(ANSA) - Cagliari, July 11 - A top-secret British plan to invade Sardinia in 1941 has come to light six decades after it was drawn up, a Sardinian daily reported on Monday.
Italian researchers discovered the plan, formulated on the orders of Winston Churchill, while working in the British national archive in London, according to L'Unione Sarda.
The invasion was to have occurred in two waves, starting with an initial landing of 7,500 troops between April and May, Operation Yorker, followed by Operation Garroter, designed to mop up lingering resistance.
According to the two Sardinian historians, who stumbled across the plan while researching a documentary on another subject, the plan revealed a perfect knowledge of the island's vulnerable points and might well have succeeded.
In the event, the invasion was shelved after Germany attacked Crete in May 1941, requiring Britain to shift its resources to Greece. The Allies eventually started bombing the island in 1943, after it fell under Nazi occupation for a few months.
Combined with local uprisings, German troops were forced off Sardinia, which was run by an appointed Italian commissioner for the rest of the war.
