My topic for our second WWII project is on the Italian/Mediterranean front. My group consists of me, Brooke Weihs, Josh Bruck, and Lucas Musich. World War II caused more deaths and devastation than World War I. WWII was fought on six different fronts. The Mediterranean front was said to be composed of three main fronts and three sub-fronts. The main fronts consisted of the Southern Balkan Front, the North Africa Front, and the Italy Front. The sub-fronts were the Crete Front, the Greece Front, and the Egypt Front.
In September of 1939 the war broke out. Italy entered the war alongside Germany June 10th, 1940. Before this Eritrea, Libya, and Somalia were already under Italian control.
The Italian Campaign, this was the name of the Allied Forces Head Quarters. It was responsible operationally for all of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean theatre or front. The AFHQ commanded and planned to invade Italy’s city of Sicily. They also commanded the campaign in Italy’s mainland until the German’s had surrendered. They surrendered in May of 1945. There is an estimate of how many soldiers had died from the time of September of ’43 and April of ’45. The estimate for the deaths of allied soldiers is 60,000 and German soldiers 50,000. The total numbers of casualties during the campaign for the Allies were around 320,000 and the Axis over 658,000. In Western Europe there were no other campaigns that had had more deaths or those wounded than there in Italy. I felt this was so terrible just to think of how many casualties there were. That means there were over 978,000 deaths all together, almost one million. I find it very sorrowful.
Sources:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Italian_Campaign_(World_War_II)
http://www.trt.net.tr/international/newsDetail.aspx?HaberKodu=f6d22520-32f4-45ee-8f44-fa8c377debfa
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