The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - Dennis Wheatley in World War II: a supplement

After ‘OPERATION TORCH’: Sicily or Sardinia?

After the Allies had liberated French North Africa, and after they had liberated Tunisia – something which DW had believed should be part of the TORCH Plans, but which the Americans had resisted, the question was – where next?

Ever since DW had written his War Paper No. 7, ‘A New Gibraltar’ as a civilian back in July 1940, DW had been convinced of the value of Sardinia as a stepping stone into Italy, and into an attack into what Churchill called the ‘soft underbelly of Europe’.

After the success of TORCH, the question of where the Allies should go next became one of paramount importance, and DW covered the debate in his book ‘The Deception Planners’.

It appears that, if the next step was to be Italy, Eisenhower favoured Sardinia or Corsica, and that among others, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham also favoured Sardinia. Field Marshal Alanbrooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, however, persuaded them all that Sicily was the proper initial objective, and that from there, the Allies should fight their way up Italy; which is what they did.

DW restricted himself to saying in ‘The Deception Planners’ that ‘There are good grounds for suggesting that this decision was one of the most important taken in the whole war’, and that ‘In my opinion, the decision to invade Sicily rather than Sardinia lost the Allies the chance to save Central Europe from the Russians and led to the war’s continuing for six months longer than it need have done’.

DW’s unpublished memoirs show that privately he was far more outspoken than that, and his biting assessment there ended:

“Can it be that Eisenhower, Cunningham, Mountbatten, perhaps Portal and Ismay, and certainly the Joint Planning Staff, were better strategists than C.I.G.S.? If so, what of the Prime Minister? It is true that before Casablanca C.I.G.S. had succeeded in arguing him round; yet, originally, he had expressed the opinion that it would be a mistake to send our army ‘climbing up the leg of Italy like a harvest bug’. Can it be that, in spite of the famous Diaries, Mr. Marlborough – as Sir Winston was affectionately termed by his J.P.S. – was also a sounder strategist than Field Marshal the Viscount Alanbrooke?

I never met Alan Brooke and have no cause whatever for any personal antagonism towards him; but, in my opinion, he deserved to be hanged.”

To read DW’s full unpublished assessment, click here.

It is perhaps not surprising that, although he almost certainly had access to them, Anthony Lejeune edited these comments out of DW’s final, posthumously published memoirs.

It is further clear that, numbers of senior commanders apart, DW’s colleague Ronald Wingate was of exactly the same mind, because DW recounted, again in his unpublished memoirs, how, the decision known, Wingate came into DW’s office, and pointing at one of DW’s maps, said:

“Dennis, Dennis. How tragic it is that these Service Chiefs who are running the war know nothing about the country they intend to send their troops over. They have spent their lives in Aldershot, India and Egypt. You and I have motored through Italy. We know that it is traversed by endless ranges of mountains with rushing rivers in the valleys between. Maps cannot really convey to them what that means; so they have unwittingly decided to bat their heads up against this series of easily defended obstacles.”

DW ended the account:

“How right he was”.

Again, to read DW’s unpublished account of this episode, click here.

The decision having been taken to launch the invasion of Sicily, or Operation Husky as it was called, control of Deception passed to Dudley Clarke’s ‘A’ Force as their operational sphere was the Mediterranean, although the London Controlling Section was fully briefed and aided in the implementation.

The unpublished memoirs show that Dudley Clarke’s plans ranged from the largest scale, where he would plan dummy attacks on other regions, down to exploiting the phases of the moon – leading the Germans to belief that the attack would be made on a moonless night, then leading them to believe that the assault had been postponed and would take place a month later when the night was again suitably dark, and then carrying out the actual assault in full moonlight. A similar operation later being carried out for the Normandy invasion.

It was as part of the Deception Plans for ‘Operation Husky’ that ‘The Man Who Never Was’ operation, or ‘Operation Mincemeat’ was carried out.

While the operation was not the brainchild of L.C.S., it required their approval, and the commander of the submarine subsequently told DW that when the body was finally shipped out, it was ‘pretty rank’.

For what DW and Sir Ronald Wingate wrote of Operation Mincemeat in their memoirs, click here

References :

Published quotations from The Deception Planners pp 122-125. Unpublished quotations on Alanbrooke from DW’s unpublished memoirs ‘B’ pp 309-18 and on the Wingate map story DW’s unpublished memoirs ‘A’ p 1065. On Dudley Clarke and Husky ‘Operation Husky’, DW’s unpublished memoirs ‘A’ pp 995-6. ‘The brilliant mind’ quote, made in connection with Operations Overlord and Anvil, was reproduced in ‘The Deception Planners’, page 171. How the Deception Planning for ‘Husky’ was Dudley Clarke’s job, ‘The Deception Planners’ page 126.

Provenance :

Private Collection