wwii how they won the tank battle africa -call

Controlling north Africa would give the Allied forces a base from which to attack occupied Europe, across the Mediterranean.

The United States had finally tasted defeat in battle.The deserts of north Africa were an important battleground in World War II.

More than 1,000 American soldiers were killed by Rommel’s offensive, and hundreds were taken prisoner. The Americans withdrew from their position, leaving behind most of their equipment. His first strike was repulsed, but with tank reinforcements, Rommel broke through on February 20, inflicting devastating casualties on the U.S. Rommel determined that the weakest point in the Allied defensive line was at the Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide gap in Tunisia’s Dorsal Mountains, which was defended by American troops.

Rommel set his sites of Tunis, Tunisia’s capital and a key strategic goal for both Allied and Axis forces. After taking several months to regroup, Rommel decided on a bold move. In the Battle of El Alamein in August 1942, British General Bernard Montgomery pushed Rommel out of Egypt and into Tunisia, behind the Mareth Line, a defensive fortification built by Vichy French forces. Despite his skill, until this point Rommel had been unable to do much more than manage his own forces’ retreats, but the Battle of Kasserine Pass would finally display the “Desert Fox’s” strategic genius. General Erwin Rommel was dispatched to North Africa in February 1941, along with the new Afrika Korps, to prevent his Italian Axis partner from losing its territorial gains in the region to the British. The Kasserine Pass was the site of the United States’ first major battle defeat of the war. On this day, German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against an Allied defensive line in Tunisia, North Africa.

Wwii how they won the tank battle africa -call