Tunisian Victory (1944) - full transcript
The Archive of World War Two is a series of original archive documentaries filmed under actual battle conditions by service and newsreel cameramen attached to American, British, French, Russian and enemy forces. NTSC - Black & White - 74 minutes
♪ [music] ♪
- [Narrator 1] Eighteen hours out,
destination unknown, a military secret.
The largest overseas expedition ever to
sail. Guarded by the Blue Ensign of the American Navy.
♪ [music] ♪
-[Narrator 2] Southwards from Britain, some 3,000
miles away, an even greater convoy,
twice the size, moves in its appointed
place across the seas, shielded by the
White Ensign of the British Navy.
Destroyers in close support,
cruisers on the flanks and beyond the
horizon, the battleships.
From the decks of aircraft carriers,
[plane engine]
and from the shore,
planes of the Fleet Air Arm
and Coastal Command patrol the skies
and search the seas. Advanced Outposts
have an elaborate, protective screen.
East North East, the American convoy.
Southwest by West, the British.
Nothing like these two
armadas had disturbed the waters
since the world was made.
This is a combined operation,
an operation that began some four months
earlier in Washington D.C.
♪ [music] ♪
The President of the United States
welcomed the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
The gravity of the moment had
brought them together.
The lights burned all night that night in the White House
where the two leaders met with their
combined Chiefs of Staffs.
For this was the picture taking all too definite form
in the minds of the civil military and
naval leaders now locked in secret conference.
Two Axis spearheads
were headed East. In the North,
Von Bach pursuing his way through the
Ukraine to the caucasus.
In the south, Rommel was driving toward
the Egyptian border.
These two spearheads were intended to meet
in Iran and head eastward towards India.
In the orient, Japan had occupied the
Coast of China, the East Indies,
Malaya and Burma in preparation for their
drive westward through India.
If these two enemy spearheads were allowed
to meet, Russia and China,
except for their remote optic ports,
would be completely isolated.
Japanese raw materials and German
production would be combined.
The peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa,
seven-eighths of the world's population
would be enslaved.
-By morning a decision,
both bold and revolutionary.
Bold because in this our darkest hour
we dared to take the offensive.
Revolutionary because that offensive was
conceived, planned and executed by the
peoples of two nations. The time and the
place have been agreed upon.
[printing]
The code name for the combined operation
was Acrobat. The two great elements were
time and secrecy. A hundred and
twenty-five days in which to plan
and launch the offensive from basis
of 3,000 miles apart.
An operation involving hundreds
of thousands of
American and British soldiers and sailors, millions of American and British working men and women.
Only by whose combined
efforts for the plan to become a reality,
but from whom the plan itself was to be
kept secret. A few score men and no more
knew in its entirety the plan for this
greatest of combined operations.
In London and Washington, British and
American officers were placed at adjoining
desks to work through the days and nights
of grind and toil that lay ahead.
And gradually in the enforced daily
intimacy, men grew to know and respect
each other, thus was born the relationship
out of which an allied army came into being.
To them came hourly reports on
the vast undertaking of forging the striking
weapon. It was a race against time.
♪ [music] ♪
♪ [music] ♪ [gunshots]
♪ [music] ♪
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
♪ [music] ♪
In the United States, men and supplies
poured Eastward toward the Atlantic seaboard.
♪ [music] ♪
-In Britain also, by road and rail,
an army was on the move.
♪ [music] ♪
By day and night, the dockers worked.
Records were broken in tonnage put
aboard in one ship. For every soldier,
British and American,
ten tons of equipment.
♪ [music] ♪
On both sides of the Atlantic, the effort
was tremendous. Guns, trucks, aircraft,
petrol, water, food, barbed wire,
locomotive. Of ammunition alone,
we shipped 520 different kinds.
♪ [music] ♪
[crowd speaking]
[ship's horn]
♪ [music] ♪
And every ship sailed on time,
and in absolute secrecy.
♪ [music] ♪
[sailing]
[beeping]
[alarm sound] [beeping]
[beeping]
[firing]
[splash]
[firing]
[splash]
[explosion]
And the convoy continued its hidden way.
♪ [music] ♪
- [Joe McAdams] My name's McAdams,
Joe McAdams, Kansas City, Kansas.
Private, First Class. I was on one
of those ships you're looking at,
part of the biggest show on earth and
didn't know it. Too darn many ships to see
all at once. Well we've been hollering for
action, now we were going to get it but we
didn't know where.
Norway, France, Italy, China.
♪ [music] ♪
Finally, on the fifth day, we got
the news.
I mean what we'd been waiting to
hear. They handed out little guidebooks,
and I remember the first line, "You are to
do duty in North Africa as a soldier of
the United States." It gave
me kind of a kick.
- [Narrator 1] Why North Africa? What was the plan
called Acrobat? The convoy from America
was heading East, the one from Britain
heading South. At a given point West of
Gibraltar, the British convoy would
divide. For 12 hours the two halves would
proceed in opposite directions, then the
second half would reverse its course and
follow the first passing Gibraltar 24
hours behind. Thus with clock-like
precision, the combined operations would
begin with simultaneous landings at
Casablanca, Oran, Algiers. Casablanca to
protect our flank against an Axis attack
through Spanish Morocco.
Oran and Algiers to secure bases
from which to press Eastward.
Then the occupation of Tunisia
from which we could cut Rommel's supply
lines across the Mediterranean. Next to
trap and destroy Rommel's Africa core
between our Allied forces and the British
Eighth Army.
Thus, one arm of the Axis
Pincer would be amputated and supply lines
around the Cape of Good Hope would be
shortened by half through winning
control of the Mediterranean.
-[Narrator 2] North Africa would be ours with bases from
which to stab at the heart of the Axis Citadel.
Those were the main objectives
of the plan called Acrobat.
In both convoys, the men kept fit now
knowing the task that lay ahead.
For most of them, this voyage was a new
experience. They had never been so far
from home before.
- [George Metcalf] That's certainly true
of me. My name's George Metcalf.
I was a green grocer in Silly Street,
we had a shop a long time.
Only, we're a military family, really. My
dad was at Passion Dial and I was at
Dunkirk. I never met such a collection of
blokes since we got on this ship.
Chaps from Glasgow, New York, London,
Melbourne, Capetown, Montreal,
Chicago, Birmingham, Wellington, Bethnal
Green, the whole issue.
I reckon it's about time this team of
internationals got cracking.
When I was peeling spuds just now I made
up quite a letter to my girl all about the
way these ships zigzag and about flying
fish and whales. Of course we haven't seen
any yet, but I reckon she'd like to know
I'm enjoying myself. And now I got
something else to tell her too, the best
news for a long time.
They just put it up on the ship's board.
♪ [music] ♪
-[Narrator 1] But the Eighth Army's offensive was only one phase of a larger strategy.
Included therein the bombings of Genoa,
Naples,
Turin.
♪ [music] ♪
Precision bombings of the Renault factory
turning out Rommel's tanks.
All these are part of the plan
called Acrobat of which the enemy still
knew nothing. Nothing of the submarine
trip to Africa by General Mark Clark with
a message to be smuggled into France.
Nothing of the arrival of Gibraltar of
General Eisenhower when he was joined by
General Henri Giraud who had received
General Clark's smuggled message.
The enemy knew nothing until the last
possible moment when the first half of the
convoy from Britain steamed past the
Fortress of Gibraltar.
-[Narrator 2] It was at night that the ships passed through the straits.
The time had been carefully chosen.
For here, in narrow waters, attack seemed
certain.
Aboard ship and on the rock,
everyone stood to, but the ships moved
steadily on. It was as though for the
moment, the enemy's sword had fallen
from his hand through indecision.
This time it was in Rome and in Berlin
that the lights burned all night.
For the first time since the war's
beginning, somebody else was calling the tune.
But before the enemy could
collect its wits or its forces,
our ships lay as planned off their
appointed destination.
♪ [music] ♪
Events planned four months
earlier moved to a climax.
[shutters opening and closing]
Off Casablanca stood
the convoy from America,
to the troops aboard spoke their
commander, General Patton.
- [General Patton] Soldiers and sailors,
it is not known whether the French African
army will contest our landing, but all
resistance by whomever offered must be
destroyed. However, when any of the French
soldiers seek to surrender,
you will accept it and treat them with the
respect due of brave opponent and future
ally. Remember, the French
are not Nazis or Japs.
-[Narrator 1] November the 8th, 1942, orders of the
day, the words play ball transmitted by
the task force commanders signifies that
all forces are to take vigorous and
offensive action against the enemy.
A large searchlight shown in a vertical
position at night signifies that the enemy
has agreed to the terms of the ally.
♪ [music] ♪
[horn]
Zero hour, from America the president
broadcast by shortwave,
"We do not want your land,
we fight a common enemy."
From London, General Charles de Gaulle,
"Do not resist." From Gibraltar,
General Giraud, "We welcome the allies
to French soil. How would these pleas
be answered?"
♪ [music] ♪
[explosion]
- Play ball.
[gunfire]
Fight was on at Casablanca.
-[Narrator 2] Meantime at
Algiers, our landing craft also met fire
from shore batteries which were soon
silenced by ships of the British Navy.
