HUSKY (July 9–August 17, 1943) around German coastal strongpoints proved successful As two enemy armies advanced on Messina, Hube and Kesselring made the decision to evacuate Sicily, while leaving strong blocking detachments holding back the enemy on the northern and eastern coast roads The great failure of the campaign in Sicily was allowing the Germans an escape route across the Messina Strait Hube and Kesselring effectively conducted a German Dunkirk, evacuating 50,000 or more men across the Strait while Western Allied navies and air forces did almost nothing to stop them Allied commanders chose not to land on the far side of the Strait to block egress from the island Crack and veteran German troops therefore escaped to kill many more enemy during the follow-on Italian campaign (1943–1945) Messina was finally taken on August 17 The first units to enter were American, greatly pleasing Patton However, with the Germans already gone, Messina was not the prize it could have and should have been The cost to the Axis of 38 days of hard combat in Sicily was 29,000 killed and wounded and 140,000 prisoners The latter were mostly Italians but included some Germans U.S losses were just under 2,300 killed and just over 6,500 wounded, missing, or captured British and Commonwealth forces suffered more than 2,700 dead and 13,000 total casualties HUSKY quickly affected German strategic perceptions, priorities, and operations Because of HUSKY, Adolf Hitler cancelled ZITADELLE only a few days into that offensive on the Eastern Front that led instead to a severe defeat for the Wehrmacht at Kursk Hitler ordered an entire Luftflotte and a Panzerarmee to Italy from the east, which contributed to the success of Red Army counteroffensives in the immediate wake of their victory at Kursk Invading Sicily also precipitated an Italian crisis that ended in deposing Mussolini, which in turn led to secret negotiations with the Western Allies to take Italy out of the war The Regia Marina, Regia Aeronautica, and Regio Esercito were all removed from the Axis order of battle by early September, for within weeks of concluding HUSKY the Western powers landed armies in southern Italy Italian troops surrendered en masse; some even turned to fight the Germans in Italy and in the Balkans Sicily served for the rest of the war as a giant fixed carrier, used to bomb Axis forces in the Balkans and the cities of southern Germany An unintended consequence of liberations was that the Mafia made a major comeback as Western troops passed out of Sicily to mainland Italy and thence to France Organized criminals in Sicily were surprisingly but effectively suppressed by Mussolini before the war In a chaotic and often criminalized wake of the 1943 conquest, they enjoyed a strong resurgence See also desertion; DUKW Suggested Reading: Carlo d’Este, Bitter Victory (1988); John Eisenhower, Allies (1982); C Molony, The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol (1973); G Nicholson, The Canadians in Italy, 1943–1945 (1967) HYPERINFLATION See Chinese Civil War (1927–1949); Germany; war guilt clause 546