Reading -- The War in North Africa and Europe

A Desperate Situation

In late 1941 the Axis Powers pushed the Allies nearly to the breaking point. German submarine attacks
strained Great Britain's North Atlantic supply lines. Axis forces occupied Greece and Yugoslavia and were
advancing in North Africa and the Soviet Union.
Roosevelt and Churchill met in Washington, D.C., two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They agreed
that a full attack on Japan would have to wait. Instead, they decided to concentrate on defeating Germany
first. The two leaders also discussed a possible attack on Axis forces in North Africa. In January 1942 China
and the Soviet Union agreed to help defeat the Axis Powers. They also agreed not to make a separate peace
with any Axis state.
In 1942 the war in the Atlantic began looking more hopeful. The Allies introduced new sonar technology,
which helped locate and track German submarines. New long-range bombers also gave some protection to
ships far out at sea. While Allied naval forces fought for control of the Atlantic, air forces tried to destroy
Germany's economic resources. From Britain, Allied bombers struck factories, military centers, and railroads.
They also hit German cities. To improve the accuracy and effectiveness of their raids, U.S. bombers flew their
missions in broad daylight. As a result, bomber crews had greater success but suffered very high casualties.

North Africa and Italy

In September 1940, Italian forces in Libya attacked Egypt. They hoped to capture the Suez Canal, a vital
Allied supply route. The British resisted, however, and drove back the Italians. Hitler then sent the German
Afrika Korps, led by General Erwin Rommel, to the region. For the next two years, Rommel fought the Allies
in a back-and-forth battle over some 1,500 miles. A master of warfare and surprise attacks, Rommel soon
gained the nickname the Desert Fox. By the summer of 1942, he seemed ready to take Egypt. However, a
shortage of troops and supplies slowed Rommel's offensive. In November, British forces under General
Bernard Montgomery stopped Rommel's advance in the Battle of El Alamein. About the same time, British
and American forces, led by U.S. general Dwight D. Eisenhower, landed west of Egypt in French North
Africa. Eisenhower was a master at organization and planning. Soon his forces pushed back the Germans.
Then the British and American troops trapped Rommel's retreating Afrika Korps between them. After a series
of hard battles in early 1943, the Afrika Korps surrendered.
Having driven the Axis troops from North Africa, the Allies could invade Italy, which Churchill called the
enemy's "soft underbelly." In July 1943, Allied forces landed on the island of Sicily. After taking the island,
they began landing troops on the Italian mainland in September. As the Allies advanced, the Italian
government overthrew dictator Benito Mussolini in order to make peace. Hitler was still determined to stop the
Allies in Italy. He stepped in to save Mussolini, and German troops took control of Italy. Fighting fiercely, they
slowed the Allied advance.
In January 1944 the Allies tried to take the Germans by surprise. A force landed behind German lines at
the seaport of Anzio. Failing to break through German defenses, they were trapped at Anzio for four months.
Other Allied forces fought their way up the Italian Peninsula. Eventually, they joined with Allied troops at Anzio
and went on to capture Rome, Italy's capital, in June 1944. In April 1945, Italian resistance fighters captured
and killed Mussolini. In early May the Allies finally drove the Germans out of Italy.
Turning Points

In early 1943 the Allies had begun the final push to defeat the Axis Powers. Victories during the winter
of 1942–43 brought the Allies closer to their goal. After their initial invasion in June 1941, Axis forces had
advanced deep into the Soviet Union. In September 1942 a German army entered the city of Stalingrad and
began fighting for the city. The main battle, the Battle of Stalingrad, was a fierce struggle. Soldiers fought
for each city block. In November more Soviet troops arrived and surrounded the German army.
In late January 1943, with supplies running very low, the remaining German troops in Stalingrad surrendered.
The Axis Powers had lost some 200,000 soldiers in the fighting.
Six months later, the Soviets dealt another great blow to the Germans. They defeated the Germans in a
huge tank battle near the Soviet city of Kursk. The Soviet victories at Stalingrad and Kursk marked a turning
point in the war. Hitler's attempt to conquer the Soviet Union had failed. Axis troops retreated westward
toward Germany.
Roosevelt's top military adviser, General George C. Marshall, supported an Allied invasion of German-
occupied France. General Eisenhower was put in charge of planning the invasion, called Operation Overlord.
His plan called for a massive landing on the beaches of Normandy, in northwestern France. To fool the
Germans about the exact location of the attack, the Allies made several fake landings in other places. On the
morning of June 6, 1944, known as D-Day, Allied soldiers finally landed in Normandy. Hundreds of warships
off the coast tried to protect them by providing a cover of artillery fire. D-Day was the largest sea-and-land
invasion in history.
The Allies faced fierce German resistance on the beaches of Normandy. One U.S. officer on the scene
reported what it was like.
The determined Allies continued their assault despite terrible losses. By the end of D-Day, they had gained
a foothold and landed more than 155,000 troops in France.
Hundreds of thousands more Allied troops followed the D-Day forces during the summer. U.S. general
Omar Bradley led the breakout from the beaches and into occupied France. Tank forces under General
George S. Patton then broke through German lines in July. Meanwhile, new Allied forces landed in southern
France and began to advance northward. The liberation of France was at last in sight.
As the Allies advanced, French citizens rose up against German forces in Paris. On August 24 a small unit
of Free French troops entered the city. The next morning, Bradley arrived with his 12th Army Group. One
historian later described the group's arrival, "All Paris surged out to meet the Allied columns" and welcome
their liberators.

The Battle of the Bulge

After freeing Paris, the Allies began to push through Belgium and France toward Germany itself. Although
defeat seemed certain, Hitler refused to surrender. In December 1944 he made a desperate attempt to split
the advancing Allied armies. The Germans launched an offensive in the Ardennes (ahr-DEN), a forest region
defended by just a few U.S. divisions. Hitler hoped to recapture Antwerp, Belgium, the Allies' major supply
port.
On December 16 some 25 divisions of the German army attacked in the heavy snow. They almost broke
the Allied lines. Surprised, outnumbered, and without air support, the Americans fought bravely in the Battle
of the Bulge. U.S. losses were heavy—some 77,000 casualties—but the Americans slowed the German
counterattack. As more Allied troops arrived, the German offensive stalled, then turned into a general retreat.
The Battle of the Bulge lasted into early January and ended Germany's ability to wage offensive war.
As 1945 began, the Soviet armies were pushing toward Berlin, Germany's capital, from the east. U.S. and
British troops were preparing to cross the Rhine into Germany from the west.