[explosion]
Here two of the French troops ashore were
asked by radio to indicate a friendly
attitude by throwing their search light
beams vertical. It wasn't long before here
and there along the coast searchlights
were seen pointing to the heavens.
As dawn broke, fighter planes from
Gibraltar fitted with extra fuel tanks
took off without even waiting to hear
whether the landing fields of Algiers had been captured.
[engine roar]
By 7:00 a.m., resistance of
Algiers was finished. British and American
troops had landed East and West of the
city, penetrated 10 to 15 miles and held
the heights and all vantage points. In
Algiers, on that famous November the 8th,
was Admiral Jean Darlan, French Vice Chief
of State under Marshal Pétain.
It was after consultation with him that
the French commanding general agreed to
surrender the city.
- [Narrator 1] Meanwhile, at Oran.
[engine roar]
American paratroops, an Airborne Infantry,
flown from Britain 1,500 miles away had
landed to capture airfields while other
American troops had poured ashore on the
beaches protected by the British Navy.
Here as in Algiers, the fighting lasted
for only a few hours, but at Casablanca
the battle still raged.
[explosions]
[engine roar]
[gunfire]
[engine roar]
Shore batteries and the heavy guns of the
French battleship Jean Bart and several
cruisers, destroyers and gunboats put out
a devastating fire.
[explosions]
Gun raid from American ships coupled with
precision bombing silence those guns.
[explosions]
[gunfire]
Striking inland from the beaches,
North and South from the city,
shock troops cut the railways,
other lines of communication
then converge upon the town.
[gunfire]
Two days later, the Germans invaded
unoccupied France whereupon Admiral Darlan
declaring Pétain prisoner of the Axis
and himself chief of state,
ordered the cessation of hostilities. In
proof of the surprise of our landings,
German Armistice Commissions
were caught flat-footed in each city.
Their jobs to bleed North Africa of her
raw materials and farm products.
[shouting]
The people of North Africa were evidently
not sorry to see them go.
[yelling]
- [Narrator 2] Events moved swiftly, to Algiers
came General Anderson,
commanding the British First Army.
General Giraud took command of
the French land forces. United under
General Eisenhower, they were ready to
take the field. Once more, the Tricolor,
the Stars and Stripes,
the Union Jack flew side by side.
♪ [music] ♪
But the enemy had lost no time. Across the
Mediterranean, by sea and by air,
he was pouring men and equipment into
Tunis and Bizerte.
♪ [music] ♪
Despite this, we determined to start the campaign
at once hoping to reach the distant
cities before the enemy's grasp could
become too strong.
This was a bold decision
for the British First Army
was as yet little more than
one division and the bulk of the
American forces were needed to safeguard
our position in Morocco.
- [Narrator 1] We had other disadvantages, roads were
poor, railways inadequate.
[train engine]
- [Narrator 2] The enemy beyond the mountains had short supply lines from Sicily and Sardinia.
Our own stretching forward from the
improvised base at Algiers were four times
the length. Even more important, we lacked
as yet forward airfields whereas the enemy
in Tunisia had all the permanent airfields
he needed. In less than a month,
the weather would break. Could our slender
force in the last days of autumn achieve
a flashing success against time and a
stronger enemy? With immense energy,
the attempt was made. By road, allied
infantry, tanks, and artillery moved
towards the hills. By rail, when General
Giraud's men with mules for mountain transport.
By air, flew British and
American parachutists to capture suitable
ground for air fields and the tactical
points nearby.
♪ [music] ♪
By sea, went commandos
to Bougie and Bonne.
The latter, 300 miles to the East and only
60 miles from the Tunisian border.
Here, the airfield which our parachutists
had taken was already under attack from
the Luftwaffe.
[planes flying by]
[explosion]
[gunfire]
[plane engines]
[explosion]
[gunfire]
It was our only permanent forward airfield
and had to be fought for repeatedly.
[plane engine]
In three columns, we advanced towards
Tunis and Bizerte. And still the enemy
poured into Africa. By mid-November,
a thousand a day. Among them Marshal
Kesselring, Mediterranean
commander-in-chief. The man who had made
his name infamous at Warsaw and Rotterdam.
November the 18th, 10 days after our first
landings, our mixed force of Allied troops
had crossed the frontier into Tunisia and
skirmishes were frequent.
[gunfire]
On we went, small units of French,
British, Americans held up here, gaining
there, fighting roads as well as Germans,
but pushing on. By November the 22nd,
we were in Beja, 450 miles on the road to
Tunis. News came that 30 miles on the
French under General Barre were holding
Medjez el-Bab against the Germans.
The French were fighting stubbornly,
equipped with little more than machine
guns and rifles. General Anderson
promptly moved to support them.
♪ [music] ♪
Together, we held Medjez, henceforth, a
pivotal point and forced the Germans back.
But now we went into the planes and were
increasingly exposed to the enemy's more
numerous tanks and aircraft.
♪ [music] ♪
[explosion]
November the 25th,
the first real tank clash.
[cannon fire]
Fifteen enemy tanks destroyed
and the rest withdrew.
And on we pushed towards Tunis
and Bizerte racing against time and the weather.
60 miles from Bizerte, 50 miles,
40 miles, our supply lines inexorably
thinning, our reinforcements fewer and
fewer. Thirty miles from Bizerte,
20 miles, 18 miles from Tunis, 16, 15, and
from the hills, our patrols saw the city.
- [Narrator 1] But now the enemy attack
rose to a crescendo.
[cannon fire]
From the skies of bombardment to which
we have no adequate answer.
[sirens] [plane engines]
[explosion]
[sirens] [plane engines]
[explosion]
Our supplies were far outrun, our
casualties heavy. Even as the goal was in
sight, the race had been lost. This first
thrust, this adventurous gamble had
failed. We fell back to the protection
of the hills.
♪ [music] ♪
But even as we withdrew
to regroup our forces
we encountered a new enemy. Winter
was upon us.
Our hastily improvised
airfields were flooded, our planes
earthbound.
[propeller noise]
[truck engine]
The roads became running
streams.
[truck engines]
Our tanks immobilized. All hopes of a
quick victory had finally floundered
in a sea of mud but the race for Tunis
and Bizerte had not been in vain.
For our battle lines, now stabilized, ran
south from Medjez el-Bab through
Ousseltia, Faid, Maknassy, and Gafsa.
Along the barrier ridge of mountains known
as the Great Dorsal which separated the
German-occupied coastal plain from the
mountainous regions to the West. German
expansion was possible only through a
series of passes traversing the Great
Dorsal. And all through the winter months,
we held those passes against
incessant German attack.
[explosions]
This was the period referred to by the
world as one of military inactivity.
A period during which we sustained nearly
half the total casualties incurred during
the whole North African campaign.
- That's right, when you're reading
your papers about laws that don't
apply to George Metcalf and the poor
bloody infantry, it never did.
We're on the job every night, patrols in
the hills and in the woods.
♪ [music] ♪
Off we go with some brands and tommy guns
and a few mills bombs and if we're lucky
we scuffle a few Jerrys and bring a few
prisoners in. Alfred Parker is the best,
he was a poacher, has second nature
to old Fred.
[explosion]
♪ [music] ♪
When we get back we're camouflaged so you
can't tell whether we're men or walking
lumps of mud. We've picked up a bit of
[unclear] when we got back this morning.
We just about scraped it off when we had
to go out again at dusk and pick up the
other half. Great life. You'd think mud
would be different in Africa,
different from France, say. Old Fred says
it weighs heavier here and don't smell the
same, but me I can't tell any difference.
It turns white bread into brown just like
the other stuff. Keeping your automatics
and rifles clean is the worst,
Old Fred's only got about half a tail of
his shirt left. There's one thing we do
thank God for, the mules, fancy that,
mules. If it wasn't for the mules,
we'd just about starve. Not that we eat
them, I don't mean that,
but they bring up the rations, see.
Nothing but mules or eagles could ever get
here. Mud, just mud. I told my girl I'll
stick to her like mud,
and I can't say more than that.
[plane engine roar]
- Whenever the fields were dry
enough, our planes took off
to tackle Alofa.
Though still outnumbered,
in four weeks they shot down 241 enemy
aircraft for a loss of 89 of our own.
[gunfire]
[plane engine roar]
[explosion]
Further back, day after day,
the Strategic Air Force
was taking off to kill the enemies
effort at its starting point.
Liberators from the East,
Fortresses from
the West,
went forth to destroy enemy bases
in Italy,
Sardinia,
Sicily.
[whistle from bomb falling]
[gunfire]
[whistle of bombs falling, gunfire]
[continued gunfire]
But on land, no offensive could be
launched until Spring.
Against its coming
there was to be on either side that the
Great Dorsal were building up of power.
♪ [music] ♪
Over supply routes that spanned
on the German side
150 miles of water and on our
side hundreds of miles of land,
and then thousands of miles of water. The
longest assembly lines in the world were in operation.
From the factories of the United States and Britain,
from Birmingham to Algiers, from Detroit
to Oran, from Manchester,
Los Angeles, from Leeds, from Pittsburgh
to Casablanca.
♪ [music] ♪
Full trains were assembled on the spot.
Loaded with crates, sped forth.
