Fall of Tunis: Axis Surrender Ends North African Campaign
The Axis forces in North Africa surrendered in May 1943, and some 230,000 men went into captivity. The campaign had been running since 1940 and swinging back and forth across a thousand miles of coast. What ended it was the Allied landings in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942, which put an army behind Rommel while the Eighth Army pushed him west from El Alamein. Hitler's response was to reinforce Tunisia rather than evacuate it, flying in a whole new army as the position was closing. The inexperienced Americans were badly handled at Kasserine Pass in February 1943, losing over 6,000 men, and the army learned from it: Fredendall was replaced by Patton, air support was reorganised, and the same units performed differently within weeks. The Mareth Line was turned by a wide desert flanking march in March. Rommel had already left for Germany, sick and arguing for withdrawal. The final offensive in April and May took Longstop Hill and Hill 609 and broke into the plain, and Tunis and Bizerte fell on 7 May within hours of each other. The surrender on 13 May took more prisoners than Stalingrad, which is why the Germans called it Tunisgrad. The Mediterranean was reopened to Allied shipping, saving an enormous tonnage that had been going round the Cape, and the force that took Sicily two months later was assembled from the armies that had finished here. Rommel never returned to Africa and was given the Atlantic defences instead. The North African armies, French colonial troops among them, were the ones that landed in Italy and in southern France.
- Year: 1943 CE
- Category: Military
