Egypt Libya.pdf

Introduction

World War II was the largest and most violent armed conﬂict in

the history of mankind. However, the half century that now separates

us from that conﬂict has exacted its toll on our collective knowledge.

While World War II continues to absorb the interest of military schol-

ars and historians, as well as its veterans, a generation of Americans

has grown to maturity largely unaware of the political, social, and mil-

itary implications of a war that, more than any other, united us as a

people with a common purpose.

Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not

only about the profession of arms, but also about military prepared-

ness, global strategy, and combined operations in the coalition war

against fascism. During the next several years, the U.S. Army will

participate in the nation’s 50th anniversary commemoration of World

War II. The commemoration will include the publication of various

materials to help educate Americans about that war. The works pro-

duced will provide great opportunities to learn about and renew

pride in an Army that fought so magnificently in what has been

called “the mighty endeavor.”

World War II was waged on land, on sea, and in the air over several

diverse theaters of operation for approximately six years. The following

essay is one of a series of campaign studies highlighting those struggles

that, with their accompanying suggestions for further reading, are

designed to introduce you to one of the Army’s signiﬁcant military feats

from that war.

This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military

History by Clayton R. Newell. I hope this absorbing account of that

period will enhance your appreciation of American achievements dur-

ing World War II.

GORDON R. SULLIVAN

General, United States Army

Chief of Staff

Egypt-Libya

11 June 1942–12 February 1943

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941,

the British had been ﬁghting German and Italian armies in the Western

Desert of Egypt and Libya for over a year. In countering an Italian

offensive in 1940, the British had at first enjoyed great success. In

1941, however, when German forces entered the theater in support of

their Italian ally, the British suffered severe reversals, eventually losing

nearly all their hard-won gains in North Africa.

Even though the United States had not yet entered the war as an

active combatant, by the time General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel,

commander of the German Army’s Afrika Korps , began his offensive

against the British Eighth Army in Libya in March 1941, the

American and British air chiefs were already discussing American

support for the British Eighth Army. Rommel’s rapid and unexpected

success in the Libyan desert forced British and American staff ofﬁcers

in London to accelerate their planning. President Franklin D.

Roosevelt and his advisers also agreed that the British might need

American support in the Middle East. Overall theater responsibility

would continue to be British, but the President recognized that a

British collapse in Egypt would have far-reaching implications and

approved contingency measures to prepare for American support to

the theater at a future date.

Strategic Setting

The Middle East, a large, vaguely defined area comprising the

land bridge between Europe, Asia, and Africa, was a key area of con-

sideration in the development of British-American strategy early in

World War II. At the beginning of the Egypt-Libya Campaign the

region included Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine,

Trans-Jordan, Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. Although limited geographically

to the two countries designated in its name, the events comprising this

campaign extended throughout the Allied Middle East Theater of

Operations. The area constituted a crucial link in the worldwide com-

munications systems connecting the various Allied theaters of opera-

tions. Loss of the air and sea routes through the Mediterranean Sea

and the Suez Canal that led to China and India would have required

A period of relative inactivity. (DA photograph)

Allied shipping to travel far to the south around the tip of Africa, thus

lengthening the time required to supply American and British forces in

the China, Burma, India (CBI) Theater of Operations.

In addition to maintaining their global lines of communications,

Allied leaders had several other reasons to consider the Middle East

strategically important. Its domination by Germany and Japan would

have further isolated China, the Soviet Union, and Turkey. Equally sig-

niﬁcant, the loss of Iran and Iraq would have meant that the area’s oil,

the lifeblood of mechanized warfare, would flow into Axis tanks,

planes, and ships, rather than those of the Allies.

In early 1942 the key to Allied control of this vital region lay in

Egypt. The British Mediterranean Fleet based its operations in

Alexandria, the British Middle East Command maintained its head-

quarters in Cairo, and the Suez Canal provided an essential Allied line

of communications to the CBI and Paciﬁc Theaters of Operations. All

of these facilities would have been vulnerable to Axis control had the

Afrika Korps and the Italian Army been able to push the British out of

northern Egypt.

The battle for control of Egypt centered in Cyrenaica, a desert

region in northeastern Libya just west of Egypt. Control of Cyrenaica,

or the Western Desert as it was more popularly known, would have

provided the Axis with a secure line of communications for resupply-

ing its forces. For three years the war in the Western Desert consisted

of a series of advances and retreats which came to be known as the

“Benghazi Handicap” by the British soldiers who alternated between

pursuing and being pursued.

The so-called Handicap took place along a narrow strip of barren

desert land in North Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea. A single

highway ran along the coast connecting the major port cities of Tripoli

and Benghazi in Libya and Alexandria in Egypt. Scattered between

these three cities were numerous smaller ports which could be used to

supply ground forces from the sea. Off the coastal highway to the

south there was ample room for the maneuver of mechanized forces,

and there was virtually no civilian population outside the cities along

the coast. These factors combined to produce a tactical pattern which

repeated itself in the ground operations of both sides: infantry forces

moved along the coastal road to secure a port to resupply the mecha-

nized forces for a ﬂanking movement into the desert to clear the road

to the next port, which would be secured by the infantry in order to

resupply the mechanized forces, and so forth.

The campaign which established this pattern began in September

1940 when an Italian army under the command of Marshal Rodolfo

Graziani attacked the lightly held British frontier outposts in Egypt,

drove them back, and established fortiﬁed defensive positions along

the coastal highway well inside Egypt. In November the British

launched a counteroffensive that by mid-December had cleared Egypt

of all Italian units. By February 1941 Cyrenaica was in British hands,

but their hold was tenuous. British forces in Egypt and Libya were

short of ground transport, possessed badly outdated air and ground

equipment, and had to make do with very little shipping.

In early 1941 Germany joined forces with Italy and began offen-

sive operations throughout much of the Mediterranean. Air attacks

from Luftwaffe units that had deployed to the Mediterranean in

January reduced the British use of the sea. Rommel arrived in Africa

during February and by March was ready to launch a campaign against

the British line in Libya. In April the Germans then invaded and con-

quered Greece, and in May they added Crete to their Mediterranean

holdings. In a desperate attempt to hold Greece and Crete, the British

had diverted extensive forces from Africa, thereby signiﬁcantly reduc-

ing their already limited capabilities in the Western Desert.

By the end of May the Axis offensive had driven the British back

into Egypt, although they did manage to hold on to the port of Tobruk

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