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
British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery has gone down in history as the victor of El Alamein and the relentless nemesis of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Nazi Germany’s famed “Desert Fox.” Read more
North Africa
When the armistice between France and Germany was put into force on June 25, 1940, the fate of the powerful French Navy—the fourth largest in the world—was of critical importance to the British. Read more
North Africa
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was disturbed in the autumn of 1938 by the Munich agreement, at which the rights of Czechoslovakia were signed away, and by reports of mounting air strength in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Read more
North Africa
In director Howard Hawks’s 1941 film classic, Sergeant York, then-Corporal Alvin York, portrayed by Gary Cooper, single-handedly knocks out more than 30 German machine-gun nests and, with little assistance, captures 132 enemy soldiers. Read more
North Africa
Compared to its sprawling British counterpart, the French colonial empire produced few notable heroes. One of these was Henri Laperrine, a talented but troubled officer who would help tame his part of the wilderness but, ultimately, would be destroyed by it. Read more
North Africa
In July 1939, Archibald Wavell was named General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of Middle East Command with the rank of full general in the British Army. Read more
North Africa
In November 1942, the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa, Operation Torch, caused a short but intense conflict with French forces loyal to the Vichy regime in power on the European mainland. Read more
North Africa
February 1941 saw the fortunes of war favor the British in the North African wasteland of Cyrenaica (modern Libya). Read more
North Africa
When British diplomat Lord Halifax arrived at the Berghof in the Bavarian Alps on November 19, 1937, he mistook German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler for a footman and was about to hand him his coat and hat when Foreign Minister Baron Constantin von Neurath hissed, “The Führer! Read more
North Africa
Shortly before dawn on May 20, 1941, a flight of 500 transport planes took off from seven airstrips on mainland Greece. Read more
North Africa
“The problem,” a member said, “is to make yourself so much master over the appalling difficulties of nature—heat, thirst, cold, rain, fatigue—that, overcoming these you yet have physical energy and mental resilience to deal with the greater object, the winning of the war.” Read more
North Africa
On the evening of June 16, 1940, Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain was appointed Prime Minister of France. It was a critical time. Read more
North Africa
At the outbreak of World War II, the British War Office assumed that conditions on the Western Front in France would be the same as those experienced in the Great War of 1914-1918. Read more
North Africa
Made popular by the Band of Brothers portrayal of Easy Company, the U.S. paratrooper “cricket” was in fact used to identify each other in the predawn hours of the D-Day invasion. Read more
North Africa
Lieutenant Richard Britt, navigator aboard a Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber named Chattanooga Choo Choo, woke up to find himself trapped in the wreckage. Read more
North Africa
The U.S. 36th Infantry Division, known as the “Texas” Division, was inducted into federal service on November 25, 1940, at Camp Bowie, Tex., Read more
North Africa
When Brig. Gen. Joseph-Pierre Koenig, commander of the 1st Free French Brigade, surveyed the area he had just been ordered to defend, he must have been mightily discouraged. Read more
North Africa
The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe was inevitable as the tide of World War II turned against Germany. Read more
North Africa
When the Triple Alliance was concluded between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy in the spring of 1882, Italy was, like Germany, a young nation recently unified after years of military conflicts and occupation by various European powers. Read more
North Africa
Two of America’s most famous senior commanders to emerge from World War II were Eisenhower and MacArthur. These officers were largely responsible for command decisions that resulted in Allied victories in the South Pacific and in Europe. Read more
