My last line? Okay, very simply. 2d, 3d AD, 1st, 9th ID, and 82d AbnD all were drawn from the Med for NEPTUNE...if not from there then they would have had to come from somewhere else. The divisions for DRAGOON came from Italy...if not from there then from somewhere else. The divisions for MANNA came from Italy...Delta Tank wrote: ↑28 Jun 2019, 13:35Thanks for the history lesson, I knew all of that many, many years ago. Your last line doesn’t make any sense to me. So, you are saying without the Italian Campaign these units would not be formed? Would not be preposition in, let’s say Sicily for the planned invasion of southern France? I never said DO NOT INVADE ITALY, I understand the benefits that we gained, my point is at a certain point it was senseless to get guys killed for virtually zero return!!
To an extent those units went to Italy because it was an opportunity the Allies exploited successfully. If they didn't go there, then where might they have gone? Greece? Winnie would have loved it. The SWPA? Mac would have loved it. England? Well, about as many as there was cantonment areas for did go there...sending more was unlikely to have done more than overcrowd already overcrowded facilities...it wasn't going to accelerate NEPTUNE much, because that planning cycle didn't even begin until February 1944.