This Day in History Jan 4, 1944 Operation Carpetbagger: U.S. aircraft begin dropping supplies to guerrilla forces throughout Western Europe.
This Day in History Jan 4, 1944 Operation Carpetbagger: U.S. aircraft begin dropping supplies to guerrilla forces throughout Western Europe. The action demonstrated that the U.S. believed guerrillas were a vital support to the formal armies of the Allies in their battle against the Axis powers. Virtually every country that experienced Axis invasion raised a guerrilla force; they were especially effective and numerous in Italy, France, China, Greece, the Philippines, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. Also referred to as a “partisan force,” a guerrilla army is defined roughly as a member of a small-scale “irregular” fighting force that relies on the limited and quick engagements of a conventional fighting force. Their main weapon is sabotage-in addition to killing enemy soldiers, the goal is to incapacitate or destroy communication lines, transportation centers, and supply lines. In Italy, the partisan resistance to fascism began with assaults against Mussolini and his “black shirts...