It is essential to indicate that World War II had been ongoing in Europe since 1930, but the U.S did not intervene until 1941. The U.S joined the war in 1941 after Japan, which was in alliance with Germany and Italy, bombed the Pearl Harbor with the three nations declaring war on the United States. The attack on Pearl Harbor was meant to prevent the U.S from invading the Pacific ( Shi & Tindall, 2016). The Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation of China and Asia also threatened the U.S interests in the region, forcing the country to join the war.
Moreover, Germany’s aggression, as well as unrestricted submarine warfare that led to the sinking of the U.S ships, prompted the country to join the war. The U.S wanted to protect its vessels in the high seas, and again, Germany had infringed upon the agreement of safeguarding water vessels. In addition, the U.S joined them out of fear of German rapid expansion and invasion ( Shi & Tindall, 2016). Germany had become aggressive in acquiring territories and building up its military power, thus becoming a threat to the entire world. The U.S wanted to protect its interests and power and thus joined the war to contain Germany under Hitler that was rising as a new world power.
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The North African Campaign
The North African Campaign started in June of 1940 and progressed for three consecutive years as Allied and Axis forces pushed one another back and forth on the Sahara Desert ( Shi & Tindall, 2016).
Objectives of the North African Campaigns
The main aim of the North Africa Campaign was to control the Suez Canal. The other goal was to have access to oil from the Middle East and raw materials that originated from Asia. Ideally, oil had become an essential and strategic commodity as a result of the mechanization of modern armies ( Wildavsky, 2017). The artilleries and tankers relied on oil for power. Moreover, control of the region made military conscription of Africans easy.
Operation Torch
Operation Torch refers to the Anglo-American invasion of Algeria and French Morocco during the North African Campaign in the course of World War II. The operation began on the 8th of November and ended on the 16th of November 1942. The operation started from the uneasy compromise made between the Allies and was aimed at easing pressure on the Soviet Union by way of imperiling Axis forces present in the region and also by enabling an attack of Southern Europe in 1943 ( Wildavsky, 2017). The operation was under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower and was designed like a pincer movement with American troops landing at the Atlantic coast of Morocco and Anglo-American landings and capture of Algeria’s Mediterranean coast. The main objective of the operation was to secure bridgeheads for opening another front to the rear of Italian and Germany forces that were fighting the British in Egypt and Libya.
Vichy Position
The invasion forces had a task of overcoming French opposition mostly in territories that were under the control of the Vichy Regime with 125,000 soldiers under Marshall Phillip Petain. Vichy’s soldiers were positioned in Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. He had armed them with powerful coastal artillery, aircraft, warships and numerous tanks. Vichy forces defeated an attempted coup on November 7th by a pro-Allied General Antoine Bethouart targeting French command in Morocco. The subsequent stiff French resistance led to losses at various assault points in Morocco prior to the Western Task Force achieving its landing objectives. The French later surrendered the city as Allied forces were preparing an all-out attack ( Wildavsky, 2017). The Allied forces landed successfully and took control of the two coasts with General Juin ordering the French forces to stop armed resistance in Morocco and Oran on the 10-11 of November.
Role of the U.S in Operation Torch
The U.S played an important part in the operation by supplying soldiers, and to date, it was the largest American campaign ever recorded in the Atlantic theater. The U.S also gathered intelligence and supplied ammunition and arms during the operation, which led to the Allied victory after three years of combat.
Results of the Campaign
The operation had mixed political legacy with Darlan temporarily remaining leader of the French administration as the French forces in North Africa joined forces with the Allies. Darlan’s deal with the Allies angered Hitler, who ordered the full occupation of Vichy France while at the same time, he started establishing Axis forces in Tunisia ( Wildavsky, 2017). However, the operation failed to repulse large numbers of Germans occupying the Eastern Front. American and British troops achieved victory after three years of war.
The Italian Campaign
The Italian Campaign during World War II refers to the Allied operations that occurred in Italy from 1943 to the end of the war. Confusion arose among the Allies on the step they were to take next following their victory on the North African Campaign. The decision to attack Italy was arrived at in 1943 at the Casablanca Conference. It was the first war conference that the Allied powers held and it was between Churchill and Roosevelt which majorly planned Allied strategy and also how to end the war. The conference set terms of unconditional surrender.