[train whistles]
The South Atlantic became an airway as well as a seaway.
From Brazil, flights of P38s equipped
with extra fuel tanks were flown
across the seas.
Each flight led by a
flying fortress which provided navigation.
From Gibraltar, aircraft which had been
brought by ship from Britain and
reassembled on the rock were flown off to
Tirmizi. Nearly 1,500 planes reached the
front by this route.
Roads to the front were being
built where none before existed.
♪ [music] ♪
On wet still unfinished landing strips,
giant planes sat down with cargoes of material.
A reservoir of power was filling up.
♪ [music] ♪
Tunisia was to be the theater
of a major campaign,
a campaign to be fought where Scipio
had fought and Hannibal where
already three times in history, great
armies had been destroyed between the
mountains and the sea. These hills and
plains were again to echo to the tempest
of battle. Not now the trumpeting of
elephants, but the crash of tanks and
artillery. Not now an empire,
but a way of life at stake.
♪ [music with choir singing O Come, All Ye Faithful] ♪
♪ [choir singing in background of narrator, Silent Night] ♪
- On this Christmas 1942, our soldiers and
airmen in Tunisia and the Western Desert
gathered together in little churches all
under the open sky.
And doing so,
they thought of their homes and loved ones
hundreds of thousands of miles away.
Our soldiers' thoughts were of New York
and the Middle west, of the cities and
villages of France, of the plains and
hills of India, of homes in Capetown and
the African Belt. Or among the snows of
Canada or in the Christmas sunshine of New
Zealand and Australia, and among the fog
and rain of London and Edinburgh.
And they thought of their comrades who had
already been killed under the cause for
which they had been killed. The cause that
had brought all of them across the ceased
fight. The cause of liberty
and tolerance
and dignity
and peace.
And of how the horizon was brightening a
little as though a new day
were being born.
♪ [bells ringing] ♪
♪ [instrumental Jingle Bells] ♪
- A lot of us guys got packages at
Christmas. You know what was in mine?
Stuffed dates, stuffed dates in Africa
under the date bond, can you beat that?
One good thing about Christmas, you may
get homesick and we did,
but you also get Christmas dinner.
♪ They say there's a troopship
just leaving Bombay ♪
♪ bound for old Blighty shore ♪
♪ Heavily laden with time expired men,
bound for the land they adore. ♪
♪ There's many an airman just finishing
his time there's many a twerp signing on ♪
♪ You'll get no promotion
this side of the ocean, ♪
♪ so cheer up my lads, Bless 'em All. ♪
♪ Bless em All, Bless em All,
the long and the short and the tall ♪
♪ Bless all the sergeants
and W. O. ones, ♪
♪ Bless all the corp'rals
and their blinkin sons, ♪
♪ 'Cos we're saying goodbye to them all,
as back to their billets they crawl ♪
♪ You'll get no promotion
this side of the ocean, ♪
♪ so cheer up my lads, Bless 'em All ♪
-Everybody fed well at Christmas
including the pets.
♪ [music] ♪
Along about now, we began to take notice of the kids.
First off they were kind of
shy but Arab kids are no different from
the kids back home when it comes to candy.
♪ [music] ♪
A lot of them look about half starved,
Germans had picked the land clean.
So we gave half our milk ration to the Red
Cross, they ladled it out.
Off-duty, we just roamed around and looked
and we saw some mighty strange sites.
♪ [music] ♪
We wondered what
the Moorish girls looked
like behind their veils. Wondering was
about as far as we got.
One Sunday,
♪ [instrumental Take Me Out To The Ball Game] ♪
the middle of January,
we were hanging around catching up on the
news from home
when we were routed out for
assembly. They told us to polish our brass
and shine our leather. Some of us said,
"What's the big idea?"
Well, we found out.
And you could have knocked me
over with a tank. It was the President
himself riding along in a Jeep.
♪ [music] ♪
When we saw Mr. Churchill come in, not
puffing his cigar, we knew something big
was cooking.
- In a small seaside hotel at Casablanca,
discussions began at once.
Their purpose, to design the shape of
victory in Africa and beyond.
First, a meeting was arranged between
Generals de Gaulle and Giraud who had
succeeded Admiral Darlan, assassinated a
month earlier. Out of the meeting was to
grow the union of the fighting French who
had never lost hope and the French for
whom hope had been reborn. Second, the
united command for the new Tunisian
campaign was created. The Allied troops in
the area were now predominantly British,
but by common agreement, General
Eisenhower continued in supreme command.
As his deputy commanders, three British
officers. General Alexander on land,
Admiral Cunningham on sea, Air chief
marshal Tedder in the air.
Under them, British, American, and
French officers and men serving
side-by-side. The whole scheme,
a dovetailing of command
unique in military campaigns.
Third, we fixed the terms which would end
the fighting,
unconditional surrender.
Of all these decisions, our Russian and
Chinese allies were kept fully informed.
The conference ended, Mr. Churchill flew
on to Tripoli to greet the victorious
Eighth Army and explain its vital part in
forthcoming events,
for the decisive hour
was at hand.
-Battle lines were drawn.
♪[music]♪
In the North stood the British first army.
In the center, General Giraud's French
troops. In the south, the Americans.
Further South a small group of fighting
French had completed its historic 1,500
mile march and taken up positions on the
left flank of the British Eighth Army
which faced the formidable Mareth Line.
Behind which barrier, Rommel's army,
after its long retreat and entrenched
itself, Tunisia was drained with German
troops, 15 full divisions.
♪ [music] ♪
No scratch troops leaves, but battle wise
veterans of Poland, France, the Balkans.
They together with seven Italian divisions
were armed with the most modern types of
equipment, including the newest fighters
and bombers of the German Lochbach. The
German orders were 'hold Tunisia at all
costs. Keep control of the Mediterranean.'
-Rommel standing behind his Mareth Line saw
that he must soon be faced with an attack
in the rear from the allied armies along
the Great Dorsal as well
as an assault by the
Eighth Army at Mareth. He therefore struck
first, in an endeavor to remove the menace
behind him.
On February the 14th, the blow
was struck. Heavy armored columns burst
out of Faid pass in the mountain barrier
and through into the valley beyond.
In the face of their onslaught,
Allied armor withdrew
with heavy losses. By the 21st, the enemy
had forced his way through the Kasserine
Pass and his armored columns were
advancing in a three-pronged thrust.
One main column aimed at Tebessa, our
supply base in Southern Tunisia and
another at Thala, key town in our lines of
communication. Almost within sight of his
objective, he was halted. American,
British, and French forces all stood
immovable against the final impact.
And in counter-attack broke it.
While Allied air power pounded Rommel's
lines of communication and supply.
The threat was ended.
Advancing past destroyed German
armor, we reoccupied Kasserine Pass and by
March the 17th, the original battle lines
had been restored.
As soon as Rommel saw
that his Westward thrust was doomed,
he made an abortive attack South against
the Eighth Army. The Germans unveiled the
new tiger tank, the British the new
17-pounder anti-tank gun.
♪[music]♪
[explosion]
Fifty-two tiger tanks were left
burning hopes.
From then on the initiative was ours.
-Of the various strategies which might
now be employed against the enemy,
General Eisenhower chose one which
envisage the entire military situation in
terms of a cylinder. The Western Wall
Allied land forces along the Great Dorsal.
The northern and eastern, Allied air and
sea power concentrated in the Mediterranean.
The seaports of Tunis and
Bizerte were to act as the intake valve
through which those enemy troops that
escaped the devastating attacks of planes
and submarines based at Malta were to be
sucked into the cylinder.
At the bottom of the cylinder stood the
powerful British Eighth Army to serve as
the piston which in its upward stroke
would push the enemy into an ever-smaller space.
Still in possession of the enemy
were certain high hills to the west of
Tunis and Bizerte. Their capture was an
essential part of the entire strategy,
for these hills were the spark plug.
Which, when the piston had forced the enemy into
a state of high compression,
would explode the combustible mass.
That was the final strategy.
To succeed, perfect coordination would be
necessary between land, sea and air forces.
The Northwest African
Air Force commanded by General Spaatz was
divided into five major groups of which
three were combat. The Strategic Air Force
under General Jimmy Doolittle. These were
the big boys, the long-range bombers,
pounding away at enemy bases and shipping.
The Coastal Air Force under Air Marshal Lloyd,
day and night fighters these,
protecting ports and convoys.
And finally the Tactical Air Force, a new
conception of air power developed by the
British in the Middle East. All fighters
and attack bombers, British and American,
were placed under one command so that we
can strike with a full force of our flying
artillery when and where it would do the
most good.
Air Marshal Cunningham in
command of this group and General
Alexander in command of all ground forces
lived and worked side-by-side in a tent
camp in the Tunisian mountains.
Their's was a complete partnership and in
it lay the pattern of ultimate victory.
By the middle of March, the stage was set.
The first move was up to Air Marshal Cunningham.
♪[music]♪
In a continuous 24-hour assault, the Mareth fortifications were pounded from the air.
♪ [music] ♪
♪[music continues]♪
Then General Alexander gave the signal for
the Piston to begin its upward stroke.
Montgomery looking ahead had planned the
Mareth battle three months before.
