North Africa — 1943

The North African campaign had a sting in its tail. In January 1943, Arnim mounted an offensive, catching ill-equipped French divisions off guard and going on to shake the Americans. Rommel, forced steadily westwards by Montgomery's advance, put in an attack of his own, inflicting a sharp defeat on the Americans at the Kasserine Pass in February. The Allies then reorganized their chain of command, forming the 18th Army Group, comprising both armies (Anderson's 1st and Montgomery's 8th) fighting in Tunisia. Axis forces were gradually compressed into a pocket round Tunis, and the last of them surrendered in mid-May, leaving 238,000 prisoners in Allied hands.

The Mareth Line, based on prewar French defenses in southern Tunisia, was held by Rommel's old army, now renamed the 1st Italian army under General Giovanni Messe. Montgomery's first attack, on March 19, failed, but a hook round the desert flank forced Messe to pull back. Here (above) a 4.5-inch medium gun bombards the line.

On March 6, Rommel turned on Montgomery at Medenine, but, using information from ULTRA, Montgomery was ready for him and the attack was easily repulsed. These Gurkhas are using their distinctive weapon, the kukri, near Medenine, but this shot comes from a sequence that suggests that it was staged for the camera.

This, in contrast, is a real photograph of the Medenine battle, showing a German Mk III Special knocked out by 73rd Anti-Tank Regiment Royal Artillery, part of the anti-tank screen deployed by Montgomery as a result of ULTRA.

The end in Tunisia. An American intelligence officer interrogates two prisoners. Two French soldiers, once more on the Allied side, are in the background.

Roosevelt, in North Africa for the Casablanca conference, took the opportunity to visit troops in the field, the first President since Lincoln to do so.

Pearl Harbor

In mid 1941, America reacted to Japanese occupation of French Indo-China by freezing Japanese assets. In October Prince Konoye's moderate cabinet was replaced by a government headed by General Tojo, and, despite the recognition by several leading figures that she could not win a long war, Japan prepared a devastating strike. On December 7, carrier-borne aircraft struck the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Surprise was complete, although the Americans had received warnings which should have enabled them to meet the attack. American losses were heavy, but aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped the carnage.

Above, Battleship row at Pearl Harbor. From left to right are the USS West Virginia, Tennessee and Arizona. All three, along with the battleships California and Nevada eventually sank, but only Arizona and Oklahoma were total losses.

Anti-aircraft fire bursts among Japanese aircraft attacking the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The Japanese lost 29 aircraft.

Small craft rescue survivors from the battleship USS California, sunk by Japanese aircraft. The Americans suffered over 3,000 casualties in the attack.

Roosevelt denounced December 7 as “a date which will live in infamy,” and, here, grim-faced, signs a declaration of war against Japan. Some historians have suggested that the Japanese attack gave him a pretext for action he wished to take in any event, but the extant evidence does not prove his complicity in what may best be seen as “the ultimate intelligence blunder.”

Lend-Lease

Though President Roosevelt was firmly convinced that an Axis victory would be disastrous, isolationism in Congress and the electorate compelled him to proceed with caution. In December 1940 Churchill told him of the damage done by German submarines, and warned that the time was approaching when Britain would not be able to pay for munitions. The Lend-Lease bill, introduced into Congress in January 1941, empowered the president to transfer any defense material to any nation whose defense he believed vital to United States’ interests. Although isolationists fought hard, the bill became law in March, and proved a key turning-point in US foreign policy.

Although the Thompson sub-machine gun was not an ideal military weapon (above), its American symbolism, arising from prewar gangster films, made it another propaganda coup. The British soon replaced it by the cheaper and lighter Sten, though it remained in limited service.

The Atlantic Charter

In July 1941, presidential envoy Harry Hopkins told British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that President Roosevelt would like a personal meeting. Churchill grasped the opportunity to draw the U.S. closer to the beleaguered Britain. The meeting took place in early August off Newfoundland. Churchill arrived in the HMS Prince of Wales and Roosevelt in the USS Augusta. Roosevelt suggested a joint declaration of principles, and the Atlantic Charter, agreed on August 12, bound both states to forswear territorial aggrandisement, support self-determination and establish a peace bringing "freedom from want."

Despite its bland tone, the Charter aligned the U.S. — though still technically neutral — firmly against Germany. One of the least-posed of a series of photographs of the meeting (above) shows Roosevelt and Churchill with General George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff (over Churchill's left shoulder) and, on Marshall's right, Admiral Ernest J.King, later Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. fleet. The balding civilian in profile is U.S. Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who helped his British opposite number, Sir Alexander Cadogan, to prepare the Charter.

With the Marines at Tarawa — Part 1

Today we present Part 1 of the famous film, “With the Marines at Tarawa.” The production was a 1944 short propaganda film directed by Louis Hayward. It uses authentic footage taken at the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943 to tell the story of the participating American servicemen, from the time they get the news that they are to participate in the invasion, to the final taking of the island and raising of the Stars and Stripes.

The film is in full color and uses no actors, making it a valuable historical document. The documentary showed more gruesome scenes of battle than other war films up to that time. President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself gave the approval to show the film to the public anyway against the wishes of military leaders. It gave the U.S. population on the homefront a more realistic view of the war — as far as showing dead Marines floating in the water, etc. — subject matter that was edited out of previous films and newsreels. The film won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.

U.S. Senate Repeals Embargo

“On October 27, 1939, after more than a month of fierce debate, the U.S. Senate voted for the repeal of the embargo on war materials that formed a part of America’s Neutrality Law. This meant that belligerent countries could purchase war materials from America only if they paid for them in cash and carried them in their own ships. In the photo above, President Franklin D. Roosevelt is seen urging repeal of the embargo in a message to a joint session of the Congress. The effect of repeal was to place American war production at the disposal of the Allies; the blockade precluded Germany from buying in America.”

Source: Pictorial History of the Second World War