The North African Campaign War in the Desert Expands 12 July 1942 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The North African Campaign War in the Desert Expands 12 July 1942 – 16 May 1943 1

Torch El Alamein 2

The Battle of El Alamein General Montgomery and the British 8 th Army • Builds up and Trains Forces • Restores Morale to 8 th Army • Masses Armor Forces Montgomery Strikes First • Feigns Attack to the South • Launches Attack up Coastal Road – Breach German Minefields • Rommel is unable to Halt British Advance – Begins Retreat – Suffers Loss of Nearly 500 Tanks. 3

 British Advance Rapidly, Never able to pin down Rommel  In Tunisia in Three Months  Rommel Falls back to Tunis – Attacks Americans at Kasserine Pass 4

Operation Torch  1 st American Action in the European War.  Allied Forces Converge from England and the United States. 5

Operation Torch  Major emphasis by Churchill.  British have little faith in the “ untested” Americans.  125,000 Vichy French await Allies - provide token resistance – some Americans die  French surrender and become Allies 6

Operation Torch Overall Commander Lt. General Dwight Eisenhower  Begins in Conjunction with the Start of the Battle of El Alamein  Germans being Pushed from Both the East and West  Germans Occupy Vichy France Land at  Casablanca  Oran  Algiers 7

82 nd Airborne Drop German Reinforcements 8

Americans Moving to the Front 9

Battle of Kasserine Pass 19 – 25 February 1943  Rommel Prepares for and Attacks at the Newly Arrived Americans  Senses their Weakness  Lack of Combat Experience! 10

First “Real” American Test in Combat  “Bloody Experience”  Learn Quick Lessons • 6,500 Casualties & POW’s  Rommel Halted – Returns to Germany • Does Not Return to Africa 11

II Corps Commander  Major General Lloyd Fredendall ---Relieved New Commander  Major General George Patton  Given Nine Days to Shape up II Corps and Attack British 8 th Army Arrives  Montgomery Helps to Close Door on the German Afrika Korps 12

Germans Flee to Sicily  Remainder of German Afrika Korps Captured by Allies • Nearly 250,000 Axis POW’s • Sent to the United States  The Defeat Follows Three Months after Stalingrad  American Soldiers Gain Valuable Experience 13

 Rommel Returns to Germany  “ Ill Health”  Worn Out  Stress of Battle  Sent to Western France to prepare for the coming Allied invasion  Fortifies the coasts of France, Belgium, Netherlands  “Atlantic Wall”  After D-Day landing – July 1944  Wounded in his staff car by Allied aircraft  Fractured Skull 14

 Implicated in July 1944 plot  “Assisted” to commit suicide  Allies believed he had died of his wounds – after war learned “ real ” truth” 15

 Implicated in July 1944 plot  “Assisted” to commit suicide  Allies believed he had died of his wounds – after war learned “ real ” truth” July 2013 16

Casablanca Conference; 14 – 24 January 1943  Joint Statement of Policy = “Unconditional Surrender” • Controversial • Will it / Did it Make the Axis Fight Harder?  Allied Aid to the Soviet Union  Agreed to Invade Italy and No Cross Channel Attack in 1943  Operation “Husky” Approved – Sicily, July 1943  Stalin Absent -- Afraid to Fly!  Tensions Between Henri Giraud & Charles DeGaulle • Free-French Forces • Leadership of Post-War France? 17

Deception worked Germans not ready for the Allied invasion of Sicily (“Husky”) 18

Start of the Italian Campaign  Sicily  Italian Peninsula 19

Operation Husky 20

Patton / Montgomery  Race to Messina  Entire Island Falls  Patton Slapping Incident! 21

135,000 German and Italian Soldiers Escape to Italian Mainland from Messina with their Equipment Three Miles Wide 22

Mussolini is Removed  July 1943 – After the Allied invasion of Sicily  Grand Council of Fascism voted to depose Mussolini  King Victor Emmanuel III had Mussolini arrested  September 1943 – Rescued by the Germans in the Gran Sasso mountains  Mussolini flown out of Italy to Bavaria  Establishes the Salo Republic in the north of Italy 23

After Mussolini is Removed  German military floods into Italy – takes up key positions south of Rome  Germans disarm Italian army  American 5 th Army and British 8 th Army prepares to face fresh German forces 24

US UK Landings on Italian Mainland UK 25

Allied Landing Beaches 1943 Salerno / Paestum, Italy Greek Colony Temples -- 6 th Century BC Hera Athena 26 1943 26

Miraculously None of the Greek Temples are Hit by German Artillery Gunfire! 27 27

January 1944 Halted at the Gustav Line Centered on Abbey of Monte Cassino 28