American involvement In N. Africa during world war II (Revised)

The indorse world II was a world wide conflict which started in 1939 and ended in 1945. The contendfare was fought in different step forwards in the world. whizz was fought in Asia at more(prenominal) or less 1937, the other in Europe in 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Germany. A nonher one was similarly fought in African continent. It led the world nations to split into deuce that is. Allies (Britain and the States) and the bloc (Germany and Italy) The plump for World War started when Hitler invaded Poland on September first in 1939.Ab go forth one thousand million Australians fought in the guerilla World War in bms against Germany and Italy in Europe, northerly Africa, Mediterranean and against Japan in South easterly Asia as intimately as in other parts of the Pacific. The briny focus in this paper will be to discuss on the US multitude involvement in nitrogen Africa during the Second World War. In 1942, November, joined Kingdom military forces in fraternity with US military forces staged war against the french brotherhood Africa. It was the result of the long contentious demarcation between American aimners of war and those of Britain.The turbulence of this argument was calmed by the American presidents Franklin D Roosevelt intervention. American dream or so the Second World War in 1942 was to attack and defeat Germany before carry on to Asia to see the harm the Japanese were causing to Pacific territories. In the compar qualified year, the Soviet Army was far much pressed by the Germany-panzers function who were leveling attacks on Russia. Some American planners model it was non requisite to attack conglutination Western Europe.They planned that come 1943, the American soldiery would be puff uphead prepared, trained and equipped to meet the Germanys fast-growing(a) promenade. The American planners believed that its phalanxs knowledge and resources could help them to accomplish their mission of bringing Germany troo ps down. The British military leaders under the issue marshal Alan Brooke (Dennis P. 2002 78) adopted a different approach. They neer thought it well-advised to start launching their attacks in 1942. The main fountain out why they were contend to this melodic theme was because taking such a run for would force unify Kingdom to bear much of the military burden.At this time, they could non arouse afforded to hold a division in the army because they were experiencing a rumbustious armed set upon against Germany which had already inflicted a allot of harm to their army. Most of their military had met stiffly subway of the Wehrmatch in France during the disastrous 1940 campaign. At this time their forces under line of merchandise marshal Erwin Rommel, they had done practically nonhing to end or contract the German military process in sexual union Africa and in Libya. afterwards the war, Brooke found the strategy of the Marshal very incompatible and that he did non appreciate what the operations in France would mean.He could non figure out how the Germans could honour their attacks somewhat three to four times faster than theirs and he could not understand how they could suffer from the shortage of sea dishonor if the Mediterranean was not opened. The British opposed this idea though America promised to provide the invade forces. They wanted the Americans to clear the axis of rotation force in the Mediterranean shores of northeast America and open up that great inland sea for the confederate convoys to move in.This culminated into a deadlock that do Brooke to consider switching the America armys emphasis from European theatre of operations to the pacific, just now Roosevelt the then president of America could not accept such an idea that was central to their war strategy. This emphasy from Britain never worked to the Americans instead it led Roosevelt to do something that Winston Churchill would never dream of doing. In fact he inter vened and overruled his advisers who employ to advise him on war matters. This was in the summer of 1942.He ordered his generals to direct their forces to the French North Africa to support the British proposal for landing along the coast of North Africa. He did this so that he could divorce the oversight Germans were giving to European war. He wanted to divide the concentration of German because he thought that if he did not do that, then he would come to human face German some where in Europe. He knew that his move would be embraced by Britain though it was only done due to political necessity and internal disports. At this time the British soldiers had no choice only to clustering with USA in attacking Morocco and Algeria.From this time the attention that German had on war in Europe, half of it shifted to the battle in the Mediterranean. The plan was well strategized. About 65,000 men under lieutenant General Durlght D. Eisenhower were to be captureed by the allies to i nvade Casablanca, Roan and Algers. These were the possessions of the French North Africa. Everything went according the plan and they had a lot of quick success that was attributed to the fact that the Axis attention was focused elsewhere. This time the Germans were trying to subjugate Stalingrad and the Caucasus.In Egypt at the same period, the Rummels African Korps renewed their attainensive attacks on the British area of interests. The British forces under Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery organized his army to arbitrate the move of the Rummels the Montgomerys force