He would strike after a barrage and in
moonlight at El Alamein.
But simultaneously, he would begin an odd
flanking movement on the left.
The frontal blow had to cross a gorge, the
Wadi Zigzaou
and create a bridgehead
under cover of which tanks and artillery
could cross the Wadi before the enemy's
counterattack in force could be met.
Three days before the attack,
it rained heavily.
♪ [music] ♪
[explosions]
[instrumental music and explosions]
The next morning, our men were holding on
like bulldogs. Only four tanks had got
across, but with these and their own arms,
our inventory kept the bridgehead intact.
The enemy fearing another El Alamein, now
withdrew armor from other sectors and
threw it in.
[explosions]
[cannon fire]
Whilst this battle raged, our out flanking
left hook, by General Freyberg in his New
Zealanders reinforced by the 1st Armored
Division, was racing across 150 miles of
desert towards El Hannah. The blow was now
struck by 50,000 men on the ground and by
bombers, fighters and tank busters
from the air.
[explosions]
The Germans, pinned down
by the Northumbrians at Mareth,
moved their armor too late.
The New Zealanders thence forth
to be known as the Left Hookers,
drove through.
[cheering]
♪ [music] ♪
-The Mareth Line had been turned,
the Piston was on the move,
its speed made possible by the feats
and road building of
the South African engineers.
♪ [music] ♪
Air and Naval forces shelled and bombed
all along the seawall.
[cannon fire]
Our fighters struck at their transport
planes still pouring men in through the
intake valve knocking them out of the sky
by the hundreds.
[engine noise]
[gunfire and engine noise]
And on land, the British First Army was a
constant threat in the North while in the
center, the French had attacked Pichon
and further south the Americans had broken
through to El Guettar and Maknassy.
Thus, enforcing constant pressure all
along the land wall of the cylinder.
[explosions]
♪ [music] ♪
♪[music]♪ [engine noise] [intermittent gunfire]
April 7th, and American patrols of light
tanks striking Eastward met patrols of the
British Eighth Army advancing northward.
♪[music]♪
- We got quite a bang out of meeting
these guys, 2,000 miles they'd
come, fighting all the way. Yes sir,
we got a real bang out of it.
These are the guys that broke
the back of the Africa goal.
♪ [music] ♪
- Still the Piston pushed relentlessly on.
April the 10th, Sfax,
April the 12th, Sousse, and on April the
20th after exactly 30 days of fighting in
pursuit, the Eighth Army had driven the
enemy into the hills beyond Enfidaville.
And its wake was a great homecoming.
- What got me was watching those villagers
coming back. Mostly on little donkeys
piled up with so much stuff you'd wonder
how they carried it. It reminded me of the
Bible somehow, you know, the donkeys and the
hills behind and, and these folks trekking home.
There was one old chap, spoke a
bit of English and he comes up to me and
old John McAdams and he says, "Thank you,
thank you, thank you,
thank you." And then he started shaking
hands with us. I thought he was never
going to let go.
And as we watched
him going downhill, Joe says to me,
he says, "You know George, I had a buddy
killed the other day and I was pretty sore
about it. But now all these poor devils coming home gives the whole thing a kind of a meaning.
Well then when we went down
to the village, it was just the same down there.
Little Jewish boys taking off the
yellow stars they'd been made to wear as
as if they was lepers.
And then our army doctors attending
to the women and the youngsters
just as if they was on the panel back home.
I suddenly felt less browned off.
I certainly did.
- The rapid advance of the Eighth Army had
left the American divisions at Maknassy &
El Guettar far behind the battle area.
General Alexander now switched these
divisions to the North. This remarkable
200 mile march across the heavy traffic
streams of the First Army's lines of
supply was accomplished without once
interrupting the Eastward flow.
And this in complete secrecy.
♪ [music] ♪
The piston had completed its upward stroke.
The desired state of enemy high
compression had been achieved.
Now to capture the spark plug, the vital
hills west of Tunis and Bizerte.
-This led to a number of major battles of
which five were typical.
Hill 609, Longstop Hill, Goubellat Plain,
Djebel Mansour, and Takrouna.
The Eighth Army struck at Takrouna, the
French 19th Corps attacked
Djebel Mansour.
[explosions]
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
On the Goubellat Plain, the British 6th
Armored Division striking towards Tunis
had drawn upon it, most of the enemy's
remaining armor.
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
In three days of struggle, our main
purpose was accomplished. The drawing to
this battlefield of run-ins, tanks, and
guns and their destruction.
Meantime, the British 78th Division
was pressing the
attack on Longstop Hill.
[gunfire] [intermittent explosion]
For 12 days, the hills echoed with
gunfire.
Positions were taken, lost, and retaken.
When the German lines
broke at last, their dead lay in hundreds
unburied on the battlefields.
[explosions]
As our infantry went forward,
engineers and pioneers built
roads across the mountain tops
for vital supplies to reach them.
In 14 days, they built 11 miles.
- Meanwhile, further north, the Americans
had embarked on their phase of the campaign.
This started with the assault on
Hill 609, long-range artillery
started the attack.
[cannon fire] [intermittent explosions]
- Gretchen's all batteries, left
eight, Baker, Baker.
[explosions] [gunfire]
[sounds of shoveling]
- We took Hill 609.
And when as many of us guys, when we got to the top as there'd been at the bottom,
we took it.
- Thus one by one Thorne-Arnhem
strongholds in the mountains fell.
The Germans had been out fought,
now they were to be outwitted.
General Alexander knew their fear of the
Eighth Army so he reinforced that fear
with heavy bombardments and local attacks
from Montgomery's front.
At the same time, he secretly transferred
the fourth Indian and the First and
Seventh armored divisions from the Eighth
to the First Army in the North whence the
main attack was to come.
- Spark plug was ours and we were now
ready to explode the combustible mass.
Now to pour on the power,
now to give the apostles a power in education and the use of it.
♪ [music] ♪
♪[music]♪ [propeller and engine sounds]
♪[music]♪
British and Americans in the air
with everything that could fly.
♪ [music] ♪ [engine noise]
British and Americans on the ground
with everything that could shoot.
♪ [music] ♪ [engine noise] [gunfire]
French artillery, French infantry.
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions] [gunfire]
The British Navy.
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
All poured forth their concentrated fury.
♪ [music] ♪ [cannon fire]
This was Blitz warfare such as the
inventors of the Blitz
had never dreamed of.
[engine noise] [whistle of bombs falling]
♪ [music] ♪ [engine noise]
The Nazi's challenge to the Free World to
fight or surrender was being answered.
♪ [music] ♪ [gunfire]
[gunfire] [engine noise]
♪[music]♪ [engine noise] [intermittent explosions]
[engine noise] [intermittent gunfire]
[engine noise]
After only eight hours fighting, the hard
crust of German resistance was shattered.
[explosion]
Our armor crashed through.
[explosion]
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
The Americans blitzed their
way into Bizerte,
the British smashed right through
the center to capture Tunis,
then a British armored column crashed
across the neck of Cape Bond to Hammamet.
Another British column raced around the
tip of the Cape to prevent any evacuation.
The whole axis mass was split into four
segments.
The end came quickly.
- By tens,
by hundreds,
by thousands
they came
on foot,
in trucks,
and behind their band.
♪ [music] ♪
The greatest mass surrender of fully
equipped troops in modern history.
-We had lost nearly 70,000 men, dead,
wounded, and missing. Thirty-five thousand
British, 18,000 Americans, 15,000 French.
But for every man we had lost,
the enemy lost five. And at the end, 15
full divisions, 266,000 of their best men
laid down their arms.
- No baton this, no Crete, no men
riddled with disease and shrunken with
hunger fighting to the last barehanded.
Educated in the school for power,
they were quick to recognize superior
power. And when they did,
they quit, quit cold.
This is the end of
the Axis African adventure.
- After all the racket,
it seems funny,
don't it, Joe?
So quiet.
- Yeah.
- What's biting you Joe?
- I don't know,
I can't help thinking all
the hard work that went into those burnt
out tanks and half tracks and airplanes,
gone for nothing.
- Had to be done.
- Oh sure it did,
but still in all, think of all the trucks and automobiles and
things. All that junk might have been.
- I know,
bloody shame.
-Just because he was told that he was a Superman.
- Well he never figured things out for
himself. Never argued the toss same
as we do. Too bad he didn't hear some of
our arguments of the old dog and fox back home.
-You know I guess that's the real
difference between us and them.
We argue the toss [undecipherable] and they don't.
- Yeah and when you don't argue the toss
anymore you aren't half a man anymore.
You're just a blooming tool like a spanner
or a saw or a gimlet.
- Maybe they like it that way.
- Maybe they do but suppose somebody tried
to use you or me like that Joe.
Suppose somebody said, "Put that fella's
eyes out or turn a horse pipe on that
Jew or on that woman." Would we do it?
- What do you think?
- You and me Joe, we may not always
think alike, but we do think,
you and me and old Alphonse.
Then the rest we certainly
think, all right.
- You know George, I got an idea. Why
can't we after the war, the same work gang
I mean, keep on swinging together?
What couldn't we do?
- You mean build more houses than ever was?
- Yeah, that's it.
