Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West (United States Army in World War II: The Mediterranean Theater of Operations)

Operation Torch, the Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa, began on 8th November 1942.

It was the debut of the mass involvement of US troops in the European-North African Theater of World War Two.

The invasion stretched American resources to the limit.

Simultaneously the country was trying to maintain a line of communications to Australia, to conduct a campaign at Guadalcanal, to support China in the war against Japan, to arm and supply Russia’s hard-pressed armies on the Eastern Front, to overcome the U-boat menace in the Atlantic, to fulfill lend-lease commitments, and to accumulate the means to penetrate the heart of the German and Japanese homelands.

Yet, despite the difficulties, the invasion of North America was a monumental success that allowed the Allies a foothold with which to attack the soft underbelly of their enemies.

Operation Torch was shortly followed by a longer Allied effort to destroy all of the Axis forces in North America.

Extending across a front of more than three hundred and seventy-five miles conflicts flared in numerous small engagements before the final push to eradicate the two German and Italian armies located around Bizerte and Tunis.

George F. Howe’s comprehensive history of the engagements that took place in North Africa during the Second World War is a fascinating study of this often-forgotten front.

His book uncovers not only the campaigns and battles that occurred but also the regiments that fought in them and the leaders that led the Allied forces to victory.

George F. Howe was an American historian, author and teacher. He conducted historical research for the Army, became a historian for the Department of the Interior and from 1954 until his retirement in 1971 was senior historian at the National Security Agency. His other works include General History of the United States Since 1865 and The Battle History of the First Armored Division. Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West was first published in 1957 and Howe passed away in 1988.