This article was penned by YANK correspondent Sergeant George "Slim" Aarons (1916 - 2006) concerning his travels throughout the Allied occupied portions of Tunisia in 1943. Aarons reported on the heavy presence of German military debris that could be found scattered throughout the deserts - evidence that spelled out the imminent eviction of the Germans from that continent:
"Some of these tanks lay in groups, showing how they had clustered together and fought it out to the bitter end. Other iron carcasses were alone in the desert, burned and twisted - relics of a hopeless, single-handed struggle against the Allied forces."
Click here to read about the retreat of the German 7th Army from Normandy.
General Lunsford Errett Oliver (1889 - 1978) wrote this article about his experiences commanding the American Army in Tunisia. As many of you may know, the American efforts in North Africa were fraught with many difficulties, the least of them were the Germans. The biggest one referred to by the general was the total lack of air cover for his advancing army.
Click here to read about the retreat of the Africa Corps.
By the time this article appeared at the New York City newsstands, the British had chased Rommel's Afrika Korps out of Egypt, the Americans had suffered their first defeat at the Kasserine Pass and was in the process of walloping the Tenth Panzer at El Guettar. The anonymous general who penned this article took all that into consideration but believed there was much more fight left in the Germans than there actually was.
The U.S. 34th Division fought in Tunisia, click here to read about them.
Click here to read about the Rangers in North Africa.
"British bombing planes made a lightning assault on the Fascist base at Tobruk yesterday... Italy's high command admitted today that Bardia had fallen and was completely in British hands... Reports from Benghazi, capital of italian Libya, indicated that the British were intensifying their attacks against Giarabub in an effort to strengthen their exposed left flank against counterattacks.
-what the Heck was PM Tabloid? click here and find out...
Robert Capa's (1913 - 1954) images of the American thrust through Tunisia.
"The British have struck heavily at the Mareth Line in what both sides call the opening blow of the long-awaited big battle of Tunisia."
(The Mareth Line was a system of bunkers built by France in southern Tunisia during the late Thirties. The line was intended to protect Tunisia against an Italian invasion from its colony in Libya.)
With the loss at Kasserine Pass and the victory at El Guettar behind them, the U.S. Army in North Africa traveled ever northward in a caravan of Jeeps and trucks looking for their next engagement with Rommel's Africa Corps.
Australian general Leslie Morshead (1889 - 1959) gave Rommel and his Afrika Korps a tough time of it during the North Africa campaign (1940 - 1943). The Germans called him Ali Baba Morshead, and they knew what he was capable of. He kicked Rommel out of Tobruk and El Alamein and when his work was done in the Mediterranean, he was transferred to the Pacific Theater where he gave the Japanese no end of grief.
"Major General Lewis E. Brereton (1890 - 1967) is the new commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East."
Canadian war correspondent M.H. Halton reported from the Egyptian desert concerning "one of modern war's most dramatic spectacles - [a] battle of tanks in the dark."
"Marshal Erwin Rommel's Axis forces in Egypt have been beaten back by British guns and planes. A Cairo communique said yesterday that the German armored divisions had retreated west of the British minefields to the starting line of his offensive which opened a week ago... Captured Axis prisoner disclosed how Rommel had touched off the offensive last Monday with a proclamation to his men that "we are off to Cairo.'"
"The chase is over in Tunisia."
"Breathing hard, Rommel's Afrika Korps has succeeded in outstripping its pursuers and taken refuge behind the fortress heights that guard the Tunis-Bizerte pocket. Pounding on the gates are the British Eighth Army of General Bernard Montgomery [and] Lt. General George Patton's American and French Army..."
This is a primary source article by a reporter who rode in the armored vehicles of the British Army during the Libyan campaign of 1942:
"It seemed incredible that in the melee either side could know whom or what they were firing at. The best I could do was identify the burning tanks: white smoke for the petrol-driven British - black smoke for the Diesel oil of the German tanks. There was plenty of both."
"The Axis forces in Tunisia, fighting desperately from their mountain fortifications, have stalled for a little longer the day of their defeat..."
"[If not for the Allied air forces] Rommel might have reached his objectives - Alexandria, Cairo and Suez - had he not been able to plow through to the Nile Delta where he could resume his favorite kind of military football. He might have reached the flat, broad, green cool plains of the Delta had he been able to bring up water, food, fuel and reinforcements in men and weapons. It was precisely that which air power prevented..."
