S. France Invasion before D-Day?

[PatBC]

An imporatant consideration was there was hundreds (thousands?) of airfields on the British Isle. There was only a few on Corsica

[Brett]

Originally Posted by PatBC

An imporatant consideration was there was hundreds (thousands?) of airfields on the British Isle. There was only a few on Corsica

I didn't know that, but it makes sense. Corsica was a backwater for a
long time, so there was no sense in building them there up to when
the Allies retook it in Oct. '43 (? based on one map I've seen). Then
there wasn't as much time as the Allies had in the UK to build more.

Do you know what happened when the Allies retook Corsica? Was there
any fighting there? I assume it was Italian occupied, but there was
presumably time for Germans to get there after the Italian surrender.
It wasn't like Hitler to not fight for a place.

Off topic, wasn't Corsica where "Catch 22" was set?

[McCoy]

Catch 22 is takin place in Italy.

[Jumpmaster6]

First off, let me share with you that the shot that rang out at the Pykrete block actually almost hit the Assistant Air Marshal. The 18 percent sawdust and 82 percent Ice mixture melts very slowly, and is almost impervious to blast damage. The ship they proposed was about 4000 feet long for the aircraft carrier.

The southern France deal was scrapped due to Italy. The plan was to attack the northwestern France area to take off heat from the Italian campaign, and force the retreat of German forces back to a line commensurate with NOT getting cut off from the Fatherland. This tactic worked. If we would have attacked S. France and succeeded, and failed in the Normandy area, the S. France front may have been cut off like Anzio. We didn't want that.

Originally Posted by Brett

Hello:

I was wondering if anybody had any knowledge of
plans for an invasion of S. France in ’43 or ’44 before
D-day. I understand that the historic invasion was originally planned for the same day as D-day but had to be postponed due to LST shortages.

However, at least as an amateur strategist it seems that an invasion much earlier than D-day would have put Germany in a huge dilemma. Fight hard against the S. France invasion and risk being cut off by the cross channel invasion. Or withdraw to a defensible line, and abandon valuable territory, plus give the Allies maneuvering room that would aid a breakthrough. In
addition, I’m assuming that weather in the Med would allow an invasion much earlier & later in the year than the channel.

From all my reading of the strategic debates at this time, a S. France invasion is not even mentioned. The Americans were gung ho for the cross channel assault, while the British wanted to invade Italy and press on into the Balkans.

My question is: Was there an explicit decision to reject a S. France invasion in ’43 or ’44 before D-Day? Or were the British and Americans so fixated on their respective strategies that a pre D-Day S. France invasion was not even considered?

Also, I’ve seen one map indicating Allied landings in Sardinia in Sept. ’43 & Corsica in Oct. ’43. Was there fighting on these islands? Or had they been occupied by the Italians, and so after
the Italian surrender there was no opposition?


(One story I have read about the Anglo-American strategic debates occurred at the August ’43 Quebec conference. A break from bitter arguments between the British & Americans happened when scientists demonstrated strengthened ice for a proposed
iceberg carrier.

Americans grumbled that this was a typical
Churchill hare-brained scheme to avoid committing to D-day, as the heavily guarded special ice was rolled in.

General Arnold, the AAF CO was given a sledgehammer and asked to hit the ice – which would have shattered ordinarily. Instead, Arnold howled in pain without damaging the ice at all.Whereupon a scientist whipped out a pistol & shot at the ice. The bullet ricocheted off, without even scratching the ice.

Guards outside the room, who had been hearing the angry voices of the dispute all day, looked at each other in deep concern when they heard Arnold’s yell. Then when the shot rang out they shouted, “Oh my God, now the Americans and British are shooting each other!”)