By the time the United States declared war on Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941, most of Europe had fallen under the domination of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany's Third Reich. In the west, only Great Britain, her armies expelled from the European continent, remained defiant; in the east, Hitler faced an implacable foe - the Soviet Union.While the Soviets tried to stave off a relentless German attack that had reached Moscow, Britain and her Commonwealth allies fought a series of crucial battles with Axis forces in North Africa.
Initially, America's entry into the war changed nothing. The United States continued to supply the Allies with the tools of war, as it had since the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. U.S. military forces, however, had to be expanded, trained, equipped, and deployed, all of which would take time.
With the United States in the war, the Allies faced the question of where American forces could best be used. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston S. Churchill had already agreed that defeating first Germany and then Japan would be their policy, but that decision raised further questions. Roosevelt wanted U.S. troops in combat against German troops as soon as possible. Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader, demanded a second front in northern Europe to relieve pressure on his armed forces. Churchill, fearing German power in France, hoped for a strike at the Mediterranean periphery of Hitler's conquests - what he called the "soft underbelly" of Europe. Churchill proposed an invasion of northwest Africa for late 1942 and Roosevelt agreed. As a result, American forces were soon on their way across the Atlantic, beginning a Mediterranean journey that would involve them in nearly three long years of combat. Africa to the Alps describes the participation of the Army Air Forces in the war in the Mediterranean theater of operations, as it developed a practical air-ground doctrine, established an effective interdiction strategy, and gained valuable experience in airborne operations and close air support of ground troops.
As the Germans opened their May assault, Sir Charles Portal, chief of air staff for Britain, met in London with Gen. Henry H. Arnold, head of the Army Air Forces (AAF), to determine how to bring U.S. bombers and fighters to the Middle East. In fact, the first U.S. heavy bombers had already arrived. During a stopover along the African leg of a newly established ferrying route to India, twenty-three B-24s commanded by Col. Harry Halverson diverted from their Asian journey and proceeded to Egypt. There they prepared for a strike against Ploesti, a Romanian petroleum complex vital to the German war machine. Over the next three years, that target became legendary to the thousands of airmen who flew against it. On the evening of June 11, 1942, thirteen of Halverson's small force of B-24s took off from a Royal Air Force (RAF) airfield near the Suez Canal, arriving the next morning over the target where they bombed the refineries as planned. The raid marked the first AAF combat mission over Europe. From this modest start, the American presence in the Mediterranean theater grew into an overwhelming force.
Halverson's B-24s stayed and supported the U.S. Eighth Army in the desert war against Rommel. For the next several weeks, they joined the RAF in targeting German supplies, attacking convoys at sea, and repeatedly striking the harbors at Benghazi and Tobruk. In Cairo, meanwhile, the structure of the AAF in the Middle East took shape. On June 28, the U.S. Army Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF) activated under the command of Maj. Gen. Lewis Brereton. With nine B-17s from the Tenth Air Force in India, he was a recent arrival. The Halverson and Brereton heavy bombers were the only U.S. combat aircraft in the Middle East until P-40 fighters and B-25 medium bombers arrived in August.
The USAMEAF joined the RAF, Middle East, commanded by Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur W. Tedder, and the Western Desert Air Force, led by Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, in forming the Allied air power opposing Rommel. The Americans soon became familiar with British air tactics and doctrine. They observed Tedder's and Coningham's fight within the British military to divorce air power from the control of ground commanders and they participated in the effective application of air power to the battlefield.
By the end of August, as new aircraft arrived, the Americans increased their tempo of operations, flying almost daily missions against enemy shipping at sea and in the ports of Benghazi and Tobruk. In September, U.S. P-40s and B-25s, flying with existing RAF units, joined the heavies in blunting a major Axis attack on Alam Halfa at the southern end of the British line. The next test for U.S. airmen came in October at El Alamein.
Allied fighters and medium bombers slashed at frontline gun emplacements, tank groups, and infantry positions, and blasted overextended German supply lines. The U.S. 57th Fighter Group roared overhead, scoring twenty-nine aerial victories, and B-25s succeeded in breaking up two enemy counterattacks. By November 4, their victory was complete and Allied forces, including the U.S. Ninth Air Force, began pursuing the Afrika Korps across the Libyan desert and into eastern Tunisia, where Rommel linked up with existing German forces. Until late 1943, the Ninth Air Force supported the British advance, flew interdiction missions against German supply lines and reinforcements, bombed Ploesti, and joined the Tunisia-based Twelfth Air Force in attacks against a widening arc of targets northward into Sicily and Italy.
