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…”

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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.”

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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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Nighttime Tank Battle
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

Canadian war correspondent M.H. Halton reported from the Egyptian desert concerning one of modern war’s most dramatic spectacles – [a] battle of tanks in the dark.

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Somewhere In North Africa
(PM Tabloid, 1943)

With the loss at Kasserine Pass and the victory at El Guettar behind them, the U.S. Army in North Africa traveled ever northward in a caravan of Jeeps and trucks looking for their next engagement with Rommel’s Africa Corps.

British Attack Along The Mareth Line
(PM Tabloid, 1943)

The British have struck heavily at the Mareth Line in what both sides call the opening blow of the long-awaited big battle of Tunisia.


(The Mareth Line was a system of bunkers built by France in southern Tunisia during the late Thirties. The line was intended to protect Tunisia against an Italian invasion from its colony in Libya.)

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The Opening Campaign in Tunisia
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

General Lunsford Errett Oliver (1889 – 1978) wrote this article about his experiences commanding the American Army in Tunisia. As many of you may know, the American efforts in North Africa were fraught with many difficulties, the least of them were the Germans. The biggest one referred to by the general was the total lack of air cover for his advancing army.


Click here to read about the retreat of the Africa Corps.

The Afrika Korps in Retreat
(Yank Magazine, 1942)

This article was penned by YANK correspondent Sergeant George Slim Aarons (1916 – 2006) concerning his travels throughout the Allied occupied portions of Tunisia in 1943. Aarons reported on the heavy presence of German military debris that could be found scattered throughout the deserts – evidence that spelled out the imminent eviction of the Germans from that continent:

Some of these tanks lay in groups, showing how they had clustered together and fought it out to the bitter end. Other iron carcasses were alone in the desert, burned and twisted – relics of a hopeless, single-handed struggle against the Allied forces.


Click here to read about the retreat of the German 7th Army from Normandy.

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