I'm sure the Allies thought they had been chumped when they left Sicily over the Messina straits, sure the good looking Italien honies, the pasta and wine was an after the battle attraction but surely they thought as you said 9; the suck weather, mud and severe cold the higher they climbed into the mtn's. Flooding rivers and crap roads to boot that were mined at every chance. It's time now to give all these brave men credit where it is due..........the forgotten theater as faar as I am concerned. A littel OT but the first book I read that gave an inkling on this front was one of the Ernie Pyle classics with his first hand accounts. Schu mines everywhere and a sniper behind every rock pile.