"Doug..." wrote in message
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In article ,
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Doug... wrote:



I would think that, by forcing the Allies to slog through Italy from
1942-44, Germany and the Axis countries possibly delayed the eventual
invasion of Europe via France by as much as a year. (Granted, the
invasion might still have had to wait until June of '44 just to
assemble
the mass of warmaking machinery and the vehicles to deliver it that was
required for a successful invasion.)


Italy gave us a base from which to operate B-17s and B-24s against the
Axis oil fields, like Ploesti- which would have been out of range from
Britain. My dad's B-24 squadron was in on some of the Ploesti strikes.
Lack of oil that was one of the main things that brought Germany to it's
knees in the later war period, so the Italian invasion was definitely
worth it.

Yeah, very true. Altough the Allies were pretty good at finding and
holding the staging bases they needed as the war progressed. If they
didn't have Italy to stage air strikes from, they likely would have
found, taken and built air bases on some other piece(s) of real estate
they could have held for long enough to get the job done.

Where? Without Italy, do the Axis bother with Greece or Yugoslavia?