ABSTRACT
The invasion of Sicily had been the subject of long and detailed planning for something like six months in advance. Italy was done much more off the cuff. There was indeed a whole world of difference not merely in the way in which we set about the next task, but in the very nature of that task itself. The fact was, and we soon began to realize it, that from the moment the last German soldier left Sicily we of the Allied Forces in the Mediterranean were no longer the spearhead of the war effort on land. From now on the weight was going to be transferred to northwest Europe. All this was finally decided at the Trident Conference, which met in Washington in May 1943. Here it was laid down that for the future the Mediterranean was to be a secondary theatre, its only task that of helping the main assault which was to be from the United Kingdom on to North France in the early summer of 1944.
