Operation Avalanche was disagreement between the Allies as to what the next step should be. Winston Churchill in particular wanted to invade Italy, which he called the "underbelly of Europe" (commonly misquoted as "soft underbelly"). Popular support in Italy for the war was declining, and he believed an invasion would remove Italy, and thus the influence of the Italian Navy ("Regia Marina") in the Mediterranean Sea, opening it to Allied traffic. This would make it much easier to supply Allied forces in the Middle East and Far East, and increase British and American supplies to the Soviet Union. In addition, it would
Operation Jupiter (Norway) attention away from the preparations for Operation Torch, the invasion of north Africa, by creating the impression that troops based in Scotland were preparing to invade Norway. Operation Jupiter (Norway) Operation Jupiter was the code name for a plan originating in 1941 for an invasion of northern Norway and Finland by Allied forces during the Second World War. The first versions of the plan were code named Operation Dynamite, Operation Ajax and Operation Marrow. Devised and vigorously promoted by Sir Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the plan was opposed by all the senior British and Allied