The subsequent thirty-eight-day battle for Sicily was one of the most dramatic of the entire war, involving daring raids by special forces, deals with the Mafia, attacks across mosquito-infested plains and perilous assaults up almost sheer faces of rock and scree.

In a battle made worse by virulent disease and extreme heat, the Allies also had to fight their way across an island of unforgiving landscape and limited infrastructure against a German foe who would not give up. Victory here would signal the beginning of the end of the war in the West.

Thereafter, the noose began to tighten around the neck of Nazi Germany. The coalition between the United States and Britain finally came of age. And, crucially, it was a dry run for Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy on D-Day a year later.