The war against Germany and Italy: Mediterranean and adjacent areas

by John C. Hatlem; Kenneth E. Hunter; Margaret E. Tackley; United States. Department of the Army. Office of Military History

North Africa

The occupation of French North Africa by Allied troops was determined in July 1942 when the American and British Governments agreed to launch a Mediterranean operation in the fall of 1942. The invasion, designated as Torch, was to coincide with a British advance westward from Egypt. Before American soldiers did any actual fighting in North Africa, however, and before the United States was at war, civilian and military observers had been informally attached in May 1941 to the U. S. military attaché in Cairo. This group was the beginning of a force whose primary function was to service and maintain lend-lease equipment from the United States, instruct the British in its use, and report on how it stood up under battle conditions. The U. S. Air Force also was performing missions in Egypt several months before the Allied landings in North Africa. All these activities contributed to the British victory at El Alamein in October 1942.

Allied troops sailed for North Africa from ports in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The U. S. Navy and the Royal Navy shared in supplying transports and naval escort and were able to prevent any serious losses through enemy submarine action. Vital air support was at first provided from aircraft carriers of both Navies and later by land-based planes of the Allied air forces utilizing recently captured airfields.

The Allies hoped to avoid French resistance to the landings by arranging for the assistance of patriotic Frenchmen ashore and by the participation in the operation of Gen. Henri Giraud, a French military leader and former Army commander of great prestige who had escaped from France. These plans were only partly successful. The landings on the early morning of 8 November at beaches near Algiers, Oran, Casablanca, Port-Lyautey, Fedala, and Safi met resistance at all objectives. The opposition at Algiers and Safi collapsed quickly. Oran could be occupied only after considerable fighting. French forces, especially naval elements, in the neighborhood of Casablanca resisted strongly, but yielded on 11 November, a few minutes before the final assault on the city itself was to start. After a brief period of neutrality, most of the French forces in northwest Africa joined in the war against the Axis.

The Axis reacted to the Allied invasion by rushing troops to Tunisia by air and sea, and captured the local airfields and ports without opposition. British, American, and French troops drove eastward and at the end of November and in early December launched their attack against the Axis bridgehead. The Allied advance, however, was stopped short of Tunis. Air superiority for the moment lay with the Axis. Lack of means to overcome the increased resistance, in addition to weather conditions which interfered with transport and flying, forced the postponement until 1943 of a renewed advance over the difficult terrain of northern Tunisia.

Meanwhile, the British Eighth Army was pressing German and Italian forces back from Egypt through Libya and reached the southern border of Tunisia in January 1943. Plans could then be perfected for a co-ordinated attack against the remaining Axis forces in North Africa by the British Eighth Army in the south and the Allied troops in the north consisting of the British First Army, the American II Corps, the French XIX Corps, and Allied air forces. Attack by Axis forces at points of their own selection repeatedly interfered with Allied preparations. In February the enemy broke through Faïd Pass and in a series of attacks advanced beyond Kasserine almost to the Algerian border. These attacks were stopped on 21–22 February when the enemy started his withdrawal, destroying bridges and mining the passes behind him.

But the Allied forces were closing in. After attacking and turning the Mareth position, the British Eighth Army defeated the enemy there and pursued him along the coast as far as Enfidaville, less than fifty miles from Tunis. Accelerated Allied air and naval attacks choked off the enemy’s supply and weakened his resistance. At the same time the American II Corps was shifted northwest to a new sector on the left of the British First Army. Then after severe infantry fighting the American II Corps made an armored thrust to Mateur, and after a pause it pushed tank forces east to the sea, separating Bizerte from Tunis. Farther south the British First Army drove directly toward Tunis. On 7 May both Bizerte and Tunis were occupied and by 13 May Axis capitulation was complete. The Allies had achieved their initial objective of opening the Mediterranean route to the Middle East and seizing bases in North Africa. At the same time they had inflicted a major defeat on the Axis Powers.

Allied strength in French North Africa had been brought to a total of about a million men. Much of this strength was not intended for the Tunisia Campaign but for later operations against Sicily and southern Italy. Elaborate training establishments were developed by the American Fifth and Seventh Armies and vast supply depots established with a view to future operations from the African base.