Eighty years ago this week, RAF Bomber Command finally comes of age and the conquest of Palermo masks flaws in allied planning in Sicily

 

RAF Bomber command launched Operation Gomorrah under which the port city of Hamburg was to be bombed over several days. Almost everything was in favour of the attackers. Bomber Command now fielded a force of some 800 aircraft, mainly four-engined bombers, notably the highly effective Lancaster. H2S navigation radar had been fully introduced and the broad river Elbe leading from the sea to the city provided unmistakable images. After long top-level debate the use of Window had been authorized. Bundles of metal strips were dropped creating confusing images on the defenders' radar, which meant that fighter opposition was weak to negligible. Bomber casualties were low at some 3%. The weather was favourable both to the attackers and to the effect of the bombing; individual fires burned strongly enough to merge into a gigantic firestorm. After years of failure Bomber Command was finally able to put to the test the Trenchardian doctrine that bombing was able to win a war. The city was devastated and perhaps 34,000 of its inhabitants were killed, probably the greatest loss of life through bombing in Europe. German morale, though, survived; Gomorrah's military value lay in making the Germans switch precious  resources to air defence. They had already practically lost the war economically and the imperative to defend the homeland against allied bombing made their problems all the more acute.

General Patton took full advantage of the remit for quasi-independent action that he had been granted in Sicily by his notional commander General Alexander. Making full use of his superior mobility and well-trained infantry he stormed north across the island and seized its capital, the port city Palermo. The triumph masked flaws in the allied conduct of the campaign.  Palermo had been designated as a major objective of the invasion but it was a distraction from the great potential prize of the action: trapping a large number of German defenders. The Germans had decided not to make a fight of defending the island and the key to their escape was the port of Messina nearest to the Italian mainland, which lay in the British sector. In the absence of a properly unified US/British command, the military importance of Messina had slipped down the order of priorities

The Fascist Grand Council meeting for the first time since the war broke out voted by a large majority in favour of a motion tabled by Count Grandi to strip Mussolini of his military authority. A two-hour speech by the Duce failed to sway them in his favour. They recognized that the game was over. Mussolini drew the inevitable conclusion and resigned to the king the following day.