but also its
vileness
*The Times*
Holland argues very effectively that the success of Husky was a
turning point in the war
*Times Literary Supplement*
Holland makes the capture of the island one of the great
turning-point battles of the war
*Military History Matters*
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