Syracuse, 21:00 PM August 9th, 1943
Sante Garibaldi entered the radio room. Eisenhower's message and Balbo's one confirming the surrender had been competed hardly half an hour ago.
"My fellow Italians the war is not over. Italy has just joined the forces of freedom. But German troops, brought in by the traitor Mussolini are still on sacred Italian soil. Make no mistake the Germans are not going to leave just because the government did the right thing and ended Mussolini's war. it is our duty to break their shackles on Italy. As it is the duty of every Italian soldier outside Italy to fight for freedom. Mussolini in his madness joined the very people against whom the nation fought four wars of independence to attack our brothers in arms. Restoring Italy's honor demands you follow the examples of our forefathers from Giuseppe Garibaldi to the
Count of Santarosa who shed their blood for the freedom of France and Greece!"
Would the speech have much effect or even be heard by many? Even if a single soldier heeded the call it would be more than if it hadn't been made at all...
Rome, August 9th, 1943
General Taylor, second in command of the 82nd Airborne Division, had been distinctly unimpressed by his Italian counterparts and their fear of the Germans. He would not endanger his men for them. His recommendation to wait on executing operation Giant to airdrop the division in Rome had been transmitted to Allied headquarters.
Olympus, 02:00 AM August 10th, 1943
Slightly less than six hours had passed since Dwight Eisenhower had gone over the airwaves to announce to the world the surrender of Italy when the night horizon lit up from one end of Thessaly to the other as 1,700 Allied guns opened up against the German and Bulgarian positions. Operation Herakles had begun. Even further west the Greek divisions of the Epirus Army Detachment were surging north just as the German XXI Mountain Corps surged south to reinforce its units already in contact with the Greeks and secure Albania and its important mineral and oil production with the Italian 7th army caught in the middle.
Salerno, August 10th, 1943
Hundreds of Allied ships carried the US 5th army, with the British X Corps under its command, ashore. Plans of making landings further north to directly secure Rome had been decided against due to fears of getting out of Allied air cover. Instead the Allies would take Salerno and advance north, hopefully the Italians could hold out till the Allied divisions reached them. But the German XIV Panzer Corps defending the area would prove surprisingly resilient with a counterattack by the 16th Panzer division threatening to destroy the Allied bridgehead before the massed fire from French and British cruisers and battleships supporting the landings forced it back. The initial crisis over the Allied bridgehead steadily expanded and reinforcements were brought in. By August 19th nine Allied divisions and 170,000 men were ashore.
Taranto, August 10th, 1943
The landings here were a mostly British affair, the sole exceptions being the Greek and Polish warships with the landing fleet and the Greek 34th Infantry Regiment coming ashore. British forces advanced in the face of only limited resistance. Kesserling was already evacuating Calabria and Apulia hoping to establish a defensive line further north from Salerno to Bari. The Italian attempt to hold onto Naples till the Allies came would be crushed after two days of fighting. But Bari would hold out while the Legnano, Mantova and Piceno divisions joined the allies.
Zagreb, Independent State of Croatia, August 10th, 1943
If the Germans had any worries about the stance Ante Pavelic's regime would be taking it would be immediately dispelled and the Croatian collaborationist regime proclaimed its loyalty to Germany and ordered the Ustashe and the Croatian Home Guard to occupy Italian Dalmatia and help the German forces in Yugoslavia disarm the Italians. But the occupation of Dalmatia would be anything but uncontested as the Yugoslav partisans moved there taking the arms of surrendering Italian units, with many Italian soldiers and in some cases entire units joining them.
Golcuk naval base, Turkey, August 10th, 1943
Turkish marines stormed the handful of Italian ships in the base as the cruiser Yuavuz Sultan Selim, ironically built in Italy like most of the Turkish navy, menaced the ships from right outside the base. Keeping the Italian ships in the fight would be useful. The Turkish navy had not made any serious foray in the Aegean since December 1941, against the increasing numbers of Allied warships it would had amounted to suicide. But it was having a rather more successful war against the Soviets in the Black sea.
North of Sardinia, August 10th, 1943
A Fritz X guided bomb hit the battleship Roma heavily damaging her and killing among others admiral Bergamini. But despite the damage the massive ship shrugged off the hit and continued sailing south, Re.2000 fighters launched from Aquila would chase the Germans off before more damage could be done. The fleet would reach Malta on August 11th and surrender to the Allies.
Rome, August 11th, 1943
Rome was being held of elements of 6 divisions, two of them armored with 55,000 men and 200 tanks including some modern P26 ones. But the loyalties of at least the Littorio armoured division, manned by former Blackshirts was suspect and the Italian command for the most part disorganized and indecisive. Thus the forces dispatched by Kesserling had managed to secure the city despite having no more than 26,000 men and the spirited defense put out by the Ariete division under general Raffaele Cadorna to the north of the city. But the Italian government had been able to escape the fall of Rome and so had most of the men of the Ariete, Sassari and Piacenza divisions.
Corfu island August 12th, 1943
A few months earlier the sight of the battliship Impero, even unfinished and her escorts from Trieste would had been a source of fear. Now the Corfiots made jokes that the Impero was not so imperial as the Italian squadron entered the harbor, to be interned.
Ajaccio, Corsica, August 13th, 1943
The island became the first part of mainland France to be formally liberated as elements of the French army entered the port unopposed. No German forces were present in either Sardinia or Corsica which had such passed to the allies without a shot.
Hotel Campo Imperatore, Gran Sasso, Apennine mountains Italy, August 13th, 1943
Two weeks earlier Benito Mussolini had been moved to Gran Sasso, the second highest peak in Italy, guarded by two hundred carabinieri. While Hitler had ordered to prepare plans to liberate his fellow dictator these had not been set in motion right away as Italy remained in the war. But as soon as the news of the Italian surrender had come out the orders to proceed with the escape plan. The German Fallschirmjäger and SS commandos had landed with gliders on the peak and captured the hotel without firing a single shot. Then Mussolini had boarded a Fi156 aircraft that had landed on the peak to be moved away. Otto Skorzeny, the commander of the SS troops would also board the plane despite the misgivings of the pilot to escort the duce. The small plane took off, then overweight and unable to gain enough speed crashed below. None aboard survived.