German forces on Sardinia roughly doubled. The island, which had previously been viewed as relatively secondary, received additional troops and fighter aircraft.
Torpedo boats stationed in waters adjacent to Sicily were redeployed to the Greek islands, removing mobile naval assets from the one area where they would have been most effective against the actual invasion.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, whom Hitler trusted above most of his other senior commanders after the North African campaign, was ordered to Salonika to personally assess and strengthen the Greek defenses. The timing of Rommel’s Greek deployment is slightly uncertain across sources: some place it before July 10 and some in the days following the Sicily invasion’s beginning. What is consistent across sources is that Rommel’s attention and energy were directed toward Greece rather than Sicily during the critical weeks preceding and immediately following the Allied landings.
Even after the Sicily invasion began on July 9-10, 1943, the effect of the deception persisted. German signals and operational records show that in the first hours after the Allied landings became undeniable, German commanders continued to treat Sicily as potentially a feint. In an extraordinary demonstration of how deeply the Mincemeat deception had taken hold, twenty-one German aircraft were dispatched from Sicily to reinforce Sardinia within hours of the Sicily invasion beginning, on the logic that Sardinia might still be the primary target.
German General Kurt Student, who commanded the elite parachute forces that might otherwise have reinforced Sicily, had committed his forces to the defense of Greece. His troops were not available on the island.