- And ships, thousands of ships?
- Right.
- And food, so that nobody
be hungry no more?
- Yeah, building things up instead of
blowing things up. Like I,
I don't know like dams in the desert and
roads through the jungles,
maybe bridges across all the oceans.
We could do it, I bet you.
- Yeah, do all the jobs at once doing and
knock the block off anybody who wants to
start another war and bring the smiles
back to the kids' faces
all over the world.
- Boy, what a job.
- But just know Joe it's the same rough
road, the same road you and me have just
come, the same bloody hard road
and for quite a while yet.
- Boy oh boy, what a job, bringing back
the smiles to kids' faces.
♪ [music] ♪ [cheering]
- Africa is free and Europe that much
nearer freedom.
The liberating hosts
are on the wing.
♪ [music] ♪
- [Narrator 1] Eighteen hours out,
destination unknown, a military secret.
The largest overseas expedition ever to
sail. Guarded by the Blue Ensign of the American Navy.
♪ [music] ♪
-[Narrator 2] Southwards from Britain, some 3,000
miles away, an even greater convoy,
twice the size, moves in its appointed
place across the seas, shielded by the
White Ensign of the British Navy.
Destroyers in close support,
cruisers on the flanks and beyond the
horizon, the battleships.
From the decks of aircraft carriers,
[plane engine]
and from the shore,
planes of the Fleet Air Arm
and Coastal Command patrol the skies
and search the seas. Advanced Outposts
have an elaborate, protective screen.
East North East, the American convoy.
Southwest by West, the British.
Nothing like these two
armadas had disturbed the waters
since the world was made.
This is a combined operation,
an operation that began some four months
earlier in Washington D.C.
♪ [music] ♪
The President of the United States
welcomed the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
The gravity of the moment had
brought them together.
The lights burned all night that night in the White House
where the two leaders met with their
combined Chiefs of Staffs.
For this was the picture taking all too definite form
in the minds of the civil military and
naval leaders now locked in secret conference.
Two Axis spearheads
were headed East. In the North,
Von Bach pursuing his way through the
Ukraine to the caucasus.
In the south, Rommel was driving toward
the Egyptian border.
These two spearheads were intended to meet
in Iran and head eastward towards India.
In the orient, Japan had occupied the
Coast of China, the East Indies,
Malaya and Burma in preparation for their
drive westward through India.
If these two enemy spearheads were allowed
to meet, Russia and China,
except for their remote optic ports,
would be completely isolated.
Japanese raw materials and German
production would be combined.
The peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa,
seven-eighths of the world's population
would be enslaved.
-By morning a decision,
both bold and revolutionary.
Bold because in this our darkest hour
we dared to take the offensive.
Revolutionary because that offensive was
conceived, planned and executed by the
peoples of two nations. The time and the
place have been agreed upon.
[printing]
The code name for the combined operation
was Acrobat. The two great elements were
time and secrecy. A hundred and
twenty-five days in which to plan
and launch the offensive from basis
of 3,000 miles apart.
An operation involving hundreds
of thousands of
American and British soldiers and sailors, millions of American and British working men and women.
Only by whose combined
efforts for the plan to become a reality,
but from whom the plan itself was to be
kept secret. A few score men and no more
knew in its entirety the plan for this
greatest of combined operations.
In London and Washington, British and
American officers were placed at adjoining
desks to work through the days and nights
of grind and toil that lay ahead.
And gradually in the enforced daily
intimacy, men grew to know and respect
each other, thus was born the relationship
out of which an allied army came into being.
To them came hourly reports on
the vast undertaking of forging the striking
weapon. It was a race against time.
♪ [music] ♪
♪ [music] ♪ [gunshots]
♪ [music] ♪
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
♪ [music] ♪
In the United States, men and supplies
poured Eastward toward the Atlantic seaboard.
♪ [music] ♪
-In Britain also, by road and rail,
an army was on the move.
♪ [music] ♪
By day and night, the dockers worked.
Records were broken in tonnage put
aboard in one ship. For every soldier,
British and American,
ten tons of equipment.
♪ [music] ♪
On both sides of the Atlantic, the effort
was tremendous. Guns, trucks, aircraft,
petrol, water, food, barbed wire,
locomotive. Of ammunition alone,
we shipped 520 different kinds.
♪ [music] ♪
[crowd speaking]
[ship's horn]
♪ [music] ♪
And every ship sailed on time,
and in absolute secrecy.
♪ [music] ♪
[sailing]
[beeping]
[alarm sound] [beeping]
[beeping]
[firing]
[splash]
[firing]
[splash]
[explosion]
And the convoy continued its hidden way.
♪ [music] ♪
- [Joe McAdams] My name's McAdams,
Joe McAdams, Kansas City, Kansas.
Private, First Class. I was on one
of those ships you're looking at,
part of the biggest show on earth and
didn't know it. Too darn many ships to see
all at once. Well we've been hollering for
action, now we were going to get it but we
didn't know where.
Norway, France, Italy, China.
♪ [music] ♪
Finally, on the fifth day, we got
the news.
I mean what we'd been waiting to
hear. They handed out little guidebooks,
and I remember the first line, "You are to
do duty in North Africa as a soldier of
the United States." It gave
me kind of a kick.
- [Narrator 1] Why North Africa? What was the plan
called Acrobat? The convoy from America
was heading East, the one from Britain
heading South. At a given point West of
Gibraltar, the British convoy would
divide. For 12 hours the two halves would
proceed in opposite directions, then the
second half would reverse its course and
follow the first passing Gibraltar 24
hours behind. Thus with clock-like
precision, the combined operations would
begin with simultaneous landings at
Casablanca, Oran, Algiers. Casablanca to
protect our flank against an Axis attack
through Spanish Morocco.
Oran and Algiers to secure bases
from which to press Eastward.
Then the occupation of Tunisia
from which we could cut Rommel's supply
lines across the Mediterranean. Next to
trap and destroy Rommel's Africa core
between our Allied forces and the British
Eighth Army.
Thus, one arm of the Axis
Pincer would be amputated and supply lines
around the Cape of Good Hope would be
shortened by half through winning
control of the Mediterranean.
-[Narrator 2] North Africa would be ours with bases from
which to stab at the heart of the Axis Citadel.
Those were the main objectives
of the plan called Acrobat.
In both convoys, the men kept fit now
knowing the task that lay ahead.
For most of them, this voyage was a new
experience. They had never been so far
from home before.
- [George Metcalf] That's certainly true
of me. My name's George Metcalf.
I was a green grocer in Silly Street,
we had a shop a long time.
Only, we're a military family, really. My
dad was at Passion Dial and I was at
Dunkirk. I never met such a collection of
blokes since we got on this ship.
Chaps from Glasgow, New York, London,
Melbourne, Capetown, Montreal,
Chicago, Birmingham, Wellington, Bethnal
Green, the whole issue.
I reckon it's about time this team of
internationals got cracking.
When I was peeling spuds just now I made
up quite a letter to my girl all about the
way these ships zigzag and about flying
fish and whales. Of course we haven't seen
any yet, but I reckon she'd like to know
I'm enjoying myself. And now I got
something else to tell her too, the best
news for a long time.
They just put it up on the ship's board.
♪ [music] ♪
-[Narrator 1] But the Eighth Army's offensive was only one phase of a larger strategy.
Included therein the bombings of Genoa,
Naples,
Turin.
♪ [music] ♪
Precision bombings of the Renault factory
turning out Rommel's tanks.
All these are part of the plan
called Acrobat of which the enemy still
knew nothing. Nothing of the submarine
trip to Africa by General Mark Clark with
a message to be smuggled into France.
Nothing of the arrival of Gibraltar of
General Eisenhower when he was joined by
General Henri Giraud who had received
General Clark's smuggled message.
The enemy knew nothing until the last
possible moment when the first half of the
convoy from Britain steamed past the
Fortress of Gibraltar.
-[Narrator 2] It was at night that the ships passed through the straits.
The time had been carefully chosen.
For here, in narrow waters, attack seemed
certain.
Aboard ship and on the rock,
everyone stood to, but the ships moved
steadily on. It was as though for the
moment, the enemy's sword had fallen
from his hand through indecision.
This time it was in Rome and in Berlin
that the lights burned all night.
For the first time since the war's
beginning, somebody else was calling the tune.
But before the enemy could
collect its wits or its forces,
our ships lay as planned off their
appointed destination.
♪ [music] ♪
Events planned four months
earlier moved to a climax.
[shutters opening and closing]
Off Casablanca stood
the convoy from America,
to the troops aboard spoke their
commander, General Patton.
- [General Patton] Soldiers and sailors,
it is not known whether the French African
army will contest our landing, but all
resistance by whomever offered must be
destroyed. However, when any of the French
soldiers seek to surrender,
you will accept it and treat them with the
respect due of brave opponent and future
ally. Remember, the French
are not Nazis or Japs.
-[Narrator 1] November the 8th, 1942, orders of the
day, the words play ball transmitted by
the task force commanders signifies that
all forces are to take vigorous and
offensive action against the enemy.
A large searchlight shown in a vertical
position at night signifies that the enemy
has agreed to the terms of the ally.
