Operation Torch Thrusts America into North African Combat | World War II With Tom Hanks

The British base of Gibraltar has long guarded the opening to the Mediterranean. Steady as a rock. For nearly 240 years, Gibraltar stood sentinel above the harbor, watching over the Mediterranean fleet, the strongest fortress in the world. On November 5, 1942, Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower lands at the military airstrip. He's arrived to take command of the joint U.S.-British ground operation in North Africa, codenamed Torch. Operation Torch is an extremely complex landing. In all, we're going to be depositing a force of around 100,000 troops, and in order to deliver that force, we've got to use 300 merchantmen guarded by roughly 300 warships. Three Allied task forces are involved in the complex maneuver. The East and Center forces will land in Algiers and Oran. The West task force, sailing from America, will land on the beaches of Casablanca. They have to rendezvous at sea, hundreds of miles away, and then carry out simultaneous landings across nearly 1,000 miles of North African coast. Nothing remotely like it had ever been carried out before. German and Italian forces are already fighting the British in North Africa, threatening the Suez Canal, the vital supply line between Britain and India. British imperial strategists have always been obsessed with the Suez Canal. It is the great artery of the British Empire. It joins Britain and its empire in the East, particularly India, the jewel of the British Empire. The danger is that the Axis forces move from there to control of the oil fields of the Middle East, and if all of that happens, they're going to sever the supply lines to the rest of the empire. The Allied plan is not simply to approach from the West. Their strategy is more ambitious. The ultimate goal, if torch works, is the United States and the British that land in the western part of Africa will drive to the East. The British that are in the East in Egypt will drive to the West, and they will capture a German-Italian army in The British fighting in the East, the Eighth Army, has been battling the Afrika Korps, led by the desert fox Erwin Rommel. For months, Rommel has pursued the British through Libya into Egypt, capturing vital supplies and threatening the Suez Canal. Three weeks after landing, they're only 12 miles outside Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. When he learns this, Adolf Hitler is determined to stop the Allies. The war is not going the way he thought it was going to go, and now all of a sudden you've got these Allies messing around in North Africa. This isn't supposed to happen. Hitler sends reinforcements, including an entire panzer division, to the ports and air bases around Tunis. Combined with Rommel's Afrika Korps, there are now 100,000 German and Italian troops on the continent. No one in either camp had ever envisioned a gigantic continental battle being fought for Tunisia, but that's where the fortunes of war have brought the two adversaries. The Allies now surround the Axis army deep inside Tunisia, but before they can get far, Rommel plots a counteroffensive. He's identified a weak point in the Allied line at Kasserine Pass. The narrow pass itself is guarded by just 2,000 men spread thinly across the terrain. By the evening of the second day, U.S. defenses in the pass have collapsed. Around 2,500 soldiers are wounded, another 2,500 taken prisoner. Others abandon their vehicles and flee over the hills. Rommel's plan is working, but then he pushes too far. He sends his troops forward, seeking a way through the mountains and allowing his supply lines to get dangerously long. Rommel might have thought he had the U.S. army on the run, but the momentum that he had established from that opening is now beginning to wear down. His losses are mounting, his supplies are running out, especially tank ammunition and fuel. As Rommel weakens, the U.S. army steadies itself and regroups, blocking Rommel's breakout with a wall of U.S. artillery and air support. General Eisenhower takes responsibility for the initial breakdown at Kasserine Pass and makes changes to address logistical and operational issues. He also reorganizes the Allied force in North Africa. His first move is to give General George Patton command of the U.S. II Corps. Eisenhower's troops are now prepared and in position to deal a final blow to the Axis powers in North Africa. On March 20th, the Allies are ready to attack in a place called El Ghatar. Patton tells his men, we must be eager to kill. If we fight viciously enough, we will live to return to our family as conquering heroes. The Germans become aware of that position and say to themselves, we think we can eject the Americans fairly easily. We did it before at Kasserine, right? Patton is very aware of how to use armor, infantry, and artillery all together. And when the Germans put in that attack, the Americans greet them with a true example of combined arms. And they absolutely shellacked them. Having come right after Kasserine Pass, it has gone from failure to success. Over the next month, the Allies squeeze the Axis armies. And by early April, Eisenhower's forces finally join. Eisenhower rejoices. We are at last operating on a single battle line. Now the Allies set their sights on Tunis. German resistance is ferocious. Every hill and pass is a struggle. But gradually, with concentrated firepower from two sides, the Allies continue to move forward. Almost inch by inch, the Axis position in Tunisia shrinks, until it's little more than an arc around the city of Tunis itself. On May 7th, Allied troops enter Tunis, and the Axis forces surrender. After the capture of Tunis, North Africa is finally free of the Nazis and their fascist Italian allies. The North African campaign is over. Over a quarter of a million Germans and Italians are captured. Prisoners as far as the eye can see. This is a great moment for the Allied cause. There had been one disastrous encounter with the Germans after the other since this war began. And now I think everyone on the Allied side, especially Roosevelt would say, the home folks, can see that something was going right in this war.