Allied invasion of Italy of historian Carlo D'Este, Clark "mistakenly believed he had saved the Allied invasion by his leadership, when in fact it was precisely his inexperience that precipitated most of the problems the invasion force faced." Allied invasion of Italy The Allied invasion of Italy was the Allied amphibious landing on mainland Italy that took place on 3 September 1943 during the early stages of the Italian Campaign of World War II. The operation was undertaken by General Sir Harold Alexander's 15th Army Group (comprising General Mark W. Clark's Fifth Army and General Bernard Montgomery's British Eighth Army) and followed the successful
Allies of World War II first with operation "Weserübung" on 9 April 1940, resulting in the two-month-long Norwegian Campaign, which ended in a German victory and their war-long occupation of Norway. Units of the Norwegian Armed Forces evacuated from Norway or raised abroad continued participating in the war from exile. The Norwegian merchant fleet, then the fourth largest in the world, was organized into Nortraship to support the Allied cause. Nortraship was the world's largest shipping company, and at its height operated more than 1000 ships. Norway was neutral when Germany invaded, and it is not clear when Norway became an Allied country. Great Britain,