North Africa

Read about the U.S. Army in North Africa with these old magazine articles. Find information on the W.W. II North African Campaign during World War Two.

An American Tank in Tunisia
(American Magazine, 1943)

Here is first-person account of life in an M3 Stuart tank fighting in Tunisia:


“We were ordered to hold, and hold we did. But we took a terrible shellacking. We dodged around, spitting at the Germans with our little 37mm gun. Every now and then one of their heavy tank shells or high-velocity 88s would hit one of our light tanks and smash it. The wounded would crawl out, and those who could walk would carry or drag those who couldn’t… In the afternoon, when we were finally ordered to withdraw, we had only 9 of 18 tanks left, and some of those were damaged. We took what wounded we could into the tanks and held them in our arms.”

British Offensive to be Launched in Tunisia
(PM Tabloid, 1943)

Three months into 1943, the Allied Command announced that the British 8th Army would soon be on the march alongside the newly arrived Americans:


“It will be a tough battle against the best of Hitler’s fighting men and weapons, but there is no doubt among Allied militarists of the outcome. Even pessimists agree that the Axis will be driven into the sea. There is reason to believe that the Nazi command itself is resigned to the loss of its last foothold on the south shore of the Mediterranean.”

Allied Air Power Succeeded
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

“[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…”

Clash of the Titans in Libya
(Liberty Magazine, 1942)

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 Curtain Falls on the North African Campaign
(PM Tabloid, 1943)

“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…”

Rommel Returned to Where he Began
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

“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.'”

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