history · 04 September 1943 · 81 years ago
Major General Matthew Ridgway and his staff, having worked all night, issued their plans for the US 82nd Airborne Division to descend on the Rome airports on the night of the Italian armistice (Operation Giant 2). This satisfied General Giuseppe Castellano, Pietro Badoglio's emissary to the Allies, that a joint Allied-Italian military co-operation against Germany could lead to the Allies giving really generous peace terms as had been promised by Dwight Eisenhower at the lengthy held conference at Cassibile on 3 September 1943. Castellano's adjutant flew to Rome in the General's private plane on the following day but, alas, General Vittorio Ambrosio, the Italian Chief of Staff of the armed forces, and his War Office Staff sat on the plans and took no action. And by the time they were passed to Badoglio for approval the Allies had already begun landing at Salerno, Italy.
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