♪ [music] ♪
[horn]
Zero hour, from America the president
broadcast by shortwave,
"We do not want your land,
we fight a common enemy."
From London, General Charles de Gaulle,
"Do not resist." From Gibraltar,
General Giraud, "We welcome the allies
to French soil. How would these pleas
be answered?"
♪ [music] ♪
[explosion]
- Play ball.
[gunfire]
Fight was on at Casablanca.
-[Narrator 2] Meantime at
Algiers, our landing craft also met fire
from shore batteries which were soon
silenced by ships of the British Navy.
[explosion]
Here two of the French troops ashore were
asked by radio to indicate a friendly
attitude by throwing their search light
beams vertical. It wasn't long before here
and there along the coast searchlights
were seen pointing to the heavens.
As dawn broke, fighter planes from
Gibraltar fitted with extra fuel tanks
took off without even waiting to hear
whether the landing fields of Algiers had been captured.
[engine roar]
By 7:00 a.m., resistance of
Algiers was finished. British and American
troops had landed East and West of the
city, penetrated 10 to 15 miles and held
the heights and all vantage points. In
Algiers, on that famous November the 8th,
was Admiral Jean Darlan, French Vice Chief
of State under Marshal Pétain.
It was after consultation with him that
the French commanding general agreed to
surrender the city.
- [Narrator 1] Meanwhile, at Oran.
[engine roar]
American paratroops, an Airborne Infantry,
flown from Britain 1,500 miles away had
landed to capture airfields while other
American troops had poured ashore on the
beaches protected by the British Navy.
Here as in Algiers, the fighting lasted
for only a few hours, but at Casablanca
the battle still raged.
[explosions]
[engine roar]
[gunfire]
[engine roar]
Shore batteries and the heavy guns of the
French battleship Jean Bart and several
cruisers, destroyers and gunboats put out
a devastating fire.
[explosions]
Gun raid from American ships coupled with
precision bombing silence those guns.
[explosions]
[gunfire]
Striking inland from the beaches,
North and South from the city,
shock troops cut the railways,
other lines of communication
then converge upon the town.
[gunfire]
Two days later, the Germans invaded
unoccupied France whereupon Admiral Darlan
declaring Pétain prisoner of the Axis
and himself chief of state,
ordered the cessation of hostilities. In
proof of the surprise of our landings,
German Armistice Commissions
were caught flat-footed in each city.
Their jobs to bleed North Africa of her
raw materials and farm products.
[shouting]
The people of North Africa were evidently
not sorry to see them go.
[yelling]
- [Narrator 2] Events moved swiftly, to Algiers
came General Anderson,
commanding the British First Army.
General Giraud took command of
the French land forces. United under
General Eisenhower, they were ready to
take the field. Once more, the Tricolor,
the Stars and Stripes,
the Union Jack flew side by side.
♪ [music] ♪
But the enemy had lost no time. Across the
Mediterranean, by sea and by air,
he was pouring men and equipment into
Tunis and Bizerte.
♪ [music] ♪
Despite this, we determined to start the campaign
at once hoping to reach the distant
cities before the enemy's grasp could
become too strong.
This was a bold decision
for the British First Army
was as yet little more than
one division and the bulk of the
American forces were needed to safeguard
our position in Morocco.
- [Narrator 1] We had other disadvantages, roads were
poor, railways inadequate.
[train engine]
- [Narrator 2] The enemy beyond the mountains had short supply lines from Sicily and Sardinia.
Our own stretching forward from the
improvised base at Algiers were four times
the length. Even more important, we lacked
as yet forward airfields whereas the enemy
in Tunisia had all the permanent airfields
he needed. In less than a month,
the weather would break. Could our slender
force in the last days of autumn achieve
a flashing success against time and a
stronger enemy? With immense energy,
the attempt was made. By road, allied
infantry, tanks, and artillery moved
towards the hills. By rail, when General
Giraud's men with mules for mountain transport.
By air, flew British and
American parachutists to capture suitable
ground for air fields and the tactical
points nearby.
♪ [music] ♪
By sea, went commandos
to Bougie and Bonne.
The latter, 300 miles to the East and only
60 miles from the Tunisian border.
Here, the airfield which our parachutists
had taken was already under attack from
the Luftwaffe.
[planes flying by]
[explosion]
[gunfire]
[plane engines]
[explosion]
[gunfire]
It was our only permanent forward airfield
and had to be fought for repeatedly.
[plane engine]
In three columns, we advanced towards
Tunis and Bizerte. And still the enemy
poured into Africa. By mid-November,
a thousand a day. Among them Marshal
Kesselring, Mediterranean
commander-in-chief. The man who had made
his name infamous at Warsaw and Rotterdam.
November the 18th, 10 days after our first
landings, our mixed force of Allied troops
had crossed the frontier into Tunisia and
skirmishes were frequent.
[gunfire]
On we went, small units of French,
British, Americans held up here, gaining
there, fighting roads as well as Germans,
but pushing on. By November the 22nd,
we were in Beja, 450 miles on the road to
Tunis. News came that 30 miles on the
French under General Barre were holding
Medjez el-Bab against the Germans.
The French were fighting stubbornly,
equipped with little more than machine
guns and rifles. General Anderson
promptly moved to support them.
♪ [music] ♪
Together, we held Medjez, henceforth, a
pivotal point and forced the Germans back.
But now we went into the planes and were
increasingly exposed to the enemy's more
numerous tanks and aircraft.
♪ [music] ♪
[explosion]
November the 25th,
the first real tank clash.
[cannon fire]
Fifteen enemy tanks destroyed
and the rest withdrew.
And on we pushed towards Tunis
and Bizerte racing against time and the weather.
60 miles from Bizerte, 50 miles,
40 miles, our supply lines inexorably
thinning, our reinforcements fewer and
fewer. Thirty miles from Bizerte,
20 miles, 18 miles from Tunis, 16, 15, and
from the hills, our patrols saw the city.
- [Narrator 1] But now the enemy attack
rose to a crescendo.
[cannon fire]
From the skies of bombardment to which
we have no adequate answer.
[sirens] [plane engines]
[explosion]
[sirens] [plane engines]
[explosion]
Our supplies were far outrun, our
casualties heavy. Even as the goal was in
sight, the race had been lost. This first
thrust, this adventurous gamble had
failed. We fell back to the protection
of the hills.
♪ [music] ♪
But even as we withdrew
to regroup our forces
we encountered a new enemy. Winter
was upon us.
Our hastily improvised
airfields were flooded, our planes
earthbound.
[propeller noise]
[truck engine]
The roads became running
streams.
[truck engines]
Our tanks immobilized. All hopes of a
quick victory had finally floundered
in a sea of mud but the race for Tunis
and Bizerte had not been in vain.
For our battle lines, now stabilized, ran
south from Medjez el-Bab through
Ousseltia, Faid, Maknassy, and Gafsa.
Along the barrier ridge of mountains known
as the Great Dorsal which separated the
German-occupied coastal plain from the
mountainous regions to the West. German
expansion was possible only through a
series of passes traversing the Great
Dorsal. And all through the winter months,
we held those passes against
incessant German attack.
[explosions]
This was the period referred to by the
world as one of military inactivity.
A period during which we sustained nearly
half the total casualties incurred during
the whole North African campaign.
- That's right, when you're reading
your papers about laws that don't
apply to George Metcalf and the poor
bloody infantry, it never did.
We're on the job every night, patrols in
the hills and in the woods.
♪ [music] ♪
Off we go with some brands and tommy guns
and a few mills bombs and if we're lucky
we scuffle a few Jerrys and bring a few
prisoners in. Alfred Parker is the best,
he was a poacher, has second nature
to old Fred.
[explosion]
♪ [music] ♪
When we get back we're camouflaged so you
can't tell whether we're men or walking
lumps of mud. We've picked up a bit of
[unclear] when we got back this morning.
We just about scraped it off when we had
to go out again at dusk and pick up the
other half. Great life. You'd think mud
would be different in Africa,
different from France, say. Old Fred says
it weighs heavier here and don't smell the
same, but me I can't tell any difference.
It turns white bread into brown just like
the other stuff. Keeping your automatics
and rifles clean is the worst,
Old Fred's only got about half a tail of
his shirt left. There's one thing we do
thank God for, the mules, fancy that,
mules. If it wasn't for the mules,
we'd just about starve. Not that we eat
them, I don't mean that,
but they bring up the rations, see.
Nothing but mules or eagles could ever get
here. Mud, just mud. I told my girl I'll
stick to her like mud,
and I can't say more than that.
[plane engine roar]
- Whenever the fields were dry
enough, our planes took off
to tackle Alofa.
Though still outnumbered,
in four weeks they shot down 241 enemy
aircraft for a loss of 89 of our own.
[gunfire]
[plane engine roar]
[explosion]
Further back, day after day,
the Strategic Air Force
was taking off to kill the enemies
effort at its starting point.
Liberators from the East,
Fortresses from
the West,
went forth to destroy enemy bases
in Italy,
Sardinia,
Sicily.
[whistle from bomb falling]
[gunfire]
[whistle of bombs falling, gunfire]
[continued gunfire]
But on land, no offensive could be
launched until Spring.