entered into a fierce battle with the axis forces. The axis powers had no hope of winning this war and by early November Rummels armies yielded back to Libya. The move they took was against the wishes of Hitler who had ordered them to sustainment soldering on. Hitler never at any time contemplated of defeat. He would sooner die that witness such humiliations (Ambrose S.2001 58) At the onset of November 1942, th e confederate forces had started to body-build up their ships at Gibraltar. The German spies were aware but they down compete the idea as simply as some other large render convoy for reinforcing Malta. The Germanys companion had a different view Italy was not so sure of this though Germany never thought about this severely but had been ignoring Italys decision. In November eighth 1942 the foreign German foreign minister Ulrich Joachim who was also known as Von Ribbentrop was so sure about the American troops who had come in Algerian as well as in Moroccan ports.These affiliate forces leveled attacks that had positive results as it was expected, the confederate forces thought that the dissident French military officers who had supported them would turn against them however, this did not happen but to their awe the Vichy French regime just as it happened in Dakar and in Syria in the following year, they fought against the Allied forces though they did not draw off to kee p off the invading Germans in France and in Tunisia in the same year, that is 1942. The Vichy French military men couldnt let resisted the German who were very adamant and determined to crash the Frenchs down.The Vichys weapons were not up to the standard when compared with those of the Germans. They used tanks while he German possessed combat aircrafts though they were not enough. The Germans never trusted the French Vichy government and that was why they could never let them to modify their war technology. They thought that Frenchs would rise up against them if let to con modern weapons. Due to lack of proper weapons the Vichy Frenchs were ineffective to keep sustained resistance against the Allied forces who comprised of British soldiers and America soldiers(Atkinson R 2003152)In the initial stage of the war, America thought the French North Africa would not attack the Americans though this is not what happened. Though they tried to resist they could not resist the Americans approach shotments. They had no effective troops that would manage to keep Americans at bay. Though the Americans landings defeated the Frenchs, not all of them were successful. In fact a landing at Fedela costed the transport Leonard wood its 21 landing crafts and many lives perished. Also in another landing, the transport Thomas Jefferson 16 crafts was destroyed completely beyond revival.The some affected landing was of the transport canal which lost 18 out of its 25 crafts and in the second wave five of them were ruined sledding only two boats that could carry troops and other supplies. There was effective landing opposition at Mehdia by the French forces. The landing was not safe and was very dangerous. By November 10th, the Americans under major general Lucian Truscott were able to capture the airfield from the hands of French military men. This was as a result of a very heavy naval gun give notice between Frenchs and Americans but later after the negotiations between Fren ch leader and the allies in Algeria, fighting stopped.On 8th November 1992, the ft division had already actualized its dreams in almost all areas apart from St. blur where they met a very strong French force. During this time the combat was spearheaded by Roosevelt who was by then who was brigadier general. However, the landings begun to be interfered with by the rising surfs on 8th of November, the landing activities were to be suspended. In the following day the Vichy government tried to counter attack but they met a lot of resistance from Allied force who had support from air bases and naval baseOran was secured from the hands by the American though the French looked like they would never go but an armistice was signed when the representing parties came to postulateher. The most operation assignment that the allied forces approach was at the port of Algiers. The French had enough ground force rundown 52 fighter aircrafts. They also had 39 bombers. The port was heavily unemo tional so there was no way the Britishs and Americans could tolerate an easy access to the port. The American troops of the 168th regimental combat landed on the West while the 39th combat team went to the East of the port and they raided the port.They used two British destroyers which carried the royal navy forcefulness and the American troops. Before they could succeed, one of the destroyers was destroyed and it had to go back promptly while the other one succeeded and crossed the barriers. These forces that succeeded captured the power stake and crude oil tank firm and the Frenchs responded to this attack immediately. After some time when the 168th combat group failed to turn up, the American curber was forced to surrender his troops. The North Africa mission was called operation torch and the city that was their target was Casablanca and was under the command of Eisenhower.These nations (Sam M. 2006 102) were fighting for the control of the Suez Canal that linked Africa wi th the Middle East. Suez Canal was the intake of oil from the Middle East and other raw materials from Asia. Due to the automation of their armies, oil was a very crucial commodity and because Britain which had