Italy

The air plan for the invasion of Italy called for bombing enemy airfields and communications lines, so from August 18 until September 2, 1943, Allied bombers attacked key cities, marshaling yards, harbors, bridges, and airfields. Allied air leaders also realized that most enemy supplies came down the narrow "boot" of Italy by rail, passing through the choke points of Rome, Naples, and Foggia. Raids had already disrupted marshaling yards at Rome and Naples. On August 19, U.S. and British heavy bombers struck Foggia. They cut lines to Naples, Manfredonia, and Bari; hit yards, nearby factories, and rolling stock; and wrecked electric substations. The airmen returned on August 25 to strafe and bomb the Foggia airfield complex with more than two hundred P-38s and B-17s. These attacks crippled enemy communications and proved invaluable to the success of the invasion of Italy.

The British Eighth Army crossed the Strait of Messina on September 3 and landed on the "toe" of Italy. Opposition proved slight as the Germans began a slow withdrawal. Six days later, following the Allied announcement of Italy's surrender, previously negotiated in secret, a British division landed at Taranto on Italy's "heel." That same day, the U.S. Fifth Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark, assaulted the beaches at Salerno, less than fifty miles south of Naples on Italy's western coast.   Amid a hail of German artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire that extended from the beaches to the transports, U.S. troops went ashore and pressed inland. Meanwhile, in response to the Italian surrender and determined to defend the peninsula, the Germans moved their forces south to occupy their former Axis partner's territory.

Using P-38s, A-36s, and Spitfires, the XII Air Support Command provided continuous air cover over the invasion area. Behind the beaches, airmen hoped to isolate the battlefield by cutting roads, rail lines, and bridges, but enough German reinforcements got through to contain the Salemo bridgehead. Elements of four Panzer divisions raced to the scene, and, on September 12, they launched a heavy counterattack designed to slice Clark's army in half and push it into the sea. Within two days, the enemy drove a deep and dangerous wedge into the Allied front, at one point coming within a thousand yards of the beach.

NAAF responded to the crisis by throwing its strength fully into the fight. Heavy and medium bombers attacked roads and junctions to isolate the battlefield; fighter-bombers flew hundreds of missions in direct support of the troops; and, finally, troop carriers brought in paratroopers who conducted three drops between September 13 and 15. The bombing was a spectacular success. Airmen obliterated roads, wiped out troop and motor transport concentrations, and wrecked rail lines. Stunned by its heavy losses, the enemy began pulling back on September 16. The U.S. Fifth Army now prepared to go on the offensive.

While the Fifth and Eighth Armies readied for their move up the peninsula, Allied airmen again struck Foggia, shattering the airfield complex and wrecking close to three hundred enemy aircraft. These losses, combined with earlier maulings over Tunisia and Sicily, forced the Germans to surrender local air superiority as they withdrew bombers and fighters either into central and northern Italy or back to Germany. For the remainder of September, as the Allies edged toward Naples and Foggia, their air forces mercilessly bombed and strafed the retreating Germans. Again and again, NAAF airmen pressed home their attacks. They blocked road junctions and other bottlenecks north and east of Naples; destroyed bridges at Lagonegro, Avellino, and Capua; shot up troops and trucks ahead of advancing Allied columns; and left railway spans impassable at Formia and Pescara. Under this sustained pounding, German resistance softened-a welcome outcome for the U.S. Army as it pushed slowly northward across the mountains toward Naples. 

After a tough fight, Clark's Fifth Army poured onto the Naples plain and liberated the city on October 1. Meanwhile, with negligible interference from the Luftwaffe, the British Eighth Army captured Foggia's airfields and occupied the entire Gargano peninsula. With these victories, the Allies now held Naples, Bari, and Taranto-three of Italy's best ports and two of its most important air centers.

As 1943 drew to a close, Allied leaders, including Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chinese leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and their top military advisors met at Cairo, Egypt, to plan future strategy. They created the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces (MAAF) to control all theater air units and approved a U.S. proposal for an air force-the Fifteenth Air Force, based in the Mediterranean-to join in the strategic bombing of Germany. To coordinate activities of the veteran Eighth Air Force, operating against Germany from England, and the new Fifteenth Air Force, assembling in southern Italy, Allied leaders established the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF). As part of the reorganization, Arnold sent Spaatz to England to command USSTAF. He also gave Doolittle the Eighth Air Force and moved Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker from England to head the MAAF.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe remained active. German airmen attacked Allied bomber formations, repeatedly raided La Maddalena harbor in Sardinia, and struck shipping off Naples and across the Mediterranean at Benghazi. During the night of December 2/3, approximately thirty German aircraft pounded Bari and blew up two ammunition ships in the harbor. The resulting explosions destroyed an additional seventeen vessels and closed the port for three weeks.  To reduce the Luftwaffe's threat, airmen of the MAAF hunted the enemy in the air and on the ground. They also teamed with Allied ground forces to bomb and strafe German troops approaching the front and to fly interdiction missions against roads and bridges. Meanwhile, a new strategic air force loomed on the horizon.