|
ShermanM4 -> Of North Africa (7/29/2003 3:52:15 AM)
|
To the best of my knowledge, it was part of the ETO. North Africa seems wierd in repsect to the rest of the war. The Americans arrived there in late '42 and actually spent about as much time fighting the French as they did the Germans. After the Kasserine debacle in which the Americans were almost sent willy nilly home, the rest of the fighting in North Africa was not large in scale at all. The Afrika Korps was only Four Divisions total. They were supplemented with Italians and I am not knocking the Italians, but that was not enough to tip the scales in any major favor for the Axis war effort. Paul Carrell, author of "Dessert Fox," concluded that the dessert was no place for a defensive war and the dessert was like a sea. Large miles of open terrain which could be easily traversed by armies and their vehicles. Naturally there were problems like heat, sandstorms, and a total lack of natural way points to orient ones bearing. In the end an Army could move through the dessert like a ship that cuts through the sea.
After North Africa the fighting was fought on European soil, Sicily, Italy, France et al... After you think of those places and the battles waged there, the scales of squad and divisional actions, and the materials spent there, North Africa seems really strange looking back on it.
There was a book written really recently about the over all significance of the North African Campaing for American Soldiers and Citizens. It is called "An Army at Dawn." I cannot remember the authors name, but i'd still like to get my hands on it.
|
|
|
|