already a mechanized army it totally relied on oil from the Middle East. Britain used Suez Canal as a link to her overseas dominions. This was all made possible by the Mediterranean Sea hence, the struggle. This struggle started at around 1935 when Ethiopia was invaded by Italy which by then had made Somali land its colony.The move frightened Egypt which was not yet a British colony. They started getting dysphoric of its imperialistic aspirations thus in order to protect its interest and country, it allowed Britain to station its army in its territory so as to keep off any advances from Italy. Thereafter, Britain and France took upon themselves the responsibility of maintaining naval control over the Mediterranean with the main Britishs base at Alexandria, Egypt. The Briti sh and American troops met little resistance at Algiers, Oran and Casablanca on 8th of November 1942. The war took place in the North African desert.By the time the war took place the Italian dictator Mussolini had a better equipped army than that of the Britain and America. He had about a million soldiers who were establish in Libya while Britain had only 3600 soldiers who were based in Egypt. They were supposed to protect the Suez Canal and the oil fields in Arabia. At this time the Italians were a threat to Britain. They had already started showing interest in the red sea and Suez Canal supply routes. The North Africa campaign in the beginning was hampered by lack of enough supplies on both(prenominal) sides but later they got equipped.Tough battles took place which either rendered one group to advance against each other along the supply routes. Many of these fights took place in the Far East region out of the Mediterranean where they enjoyed emancipate transport (Breuer W. 198 5 26) In April 1941, the allied forces were under the leadership of General Bernard Montgomery. While the British troops worked to keep Germans forces at bay to the West, the US forces were supposed to confront the Frenchs in North Africa under work Touch The main reason for this reason for this operation was to take over Morocco which was already a French colony, to take Algeria and Tunisia.They wanted to offer support to their colleague in the Libyan Desert. They also wanted to make Mediterranean shipping route free to their ships and for other major operations in North Africa. They hoped that they would force the axis of out of the region. They also wanted the axis to reduce their concentration on the Russian forces or in other words, they wanted the Axis forces to divide their war attention between North Africa and Russia. The attack took Germans by surprise because they did not expect it to happen. Later, the French stopped being hostile to the allied forces and allowed them t o nave access to Tunisia.Rommel led his armies to various defensive operations. One of the most spot operations was of the Kasserine pass where American defenses were crashed by Germans modern tanks. This operation adage 1000 allied troops dead and hundred of them were held prisoners by Germans. They also lost most of their fighting equipments. Though the axis powers thought they were winners, to the allied forces was an awakening call. They went back to their drawing board, assessed their weaknesses and came up with the way forward (Funk A. L. 1974 86)Americans never gave up they sent Rommel back to conquer the Kasserine pass so that they could get the Merith line. This time, the axis forces gained advanced and suppressed the resistance that until they let 275000 prisoners free. The axis forces in Africa surrendered on may 2nd 1943 after about 350,000 soldiers were captured by the allied forces and 70,000 were casualties. After they quit from the war, the stage was left open for I talian campaign. The axis surrendered because of ruthlessness of the operation retribution which was designed to evacuate German and Italian forces from Tunisia.About 897 were held captives, 653 escaped and were assumed to have might drowned. In conclusion, we have seen how the North African war costed many lives. Many people perished and others were injured. Though the war was took place in Africa, it was not as fierce that one in Europe. These wars were fought by these nations to protect their national interests. No country wanted their competitors to have an access or even go near its spheres of influence. Another reason for the fight was to gain supremacy.The Allied Forces were determined to silence Germany and its colleagues which were proving to be a big threat in Europe. Their plan worked as it was expected that is, they sedulous Germany to another front so as to divide its concentration on war in Europe. So, it was not war for the sake of war but war for different reasons. In this war America in conjunction with Britain were the main aggressors. They left North African countries highly damaged. A lot of people perished while others were injured. The harm this American led war did was more than what one could have expected.Reference Dennis P. The oxford Companion to Australian Military History. Melbourne. Oxford University press. 2002 78 Breuer W. Operation Torch The Allied Gamble to Invade North. St. Martins Press. 1985 26 Funk A. L. The government of Torch, University press. 1974 86 Sam M. At all costs How crippled and two American Merchant mariners Turned the Tide of world WarII. Random House. 2006 102 Ambrose S. The equitable Fight How World War II Was Won. Atheneum. New York. 2001 58 Atkinson R. An army at Dawn The war in North Africa 1942-1943. Newyork Henry Holt. 2003 152