The night before the invasion, the 60th Troop Carrier Group's C-47s loaded with the 503d Parachute Infantry Regiment took off from St. Eval and Predannack in southwestern England, bound for Africa over 1,000 miles away. Trouble lay ahead. Bad weather and equipment problems broke up the formation and forced many aircraft to fly through the Spanish darkness alone. Next morning the C-47s were scattered from Gibraltar to Oran, with three aircraft interned in Spanish Morocco. In a remarkable feat of flying skill, most pilots put their paratroopers within a few miles of Tafaraoui, but U.S. units advancing from the beachhead took the objective before the airborne troops arrived. On the afternoon of November 8, Twelfth Air Force commander Brig. Gen. James H. Doolittle ordered his 31st Fighter Group's Spitfires into Tafaraoui, where within a few hours they went into action against La Senia. The following day, the last French aircraft roared away from La Senia airfield, leaving behind only a few defenders. Shortly thereafter, the Tafaraoui Spitfires teamed with armored units to force the French to surrender. Doolittle's airmen also rendered important support during the fight for Oran. Early on November 9, the Spitfires spotted a large column of the French Foreign Legion moving up from Sidi-bel-Abbès and turned it back with a devastating attack. The next day, French forces in Oran surrendered.
AAF's 64th Troop Carrier Group overran the airfield at Bône, Algeria. Three days later, the 60th Troop Carrier Group dropped American paratroops at Youks-les-Bains airfield near the Tunisian border. By the end of November, Allied forces under the command of Lt. Gen. Kenneth Anderson, a Briton, reached Tebourba, just sixteen miles west of Tunis. Meanwhile, the enemy's buildup in Tunisia accelerated. Using airlift and sealift, the Germans and Italians brought in tanks, trucks, ammunition, and thousands of men. On November 28, they struck Eisenhower's forces. Over the next five days, Axis troops, tanks, and aircraft pounded the Allies and drove them back almost twenty miles to the west.
Winter rains further complicated Eisenhower's operations, quickly turning his unpaved airfields into seas of mud that bogged down Allied aircraft. The Germans, however, enjoyed modern airfields in Sicily, Sardinia, and Tunisia. They flew hundreds of bombers and their new fighter, the fast, well-armed FW 190, from all-weather, paved runways. As the winter weather worsened late in December, Eisenhower reluctantly went on the defensive, leaving Doolittle's B-17s and P-38s to carry the fight to Axis ports, shipping, and airfields. The original plan for Operation Torch called for the assignment of an overall air commander, but Eisenhower decided that unified air forces were not usable. Thus, throughout November and December, American and British airmen fought separate wars, mainly in support of their respective army ground corps. Because senior army officers insisted that airmen be under their control to provide local protection and handle local problems, air power was not used efficiently. Consequently, at the end of 1942, Eisenhower and his senior leaders decided to consolidate Allied air resources into the Mediterranean Air Command, led by Air Chief Marshal Tedder. This reorganization permitted Tedder to direct scarce resources where they were most needed.
In the weeks ahead, two major tests awaited Eisenhower's forces in central Tunisia. The first occurred on January 30, 1943, when the Germans launched a strong offensive and drove the Allies back. For five days they fought a mobile defensive battle, finally reaching stronger positions. In mid-February, Field Marshal Rommel led a second powerful thrust, ripping through the Kasserine Pass. There the Allies - particularly the U.S. II Corps - suffered a stunning defeat. Several days later, Allied forces counterattacked and pushed the Germans back, thus ending the last serious Axis threat in Africa. Meanwhile, at Allied Force Headquarters in Algiers, Eisenhower con tinued the reorganization of Allied air power and established the Northwest African Air Forces (NAAF) under the command of Lt. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz. Under Tedder's direction as the single theater air commander, the NAAF, which comprised the U.S. Twelfth Air Force and Britain's Western Desert Air Force, offered unity of command within the theater and greater flexibility in the use of air power. The shock of Rommel's early success at the Kasserine Pass and persistent squabbling over the control of close air support forced Eisenhower to take more drastic action. Before the fighting ended, he created a centralized Allied Air Support Command under Air Vice Marshal Coningham. The aggressive New Zealander transformed tactical aviation in Tunisia. He immediately implemented his philosophy first to destroy the German Luftwaffe, then isolate the battlefield - a system combat-proven by the British Eighth Army in its victory at El Alamein - and drive across the Libyan desert.
In March 1943, improving weather, more aircraft, and new airfields led to increased Allied air activity, diminishing complaints from the ground commanders and posing deadly challenges to the Luftwaffe. Alerted by Ultra, the famous Allied codebreaking effort, on April 18, scores of P-40s and Spitfires ambushed a formation of over one hundred German transports and their fighter escort off the Tunisian coast. The Americans struck swiftly. In what became known as the "Palm Sunday Massacre," they shot down nearly half of the enemy formation in a matter of minutes. This success against the Axis air transport system, combined with accelerated attacks over the next few weeks, forced the Germans to abandon daylight supply missions. Meanwhile, Allied ground units in the west joined with Mont gomery's forces from the east, and closed on Axis troops falling back on Bizerte and Tunis. Heavy fighting continued through April, but by early May surviving enemy forces had either surrendered or escaped to Sicily.
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