ABSTRACT
Planning for the invasion of Sicily, code-named HUSKY, had begun well before North Africa was cleared. From beginning to end, the campaign would reveal the difficulties of conducting a coalition war, as national rivalries precluded unified command in fact as well as in name. As originally drawn, HUSKY called for seven separate landings along the east, south, and north coasts of Sicily. The key to the Sicilian campaign was Messina, which lay at the northeastern tip of the island only two miles from the toe of Italy. Two weeks after the first landings in Sicily, the Italian Grand Council repudiated Benito Mussolini, and the king dismissed him. Mussolini was put under arrest and spirited away to a series of secluded hideaways. Far more important than Mussolini's fate was the position of the new Italian government, headed by Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio, former commander of the Italian army who had been dismissed by Mussolini after his defeat in Greece three years earlier.
