The Mediterranean and Middle East. Volume VI.: Victory in the Mediterranean. Part II. : June to October 1944

The Mediterranean and the Middle East #6.2

by William G.F. Jackson, T.P. Gleave

The fifth and largest volume of the eight books in the 18-volume official British History of the Second World War describing the war in the Mediterranean and Middle East, this narrates the campaigns in Sicily and Italy from July 1943 to March 1944. The Allies, under General Alexander, selected the harsh mountain terrain of Sicily as the site of their return to Europe after being chased from the continent in 1940/1. The July landings were successful and within a month the Germans had evacuated the island. The allies were now faced with the tough prospect of clearing the Germans from the whole Italian peninsula. In September they landed at Salerno, and despite determined counter-attacks, consolidated their beachhead. In October 1943, after the Badoglio Government, which had overthrown Mussolini in July, surrendered, Hitler ordered the occupation and in-depth defence of Italy. This tied down large numbers of German trooops, but made for a protracted and bitter winter campaign, characterised by set-piece Allied attacks against a series of strong German defensive positions along the Bernhardt and Gustav Lines and the Sangro, Garigliano and Rapido rivers. In January 1944 the Allies attempted to outflank the Germans and rush to Rome with another seaborne landing at Anzio. Although the landing was successful, German defence was stubborn, solidifying around the monastery of Monte Cassino, which held out against repeated Allied attacks. With 6 appendices, 43 maps and diagrams and 46 photographs.

Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Educated at Shrewsbury School, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and King's College, Cambridge, William Jackson was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1937. He served with the British Army in Norway during the Second World War, where he was one of the first British officers to engage the enemy. His work in blowing up bridges as the British retreated from Lillehammer earned Jackson his first Military Cross (MC). He also served in North Africa, Sicily and Italy during the war. He was twice injured by a land mine. The one at Bou Arada in Tunisia placed him in bed for four months before he joined Dwight Eisenhower's headquarters, where the invasion of Sicily was being planned. He won a Bar to his MC in 1944 at the Battle of Monte Cassino in recognition of "gallant and distinguished services", and by the end of the war Jackson was in post as an acting major but was only formally promoted captain in August 1945,having been promoted to lieutenant in 1940. He was also mentioned in despatches in 1945 for his services in Italy.

After the war he became a General Staff Officer at Headquarters Allied Land Forces, South East Asia in 1945 before moving on to be an Instructor at the Staff College, Camberley in 1948. Promoted major in 1950, he was an Instructor at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst from 1951. He was promoted brevet lieutenant colonel in 1955 and was appointed Assistant Adjutant & Quartermaster General (Plans) at the War Office during the Suez crisis in 1956. Jackson was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1957 Birthday Honours. In 1958 he was promoted lieutenant colonel and became Commander, Gurkha Engineers in Malaya. In 1960 he was promoted full colonel and in 1961 returned to the Staff College, Camberley as Colonel General Staff at the Minley Division.

He was Deputy Director of Staff Duties at the War Office from 1962 and joined the Imperial Defence College in 1965 being promoted brigadier in March. He went on to be Director of the Chief of Defence Staff's Unison Planning Staff in 1966 in the temporary rank of major general (his rank of major general was confirmed as permanent in July 1966) and Assistant Chief of the General Staff (Operational Requirements) at the Ministry of Defence in 1968.

In 1970 Jackson was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Northern Command. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1971, and In 1973 he became Quartermaster-General to the Forces in the local rank of full general with formal promotion to general coming four months later. Advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in the 1975 Birthday Honours, Jackson retired from active army service in February 1977, taking a post of Military Historian at the Cabinet Office from 1977 to 1978 and then becoming Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar, overseeing the colony's transition to a British dependent territory and where he was a stalwart advocate for self-determination in the territory.

Jackson retired from his post in Gibraltar in 1982 (having had his tenure extended by a year) and returned to being historian at the Cabinet Office until 1987. He had held five honorary military appointments: as ADC General to the Queen (1974–1979), Colonel Commandant the Royal Engineers (1971–1981), Colonel the Gurkha Engineers (1971–1976), Colonel Commandant Royal Army Ordnance Corps (1973–1976) and Colonel of the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve Engineer and Railway Staff Corps.