Thursday, November 28, 2019

The North Africa Campaign

    In 1941, days after the Pearl Harbor attack, both Hitler's Germany, and Mussolini's Italy declared war on the United States of America. At this point President Roosevelt and the American people knew their involvement in the war must begin. However, this would prove difficult as they were in the early stages of mobilization, making their resources for war incredibly limited. Roosevelt would have to find the most strategic location for the small war effort to engage. At the time Germany and Italy were looking East to secure Eurasia, which would be a massive victory for the Axis powers. If they were successful they would gain the key to the sea, the Suez Canal. While there was much opposition, who felt that we must support Britain more directly, Roosevelt's final decision was to save the Middle East. In November of 1942 Americans arrived in Northern Africa to fight in a series of battles which Churchill would later recount as the "Hinge of fate". This campaign commonly referred to as Operation Torch was a three pronged attack in Morocco, Oran, and Algiers, which was led by Eisenhower. Along with troops, American brought a powerful air force which helped propel them to military victories. While the American troops suffered many casualties, their generally successful efforts in regaining Africa were key to turning around the state of WWII for the allies, and stopping the Axis' expansion.
Image result for operation torchImage result for operation torch
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/us-invasion-north-africa
https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1727.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 29, 2019 at 4:18 PM

    I enjoyed how you broke down the Campaign into the individual phases of the attacks. As you stated, the Americans had significant casualties throughout this campaign, however they didn't lose nearly as many man as the British Commonwealth. While the US lost around 10,000 men, the commonwealth lost a total of 220,000 men. This significant difference can be attributed to the fact that more members of the commonwealth were at war versus amount of Americans.

    https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/allied-military-operations-in-north-africa

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  2. AnonymousNovember 29, 2019 at 11:43 PM

    From what I found online, it seems like the Suez Canal was technically supposed to be neutral during the war, but, since it was under the protection of British troops with the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, Axis Powers were denied accessing it. I found that interesting and important to note, as it raises the question of whether or not Germany and Italy's actions were actually, in some regard, justified in this case.

    https://www.history.com/topics/africa/suez-canal

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