The target was Allied shipping -- a desperate effort to stave off the Allied invasion of Europe.

During the Western Allied invasion of Germany in April 1945, the airfield was seized by the United States Third Army, and used by the USAAF 354th Fighter Group which flew P-47 Thunderbolts from the aerodrome ( designated ALG R-82 ) from late April until the German capitulation on 7 May 1945.

Savoy would then serve as a gateway into France by way of the mountain passes or, alternatively, an invasion with naval support along the Mediterranean coast via Nice and Toulon in connection with redoubled Allied efforts in Spain.

He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe ; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942 – 43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944 – 45, from the Western Front.

But while Eisenhower argued with Roosevelt and Churchill, who both insisted on unconditional terms of surrender in exchange for helping the Italians, the Germans pursued an aggressive buildup of forces in the country – making the job more difficult, by adding 19 divisions and initially outnumbering the Allied forces 2 to 1, Nevertheless, the invasion of Italy was highly successful.

In these positions he was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy in June 1944 under the code name Operation Overlord, the liberation of Western Europe and the invasion of Germany.

Eisenhower's first struggles however were with Allied leaders and officers on matters vital to the success of the Normandy invasion ; he argued with Roosevelt over an essential agreement with de Gaulle to use French resistance forces in covert and sabotage operations against the Germans in advance of Overlord.

By 1943, after Italy faced multiple military failures, complete reliance and subordination of Italy to Germany, and Allied invasion of Italy, and corresponding international humiliation, Mussolini was removed as head of government and arrested by the order of King Victor Emmanuel III who proceeded to dismantle the Fascist state and declared Italy's switching of allegiance to the Allied side.

Following the Allied invasion of Normandy ( June 1944 ), the German army was pushed back on all fronts until the final collapse in May 1945.

Near the end of the Second World War, Allied forces discovered that the SS had compiled lists of people slated for immediate arrest during the invasion of Britain in the abandoned Operation Sea Lion, and Wells was included in the alphabetical list on the same page of " The Black Book " as Rebecca West.

" During this time American President Franklin D. Roosevelt also referred to the German people in this way, saying that an Allied invasion into the South of France would surely " be successful and of great assistance to Eisenhower in driving the Huns from France.

Allied invasion of Normandy, D-Day, 1944

With the collapse of the Mussolini government in line with the Allied invasion of Italy, Germany occupied Albania in September 1943, dropping paratroopers into Tirana before the Albanian guerrillas could take the capital.

The Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered by May 1943, and Alexander's command became the 15th Army Group, which was, under Eisenhower, responsible for mounting in July the Allied invasion of Sicily, again seeing Alexander controlling two armies: Montgomery's Eighth Army and George S. Patton's Seventh United States Army.

Following the Allied invasion of Italy and the fall of Benito Mussolini in September, he and Joachim von Ribbentrop raised with Hitler the possibility of secretly approaching Joseph Stalin and negotiating a separate peace behind the backs of the western Allies.

* 1943 – World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sails for Sicily ( Operation Husky, July 10, 1943 ).

* 1943 – World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily – German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily.

* 1943 – World War II: Operation Husky – Allied forces perform an amphibious invasion of Sicily.

With the growing possibility of an Allied invasion in the Balkans, the Axis began to divert more resources to the destruction of the Partisans main force and its high command.

This city would later be used as a springboard for Operation Veritable, the invasion across the Rhine River by Allied Troops.

* 1943 – World War II: The U. S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.

In 1944 the Brazilian Air Force joined Allied forces in Italy and operated there for about seven months, this was the FAB baptism in a real conflict.

Military honours in Italy undoubtedly belonged to the French commander Marshal Catinat, but Eugene, the one Allied general determined on action and decisive results, did well to emerge from the Nine Years ' War with an enhanced reputation.

* 1944 – World War II: In Anzio, Italy, German forces launch a counteroffensive during the Allied Operation Shingle.

The First Battle of El Alamein ( 1 – 27 July 1942 ) was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought between Axis forces ( Germany and Italy ) of the Panzer Army Africa ( Panzerarmee Afrika ) commanded by Field Marshal ( Generalfeldmarschall ) Erwin Rommel, and Allied ( specifically, British Imperial ) forces ( Britain, British India, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand ) of the British Eighth Army commanded by General Claude Auchinleck.

War raged between the Axis Powers ( Germany, Italy, and Japan ) and the Allied Forces ( British Empire, Soviet Union, and the United States ).

Allied Forces won in North Africa, invaded Italy in 1943, and invaded occupied France in 1944.

He commanded 15th Army Group in Sicily and again in Italy before being made Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean.

Alexander remained in command of 15th Army Group, as well as its successor, the Allied Armies in Italy, for most of the Italian Campaign, until December 1944, when he relinquished his command to Clark and took over as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces Headquarters, responsible for all military operations in the Mediterranean Theatre.

This plan, defined as the mandate system, was adopted by the " Council of Ten " ( the heads of government and foreign ministers of the main Allied powers: Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Japan ) on 30 January 1919 and transmitted to the League of Nations.

However, that was followed by a brief Allied military intervention by the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and others against the Bolsheviks.

* 1943 – World War II: The Allied invasion of Italy concludes when Heinrich von Vietinghoff, commander of the German Tenth Army, orders his troops to withdraw from Salerno.

* 1943 – World War II: The Allied invasion of Italy begins on the same day that U. S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice aboard the Royal Navy battleship off Malta.

* 1943 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.

Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill met at the Cairo Conference ( 1943 ) | Cairo Conference in 1943 during World War II. With the attack on Pearl Harbor and the opening of the Pacific War, China became one of the Allied Powers.

In December 1943, President Roosevelt decided that Eisenhower — not Marshall — would be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

* 1943 – World War II: U. S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander.

The Allied policy of unconditional surrender was devised in 1943 in part to avoid a repetition of the stab-in-the-back theme.

In August 1943, Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command ( SEAC ) with promotion to the acting rank of full admiral.

* 1943 – World War II: Tunisia Campaign – General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army launches a concerted attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.

Nazi Germany faced multiple losses and steady Soviet and Western Allied offensives from 1943 to 1945.

* 1943 – Imperial Japanese naval forces complete the evacuation of Imperial Japanese Army troops from Guadalcanal during Operation Ke, ending Japanese attempts to retake the island from Allied forces in the Guadalcanal Campaign.

* 1943 – World War II: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.

On 23 July 1943 a firestorm developed as a result of Allied firebombing and, spreading from the Hauptbahnhof ( central station ) and quickly moving south-east, completely destroyed entire boroughs, such as Hammerbrook, Billbrook or Hamm-south.

In November 1942, the Allied forces retook Cyrenaica ; by February 1943, the last German and Italian soldiers were driven from Libya.

Allied leaders of the Sicilian campaign in North Africa ; ( front row, left to right ) General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder | Arthur Tedder, General Sir Harold Alexander, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope | Andrew Cunningham, ( top row, left to right ) Harold Macmillan, Major General Walter Bedell Smith, and unidentified British officers ; 1943

Alexander presided over Montgomery's victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein and the advance of the Eighth Army to Tripoli, for which Alexander was elevated to a knight grand cross of the Order of the Bath, and, after the Anglo-American forces from Operation Torch and the Eighth Army converged in Tunisia in February 1943, they were brought under the unified command of a newly-formed 18th Army Group headquarters, commanded by Alexander and reporting to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean at the Allied Forces Headquarters.