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

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

Apr 16, 2023 47 likes •334 views

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

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SLIDE 1

The North African Campaign

War in the Desert Expands 12 July 1942 – 16 May 1943

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Torch El Alamein

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The Battle of El Alamein

General Montgomery and the British 8th Army

  • Builds up and Trains Forces
  • Restores Morale to 8th 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

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

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Operation Torch

  • 1st American Action in the

European War.

  • Allied Forces Converge

from England and the United States.

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  • 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

Operation Torch

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SLIDE 7

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

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Land at

  • Casablanca
  • Oran
  • Algiers
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SLIDE 8

82nd Airborne Drop German Reinforcements

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Americans Moving to the Front

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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!

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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

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SLIDE 12

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 8th Army Arrives  Montgomery Helps to Close Door

  • n the German Afrika Korps

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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

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 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

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

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

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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?

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

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Start of the Italian Campaign

Sicily Italian Peninsula

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Operation Husky

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Patton / Montgomery

  • Race to Messina
  • Entire Island Falls
  • Patton Slapping

Incident!

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

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  • 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

Mussolini is Removed

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  • German military floods into Italy –

takes up key positions south of Rome

  • Germans disarm Italian army
  • American 5th Army and British 8th

Army prepares to face fresh German forces

After Mussolini is Removed

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Landings on Italian Mainland

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US UK UK

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Salerno / Paestum, Italy Greek Colony Temples -- 6th Century BC

Hera Athena

Allied Landing Beaches 1943

1943

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

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Halted at the Gustav Line Centered on Abbey of Monte Cassino

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January 1944