f reedom of a ction 175HUSKY resulted in Mussolini being deposed and arrested. Th e inev-
itable next step saw Allied forces land in Italy. As hoped, Italy surren-
dered (and promptly switched sides), and the Allies secured useful air
bases around Foggia from which to mount strategic bombing assaults
on parts of the Th ird Reich out of range of aircraft based in England.
But the Germans swiftly moved additional units into Italy, and the
Allied campaign stalled in late 1943 well south of Rome. ^
Meanwhile, the British-American debate over the best course to
pursue in Europe continued. Invading Italy made a cross-Channel
invasion impossible in 1943, but it left open the next step. Churchill
and the British preferred to continue the main eff ort in the Mediterra-
nean, with attacks in the Dodecanese that would tie down German
divisions away from France or from use against the Red Army on the
Eastern Front and might induce Turkey to enter the war on the Allied
side. Further, Churchill and some of his offi cers (Brooke and Harold
Alexander, commanding in Italy) maintained that the best route into
central Europe lay through Italy, despite overwhelming evidence that
the mountainous terrain there favored the defense. American military
leaders, on the other hand, dismissed further investments in the Medi-
terranean as a wasteful diversion from the main event. They also
suspected that the British were motivated by a desire to restore their
political infl uence in the Balkans and Turkey. Hovering in the back-
ground were increasingly tense relations with Stalin, who by mid-1943
had lost patience with the Anglo-Americans and their repeated promises
to open the Second Front in France.
This time, at the Anglo-American Quebec conference in August
1943, Roosevelt came down fi rmly on the side of Marshall. He rejected
the British alternatives in Italy and the Mediterranean in favor of the
invasion of Normandy, Operation OVERLORD, on or about May 1,
- (Weather led to a one-month postponement, so D-Day came on
June 6, 1944.) By this point, the American buildup in England was well
under way and the Allied navies had defeated the U-boat threat in the
Atlantic. With American forces in the European theater fi nally sur-
passing those of Great Britain, the president no longer felt he needed to
defer to the British. He also concluded that the invasion must have an
American commander (Eisenhower rather than Marshall, for a number
of reasons), though the key deputies would be British. Th e American