I'm John Bessie with James Holland. The new book is The Savage Storm, the Battle for Italy

in 1943. Montgomery rolling up the Adriatic Italy, Army. There are only two passageways through. The Germans pull back under Kesselring to the

Voltorno. I note that the major mission here is accomplished. The Germans have The German

have devoted a number of divisions to Italy to hold off the Allied advance.

Fauchy has been captured leaving it open for the heavy bombers to arrive and they can range into southern

Germany, to Austria, to Romania, the office of Romania, and the only mission that hasn't been accomplished

so far is Rome.

And I need to make a note here, James.

At this point, it's September coming in October.

Reaching Rome by the end of the year seems fantastic to me,

and yet they keep entertaining it in their command decisions.

Were there regrets afterwards that they took on so much in a short period of time knowing

how Kesselring was fighting. Well, the whole of the Italian campaign is under the tyranny of Ober Lord.

So Ober Lord is the cross-channel invasion which at this point is still going to be taking place in May 1944, not the six

of June as it eventually plays out.

Has been agreed the previous May, the Trident conference in Washington in May

1943 and that is the number one priority and everything that happens subsequent to that and on the periphery of that is to support Operation Overlord.

And one of the big concerns about Operation Overlord is that once you land on Normandy Beachhead,

the cat is out of the bag, and then it's a race for who can build up the biggest amount of supplies

quickest. And obviously the Allies have more supplies than the Germans do, but they're in England.

And they've got to get across the channel and shipping is a slow business and unloading it as a slow business.

Whereas the Germans were already on the continent. So on paper, it should be easier for the Germans to resupply. So the key to the whole

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