The North Africa campaign during World War II included major operations from early 1940 through the spring of 1943 as Allied forces fought Axis armies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. For the Allies, victory in North Africa was critical for control of the Mediterranean Sea and future offensive operations in Italy. Axis forces hoped to dominate the Mediterranean and seize British-held Egypt, the Suez Canal, and potentially the oil fields of the Middle East. The Allies were victorious in North Africa campaign, and the defeat of Axis forces at the Battle of El Alamein was a turning point during World War II.
North Africa
The famous retreat of the “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel across North Africa following his defeat at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942 was less a retreat than a series of stubborn battles to hold ground. Read more
North Africa
Ignoring the swirling sands stirred up by the fierce winds of the Sahara Desert in the early morning hours of February 14, 1943, Generalleutnant Heinz Ziegler ordered his panzer columns forward to attack the American forces deployed in central Tunisia. Read more
North Africa
On the morning of Friday, February 18, 1944, fresh groups of German panzergrenadiers backed by tanks swept south from their defensive positions at Anzio and overran American forward positions at Aprilia, eight miles north of the landing beaches. Read more
North Africa
The name Field Marshal Erwin Rommel—associated with tank warfare in Europe and North Africa during World War II—might conjure up mental images of the famous “Desert Fox” riding in a panzer, reviewing maps, or commanding battles. Read more
North Africa
Coming after a series of bitter defeats from France to Norway to Crete, news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II was one of the early high points of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s leadership years. Read more
North Africa
The town of Affile in Italy’s Lazio region erected a mausoleum to Italian Army Marshal Rodolfo Graziani in August 2012. Read more
North Africa
The five Americans were trapped in a small, dark, empty wine cellar in an isolated French villa on the coast of Algiers. Read more
North Africa
Major General George S. Patton, Jr. had no patience for soldiers disobeying the rules of combat at his Desert Training Center in Southern California. Read more
North Africa
By the time of the Crusader battles in late 1941, the German panzer forces in North Africa had developed a sophisticated combined-arms doctrine. Read more
North Africa
World War II spanned six long years from 1939 to 1945. The Allied powers, principally The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, defeated the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. Read more
North Africa
To Colonel Edson Raff, jumping out of a plane was “like getting out of the bed in the morning.” Read more
North Africa
Early in 1945, in the Northern Appenine mountains of Italy, T/5 Harvey, a radioman with the 10th Mountain Division, is carrying his WW2 radio backpack, the ever-handy SCR-300, into combat for the first time. Read more
North Africa
Even before the end of World War II, German General Erwin Rommel’s fame was such that he was already being elevated into the Valhalla of such legendary warriors as Hannibal against the Roman Empire, Napoleon during his defensive campaigns of 1813-1814, and Robert E. Read more
North Africa
Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more
North Africa
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II, considered General Alfonse Juin to be the best French combat general of the conflict. Read more
North Africa
Lucian Truscott needed a cigarette. The 47-year-old brigadier general was having the worst night of his life. Read more
North Africa
It was a letter in the London Times that caught the attention of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Read more
North Africa
The Ninth Air Force began life on August 21, 1941, as the 5th Air Support Command at Bowman Field, Kentucky, and was activated on September 1, 1941. Read more
North Africa
With such award-winning films as Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, and How Green Was My Valley behind him, John Ford was one of Hollywood’s most respected directors by the time World War II broke out in 1939. Read more
North Africa
In early 1942 things could have hardly looked bleaker for the Allies. In Europe, Hitler’s war machine had steamrolled across the entire continent and was now battling before the gates of Moscow. Read more