The Italian Campaign saw Allied troops being placed on the European mainland for the very first time. Notably, the move was never a substitute for an invasion targeting Germany by use of the open route that traversed France. Beyond their objective of crushing Italian forces, the Allies aimed at drawing German soldiers away from the significant Allied advance via Nazi-invaded northern Europe to Berlin, Germany. The Italian campaign that started on the 10th of July 1953 to 2nd of May 1945 encompassed a series of Allied beach landings as well as land battles from southern Italy and Sicily to Italian mainland close to Nazi Germany ( Wildavsky, 2017). The Allied advance via Italy resulted in the most bitter and costly fighting of the entire war with much of it being fought in treacherous mountain terrain.
Operation Husky
Operation Husky refers to the invasion of Sicily that started on the 9th of July 1943 and ended in May 1945 marking the first ever major invasion on German-occupied Europe. The Allied powers had just ripped their first success under North Africa Operation Torch that had led to gradual clearance of Axis troops from Tunisia freeing resources for new amphibious attacks in the Mediterranean. It is essential to indicate that the Allies were not yet strong enough to launch an attack of the Normandy and thus the next phase was to engage the Axis forces to relieve pressure on the Russian side especially in the east as well as force Italy to surrender the war ( Wildavsky, 2017). The invasion of Italy involved 2,600 Allied ships alongside air support. The attacking group comprised of two armies: the British Eighth Army and the U.S Seventh Army.
The moment the forces were ashore, the Allies pushed forward intending to destroy and capture the Axis forces based on the island. Notably, the few German troops stationed on Sicily received reinforcement to make a total of four elite divisions in addition to a strong Italian force. Under the command of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the Germans tactfully used the mountainous terrain of the island to conduct an effective delaying operation. The Allied forces, particularly the British, moved carefully against the German troops. Even though Hitler emphasized that Sicily must remain within their control at all costs, Commander Kesselring realized it was wiser for him to abandon the island for him to safeguard his German formations alongside their valuable weapons from being taken by the Allies. On the eve of 11-12 August, the German troops started a well-executed retreat that saw 60,000 Italian and 40,000 German troops cross over to the mainland with little resistance from the Allied forces ( Wildavsky, 2017).
Patton’s army moved toward the northeastern shore of Sicily and later toward Messina in an attempt to protect the flank of Montgomery's veteran forces as they advanced to the east coast of the Sicily. Jarred by the Allied Attack, the unpopular Italian fascist regime fell quickly into disrepute the way the Allies had anticipated. On the 24th of July 1943, the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini was deposed and subsequently arrested. The Allied forces established a new provisional government and placed under Marshal Pietro Badoglio who had initially opposed Italy’s union with Nazi Germany and had immediately started secret discussions with the Allied forces on an armistice ( Wildavsky, 2017). Shortly after Mussolini’s arrest, Italian troops began withdrawing from Sicily. Hitler, on the other hand, instructed his troops to make contingency plans for exiting Sicily but continued to launch a fierce fight against the Allied forces.
Results of the Campaign
Sicily fell in the hand of the hands of the Allied forces. German and Italian army managed to evacuate 100,000 men alongside their vehicles, ammunition, and supplies across the Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland. The Allies achieved victory with the capture of Sicily, which motivated them for the ultimate capture of Italy. 37,000 Germans and 130,000 Italians were captured. The Allied forces gained the naval air bases situated in the Mediterranean. 31, 158 soldiers were either killed, wounded, or went missing ( Wildavsky, 2017). The escape of 100,000 German and Italian troops into the Italian mainland undermined the Allies’ victory. The battle of Sicily came to an end, but German had suffered minimal losses in the entire exercise.
References
Shi, D. E., & Tindall, G. B. (2016). America: A narrative history . WW Norton & Company.
Wildavsky, A. (2017). The two presidencies. In The beleaguered presidency (pp. 29-46). Routledge.