Against its coming
there was to be on either side that the
Great Dorsal were building up of power.
♪ [music] ♪
Over supply routes that spanned
on the German side
150 miles of water and on our
side hundreds of miles of land,
and then thousands of miles of water. The
longest assembly lines in the world were in operation.
From the factories of the United States and Britain,
from Birmingham to Algiers, from Detroit
to Oran, from Manchester,
Los Angeles, from Leeds, from Pittsburgh
to Casablanca.
♪ [music] ♪
Full trains were assembled on the spot.
Loaded with crates, sped forth.
[train whistles]
The South Atlantic became an airway as well as a seaway.
From Brazil, flights of P38s equipped
with extra fuel tanks were flown
across the seas.
Each flight led by a
flying fortress which provided navigation.
From Gibraltar, aircraft which had been
brought by ship from Britain and
reassembled on the rock were flown off to
Tirmizi. Nearly 1,500 planes reached the
front by this route.
Roads to the front were being
built where none before existed.
♪ [music] ♪
On wet still unfinished landing strips,
giant planes sat down with cargoes of material.
A reservoir of power was filling up.
♪ [music] ♪
Tunisia was to be the theater
of a major campaign,
a campaign to be fought where Scipio
had fought and Hannibal where
already three times in history, great
armies had been destroyed between the
mountains and the sea. These hills and
plains were again to echo to the tempest
of battle. Not now the trumpeting of
elephants, but the crash of tanks and
artillery. Not now an empire,
but a way of life at stake.
♪ [music with choir singing O Come, All Ye Faithful] ♪
♪ [choir singing in background of narrator, Silent Night] ♪
- On this Christmas 1942, our soldiers and
airmen in Tunisia and the Western Desert
gathered together in little churches all
under the open sky.
And doing so,
they thought of their homes and loved ones
hundreds of thousands of miles away.
Our soldiers' thoughts were of New York
and the Middle west, of the cities and
villages of France, of the plains and
hills of India, of homes in Capetown and
the African Belt. Or among the snows of
Canada or in the Christmas sunshine of New
Zealand and Australia, and among the fog
and rain of London and Edinburgh.
And they thought of their comrades who had
already been killed under the cause for
which they had been killed. The cause that
had brought all of them across the ceased
fight. The cause of liberty
and tolerance
and dignity
and peace.
And of how the horizon was brightening a
little as though a new day
were being born.
♪ [bells ringing] ♪
♪ [instrumental Jingle Bells] ♪
- A lot of us guys got packages at
Christmas. You know what was in mine?
Stuffed dates, stuffed dates in Africa
under the date bond, can you beat that?
One good thing about Christmas, you may
get homesick and we did,
but you also get Christmas dinner.
♪ They say there's a troopship
just leaving Bombay ♪
♪ bound for old Blighty shore ♪
♪ Heavily laden with time expired men,
bound for the land they adore. ♪
♪ There's many an airman just finishing
his time there's many a twerp signing on ♪
♪ You'll get no promotion
this side of the ocean, ♪
♪ so cheer up my lads, Bless 'em All. ♪
♪ Bless em All, Bless em All,
the long and the short and the tall ♪
♪ Bless all the sergeants
and W. O. ones, ♪
♪ Bless all the corp'rals
and their blinkin sons, ♪
♪ 'Cos we're saying goodbye to them all,
as back to their billets they crawl ♪
♪ You'll get no promotion
this side of the ocean, ♪
♪ so cheer up my lads, Bless 'em All ♪
-Everybody fed well at Christmas
including the pets.
♪ [music] ♪
Along about now, we began to take notice of the kids.
First off they were kind of
shy but Arab kids are no different from
the kids back home when it comes to candy.
♪ [music] ♪
A lot of them look about half starved,
Germans had picked the land clean.
So we gave half our milk ration to the Red
Cross, they ladled it out.
Off-duty, we just roamed around and looked
and we saw some mighty strange sites.
♪ [music] ♪
We wondered what
the Moorish girls looked
like behind their veils. Wondering was
about as far as we got.
One Sunday,
♪ [instrumental Take Me Out To The Ball Game] ♪
the middle of January,
we were hanging around catching up on the
news from home
when we were routed out for
assembly. They told us to polish our brass
and shine our leather. Some of us said,
"What's the big idea?"
Well, we found out.
And you could have knocked me
over with a tank. It was the President
himself riding along in a Jeep.
♪ [music] ♪
When we saw Mr. Churchill come in, not
puffing his cigar, we knew something big
was cooking.
- In a small seaside hotel at Casablanca,
discussions began at once.
Their purpose, to design the shape of
victory in Africa and beyond.
First, a meeting was arranged between
Generals de Gaulle and Giraud who had
succeeded Admiral Darlan, assassinated a
month earlier. Out of the meeting was to
grow the union of the fighting French who
had never lost hope and the French for
whom hope had been reborn. Second, the
united command for the new Tunisian
campaign was created. The Allied troops in
the area were now predominantly British,
but by common agreement, General
Eisenhower continued in supreme command.
As his deputy commanders, three British
officers. General Alexander on land,
Admiral Cunningham on sea, Air chief
marshal Tedder in the air.
Under them, British, American, and
French officers and men serving
side-by-side. The whole scheme,
a dovetailing of command
unique in military campaigns.
Third, we fixed the terms which would end
the fighting,
unconditional surrender.
Of all these decisions, our Russian and
Chinese allies were kept fully informed.
The conference ended, Mr. Churchill flew
on to Tripoli to greet the victorious
Eighth Army and explain its vital part in
forthcoming events,
for the decisive hour
was at hand.
-Battle lines were drawn.
♪[music]♪
In the North stood the British first army.
In the center, General Giraud's French
troops. In the south, the Americans.
Further South a small group of fighting
French had completed its historic 1,500
mile march and taken up positions on the
left flank of the British Eighth Army
which faced the formidable Mareth Line.
Behind which barrier, Rommel's army,
after its long retreat and entrenched
itself, Tunisia was drained with German
troops, 15 full divisions.
♪ [music] ♪
No scratch troops leaves, but battle wise
veterans of Poland, France, the Balkans.
They together with seven Italian divisions
were armed with the most modern types of
equipment, including the newest fighters
and bombers of the German Lochbach. The
German orders were 'hold Tunisia at all
costs. Keep control of the Mediterranean.'
-Rommel standing behind his Mareth Line saw
that he must soon be faced with an attack
in the rear from the allied armies along
the Great Dorsal as well
as an assault by the
Eighth Army at Mareth. He therefore struck
first, in an endeavor to remove the menace
behind him.
On February the 14th, the blow
was struck. Heavy armored columns burst
out of Faid pass in the mountain barrier
and through into the valley beyond.
In the face of their onslaught,
Allied armor withdrew
with heavy losses. By the 21st, the enemy
had forced his way through the Kasserine
Pass and his armored columns were
advancing in a three-pronged thrust.
One main column aimed at Tebessa, our
supply base in Southern Tunisia and
another at Thala, key town in our lines of
communication. Almost within sight of his
objective, he was halted. American,
British, and French forces all stood
immovable against the final impact.
And in counter-attack broke it.
While Allied air power pounded Rommel's
lines of communication and supply.
The threat was ended.
Advancing past destroyed German
armor, we reoccupied Kasserine Pass and by
March the 17th, the original battle lines
had been restored.
As soon as Rommel saw
that his Westward thrust was doomed,
he made an abortive attack South against
the Eighth Army. The Germans unveiled the
new tiger tank, the British the new
17-pounder anti-tank gun.
♪[music]♪
[explosion]
Fifty-two tiger tanks were left
burning hopes.
From then on the initiative was ours.
-Of the various strategies which might
now be employed against the enemy,
General Eisenhower chose one which
envisage the entire military situation in
terms of a cylinder. The Western Wall
Allied land forces along the Great Dorsal.
The northern and eastern, Allied air and
sea power concentrated in the Mediterranean.
The seaports of Tunis and
Bizerte were to act as the intake valve
through which those enemy troops that
escaped the devastating attacks of planes
and submarines based at Malta were to be
sucked into the cylinder.
At the bottom of the cylinder stood the
powerful British Eighth Army to serve as
the piston which in its upward stroke
would push the enemy into an ever-smaller space.
Still in possession of the enemy
were certain high hills to the west of
Tunis and Bizerte. Their capture was an
essential part of the entire strategy,
for these hills were the spark plug.
Which, when the piston had forced the enemy into
a state of high compression,
would explode the combustible mass.
That was the final strategy.
To succeed, perfect coordination would be
necessary between land, sea and air forces.
The Northwest African
Air Force commanded by General Spaatz was
divided into five major groups of which
three were combat. The Strategic Air Force
under General Jimmy Doolittle. These were
the big boys, the long-range bombers,
pounding away at enemy bases and shipping.
The Coastal Air Force under Air Marshal Lloyd,
day and night fighters these,
protecting ports and convoys.
And finally the Tactical Air Force, a new
conception of air power developed by the
British in the Middle East. All fighters
and attack bombers, British and American,
were placed under one command so that we
can strike with a full force of our flying
artillery when and where it would do the
most good.
Air Marshal Cunningham in
command of this group and General
Alexander in command of all ground forces
lived and worked side-by-side in a tent
camp in the Tunisian mountains.
