September 1943
Allied Invasion of Southern Italy
On 1 September the Italian government announced that it would accept Allied surrender terms, and an armistice was concluded two days later. However, the move came as no surprise to the Germans, who had begun rushing troops into Italy after Mussolini’s arrest in late July. By the end of August there were no less than eighteen German divisions there ready to fight off an expected Allied invasion.

General Montgomery’s British Eighth Army crossed the Straits of Messina, which separates Sicily from the Italian mainland, on September 3, and began a slow northward advance. Six days later British and American forces landed at Salerno, just south of Naples. The Germans had been expecting such a landing, however, and concentrated their forces in that area. They put up a fierce resistance, launching intensive air attacks and a full-scale land offensive involving two armored corps. However, the Allied beachhead at Salerno held, and by the middle of September had met up with the Eighth Army.

Histories:
Naples-Foggia
Allied Landings in Italy

Campaign Map:
Allied Invasion of Italy and Initial Advances, September 1943

Personal Accounts:
Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II: Interview with Robert MacPherson
Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II: Interview with Walter H. Berger
Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II: Interview with Clifford P. Kingston
Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II: Interview with Charles Mickett, Jr.

Photographs:
Allied troops pour ashore at Salerno, wading through the surf under heavy machine gun and shell fire from hidden enemy positions back of the beaches
Debarkation station aboard a transport bound for Salerno
Pvt. Paul Oglesby, 30th Infantry, standing in reverence before an altar in a damaged Catholic Church