World War 2 Operation Husky News

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November 21 - November 28

November 21, 1943
Field Marshal Kesselring is appointed commander-in-chief of all German forces in Italy, while Rommel leaves his command to organize the Atlantic wall.

Operation Torch Sale
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October 22 - November 5

October 22, 1942
First transports for Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa, depart Britain (cargo ships).

While the British and Commonwealth militaries successfully pushed the Axis powers across the Sahara Desert to Tunisia, the remaining western territories in North Africa were under the control of the Axis-allied Vichy French government. The Vichy French had hundreds of thousands of soldiers spread throughout Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. During the strategic planning of the American intervention in North Africa, the political situation of the Vichy French territories was revealed to be more complex than originally anticipated. While the western portions of North Africa were officially part of France’s colonial empire, the Axis-allied Vichy French were the governing faction in the war, and the political perspectives of the local population of Free French exiles, pro-Vichy French groups, members of the French Resistance, and the diverse indigenous locals would make the American intervention strategy that much more difficult to consider. The amphibious landings in North Africa had tens of thousands of American and British soldiers landing in the cities of Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers over the course of several days in November 1942. Heavy casualties were incurred at the landings of Oran, as the combined American and British landing forces came under attack from Vichy French crossfire. In spite of the unexpected resistance by the defending Vichy French, the American soldiers successfully secured the landing zones in all three main cities, establishing an Allied beachhead across the coasts of Morocco and Algeria. The successful Operation Torch saw the American armies gain their first major victory in World War II. Paratroopers and Rangers from the U.S. Army were also successfully used for the first time at the landings around the city of Oran. Difficulties in reaching the shoreline on the amphibious landing craft helped the Allied commanders examine different methods of delivering soldiers from the sea to the land, which would later help them form more successful landings in Italy and France. Over the next several months, the American and British armies advanced respectively from the west and the east, trapping the remaining Axis powers in Tunisia. In spite of the successful advances, the Allies suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Kasserine Pass in February 1943. Due to the heavy casualties sustained by the American forces in the battle, the commanding general of the U.S. II Corps was replaced with the newly promoted Lieutenant General George S. Patton Jr. Patton’s strict regulations for his soldiers and his rigorous training exercises helped the American armies win against the Axis forces at the Battle of El Guettar in April 1943. With the American and British armies defeating the Germans and Italians in the combined Operations Vulcan and Strike in May 1943, the Axis powers were completely pushed out of North Africa. The final surrender of the Axis powers on May 13 marked the conclusion of the Allied campaign in North Africa and laid the foundation for the invasion of Sicily two months later.

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September 8 - September 22

September 8, 1943
Eisenhower announces the Italian unconditional surrender.
German reserves are rushed to Italy in the wake of the cease-fire between the Badoglio government and the Allies.

On September 8, 1943, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies.
Germany reacted with Operation Axis, the Allies with Operation Avalanche.

With Mussolini deposed from power and the earlier collapse of the fascist government in July, Gen. Pietro Badoglio, the man who had assumed power in Mussolini’s stead by request of King Victor Emanuel, began negotiating with Gen. Eisenhower for weeks. Weeks later, Badoglio finally approved a conditional surrender, allowing the Allies to land in southern Italy and begin beating the Germans back up the peninsula. Operation Avalanche, the Allied invasion of Italy, was given the go-ahead, and the next day would see Allied troops land in Salerno.

The Germans too snapped into action. Ever since Mussolini had begun to falter, Hitler had been making plans to invade Italy to keep the Allies from gaining a foothold that would situate them within easy reach of the German-occupied Balkans. On September 8, Hitler launched Operation Axis, the occupation of Italy. As German troops entered Rome, General Badoglio and the royal family fled Rome for southeastern Italy to set up a new antifascist government. Italian troops began surrendering to their former German allies; where they resisted, as had happened earlier in Greece, they were slaughtered (1,646 Italian soldiers were murdered by Germans on the Greek island of Cephalonia, and the 5,000 that finally surrendered were ultimately shot).

One of the goals of Operation Axis was to keep Italian navy vessels out of the hands of the Allies. When the Italian battleship Roma headed for an Allied-controlled port in North Africa, it was sunk by German bombers. In fact, the Roma had the dubious honor of becoming the first ship ever sunk by a radio-controlled guided missile. More than 1,500 crewmen drowned. The Germans also scrambled to move Allied POWs to labor camps in Germany in order to prevent their escape. In fact, many POWS did manage to escape before the German invasion, and several hundred volunteered to stay in Italy to fight alongside the Italian guerillas in the north.

The Italians may have surrendered, but their war was far from over.

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July 26 - August 9

On July 26, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China.

On July 24, Tokyo decided to strengthen its position in terms of its invasion of China by moving through Southeast Asia. Given that France had long occupied parts of the region, and Germany, a Japanese ally, now controlled most of France through Petain’s puppet government, France “agreed” to the occupation of its Indo-China colonies. Japan followed up by occupying Cam Ranh naval base, 800 miles from the Philippines, where Americans had troops, and the British base at Singapore.

President Roosevelt swung into action by freezing all Japanese assets in America. Britain and the Dutch East Indies followed suit. The result: Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil. Japan’s oil reserves were only sufficient to last three years, and only half that time if it went to war and consumed fuel at a more frenzied pace. Japan’s immediate response was to occupy Saigon, again with Vichy France’s acquiescence. If Japan could gain control of Southeast Asia, including Malaya, it could also control the region’s rubber and tin production—a serious blow to the West, which imported such materials from the East. Japan was now faced with a dilemma: back off of its occupation of Southeast Asia and hope the oil embargo would be eased—or seize the oil and further antagonize the West, even into war.

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June 29 - July 13

On June 29th, 1944

70,000 troops of German Army Group Centre that are encircled near Bobruisk surrender to the Red Army. The Russians report that 16,000 Germans have been killed and 18,000 captured near Minsk.