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Operation Husky: why the Sicily invasion mattered more than Normandy

On July 10, 1943, the Allied invasion of Sicily under Operation Husky landed more troops on day one than the Normandy landings would eleven months later. Popular memory of the campaign, shaped largely by the 1970 film Patton, reduces it to a rivalry between Generals Patton and Montgomery — a framing historians argue obscures its true strategic importance. The Sicily campaign accelerated the fall of Mussolini and forced Germany to divert forces from the Eastern Front.