Their's was a complete partnership and in
it lay the pattern of ultimate victory.
By the middle of March, the stage was set.
The first move was up to Air Marshal Cunningham.
♪[music]♪
In a continuous 24-hour assault, the Mareth fortifications were pounded from the air.
♪ [music] ♪
♪[music continues]♪
Then General Alexander gave the signal for
the Piston to begin its upward stroke.
Montgomery looking ahead had planned the
Mareth battle three months before.
He would strike after a barrage and in
moonlight at El Alamein.
But simultaneously, he would begin an odd
flanking movement on the left.
The frontal blow had to cross a gorge, the
Wadi Zigzaou
and create a bridgehead
under cover of which tanks and artillery
could cross the Wadi before the enemy's
counterattack in force could be met.
Three days before the attack,
it rained heavily.
♪ [music] ♪
[explosions]
[instrumental music and explosions]
The next morning, our men were holding on
like bulldogs. Only four tanks had got
across, but with these and their own arms,
our inventory kept the bridgehead intact.
The enemy fearing another El Alamein, now
withdrew armor from other sectors and
threw it in.
[explosions]
[cannon fire]
Whilst this battle raged, our out flanking
left hook, by General Freyberg in his New
Zealanders reinforced by the 1st Armored
Division, was racing across 150 miles of
desert towards El Hannah. The blow was now
struck by 50,000 men on the ground and by
bombers, fighters and tank busters
from the air.
[explosions]
The Germans, pinned down
by the Northumbrians at Mareth,
moved their armor too late.
The New Zealanders thence forth
to be known as the Left Hookers,
drove through.
[cheering]
♪ [music] ♪
-The Mareth Line had been turned,
the Piston was on the move,
its speed made possible by the feats
and road building of
the South African engineers.
♪ [music] ♪
Air and Naval forces shelled and bombed
all along the seawall.
[cannon fire]
Our fighters struck at their transport
planes still pouring men in through the
intake valve knocking them out of the sky
by the hundreds.
[engine noise]
[gunfire and engine noise]
And on land, the British First Army was a
constant threat in the North while in the
center, the French had attacked Pichon
and further south the Americans had broken
through to El Guettar and Maknassy.
Thus, enforcing constant pressure all
along the land wall of the cylinder.
[explosions]
♪ [music] ♪
♪[music]♪ [engine noise] [intermittent gunfire]
April 7th, and American patrols of light
tanks striking Eastward met patrols of the
British Eighth Army advancing northward.
♪[music]♪
- We got quite a bang out of meeting
these guys, 2,000 miles they'd
come, fighting all the way. Yes sir,
we got a real bang out of it.
These are the guys that broke
the back of the Africa goal.
♪ [music] ♪
- Still the Piston pushed relentlessly on.
April the 10th, Sfax,
April the 12th, Sousse, and on April the
20th after exactly 30 days of fighting in
pursuit, the Eighth Army had driven the
enemy into the hills beyond Enfidaville.
And its wake was a great homecoming.
- What got me was watching those villagers
coming back. Mostly on little donkeys
piled up with so much stuff you'd wonder
how they carried it. It reminded me of the
Bible somehow, you know, the donkeys and the
hills behind and, and these folks trekking home.
There was one old chap, spoke a
bit of English and he comes up to me and
old John McAdams and he says, "Thank you,
thank you, thank you,
thank you." And then he started shaking
hands with us. I thought he was never
going to let go.
And as we watched
him going downhill, Joe says to me,
he says, "You know George, I had a buddy
killed the other day and I was pretty sore
about it. But now all these poor devils coming home gives the whole thing a kind of a meaning.
Well then when we went down
to the village, it was just the same down there.
Little Jewish boys taking off the
yellow stars they'd been made to wear as
as if they was lepers.
And then our army doctors attending
to the women and the youngsters
just as if they was on the panel back home.
I suddenly felt less browned off.
I certainly did.
- The rapid advance of the Eighth Army had
left the American divisions at Maknassy &
El Guettar far behind the battle area.
General Alexander now switched these
divisions to the North. This remarkable
200 mile march across the heavy traffic
streams of the First Army's lines of
supply was accomplished without once
interrupting the Eastward flow.
And this in complete secrecy.
♪ [music] ♪
The piston had completed its upward stroke.
The desired state of enemy high
compression had been achieved.
Now to capture the spark plug, the vital
hills west of Tunis and Bizerte.
-This led to a number of major battles of
which five were typical.
Hill 609, Longstop Hill, Goubellat Plain,
Djebel Mansour, and Takrouna.
The Eighth Army struck at Takrouna, the
French 19th Corps attacked
Djebel Mansour.
[explosions]
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
On the Goubellat Plain, the British 6th
Armored Division striking towards Tunis
had drawn upon it, most of the enemy's
remaining armor.
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
In three days of struggle, our main
purpose was accomplished. The drawing to
this battlefield of run-ins, tanks, and
guns and their destruction.
Meantime, the British 78th Division
was pressing the
attack on Longstop Hill.
[gunfire] [intermittent explosion]
For 12 days, the hills echoed with
gunfire.
Positions were taken, lost, and retaken.
When the German lines
broke at last, their dead lay in hundreds
unburied on the battlefields.
[explosions]
As our infantry went forward,
engineers and pioneers built
roads across the mountain tops
for vital supplies to reach them.
In 14 days, they built 11 miles.
- Meanwhile, further north, the Americans
had embarked on their phase of the campaign.
This started with the assault on
Hill 609, long-range artillery
started the attack.
[cannon fire] [intermittent explosions]
- Gretchen's all batteries, left
eight, Baker, Baker.
[explosions] [gunfire]
[sounds of shoveling]
- We took Hill 609.
And when as many of us guys, when we got to the top as there'd been at the bottom,
we took it.
- Thus one by one Thorne-Arnhem
strongholds in the mountains fell.
The Germans had been out fought,
now they were to be outwitted.
General Alexander knew their fear of the
Eighth Army so he reinforced that fear
with heavy bombardments and local attacks
from Montgomery's front.
At the same time, he secretly transferred
the fourth Indian and the First and
Seventh armored divisions from the Eighth
to the First Army in the North whence the
main attack was to come.
- Spark plug was ours and we were now
ready to explode the combustible mass.
Now to pour on the power,
now to give the apostles a power in education and the use of it.
♪ [music] ♪
♪[music]♪ [propeller and engine sounds]
♪[music]♪
British and Americans in the air
with everything that could fly.
♪ [music] ♪ [engine noise]
British and Americans on the ground
with everything that could shoot.
♪ [music] ♪ [engine noise] [gunfire]
French artillery, French infantry.
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions] [gunfire]
The British Navy.
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
All poured forth their concentrated fury.
♪ [music] ♪ [cannon fire]
This was Blitz warfare such as the
inventors of the Blitz
had never dreamed of.
[engine noise] [whistle of bombs falling]
♪ [music] ♪ [engine noise]
The Nazi's challenge to the Free World to
fight or surrender was being answered.
♪ [music] ♪ [gunfire]
[gunfire] [engine noise]
♪[music]♪ [engine noise] [intermittent explosions]
[engine noise] [intermittent gunfire]
[engine noise]
After only eight hours fighting, the hard
crust of German resistance was shattered.
[explosion]
Our armor crashed through.
[explosion]
♪ [music] ♪ [explosions]
The Americans blitzed their
way into Bizerte,
the British smashed right through
the center to capture Tunis,
then a British armored column crashed
across the neck of Cape Bond to Hammamet.
Another British column raced around the
tip of the Cape to prevent any evacuation.
The whole axis mass was split into four
segments.
The end came quickly.
- By tens,
by hundreds,
by thousands
they came
on foot,
in trucks,
and behind their band.
♪ [music] ♪
The greatest mass surrender of fully
equipped troops in modern history.
-We had lost nearly 70,000 men, dead,
wounded, and missing. Thirty-five thousand
British, 18,000 Americans, 15,000 French.
But for every man we had lost,
the enemy lost five. And at the end, 15
full divisions, 266,000 of their best men
laid down their arms.
- No baton this, no Crete, no men
riddled with disease and shrunken with
hunger fighting to the last barehanded.
Educated in the school for power,
they were quick to recognize superior
power. And when they did,
they quit, quit cold.
This is the end of
the Axis African adventure.
- After all the racket,
it seems funny,
don't it, Joe?
So quiet.
- Yeah.
- What's biting you Joe?
- I don't know,
I can't help thinking all
the hard work that went into those burnt
out tanks and half tracks and airplanes,
gone for nothing.
- Had to be done.
- Oh sure it did,
but still in all, think of all the trucks and automobiles and
things. All that junk might have been.
- I know,
bloody shame.
-Just because he was told that he was a Superman.
- Well he never figured things out for
himself. Never argued the toss same
as we do. Too bad he didn't hear some of
our arguments of the old dog and fox back home.
-You know I guess that's the real
difference between us and them.
We argue the toss [undecipherable] and they don't.
- Yeah and when you don't argue the toss
anymore you aren't half a man anymore.
You're just a blooming tool like a spanner
or a saw or a gimlet.
- Maybe they like it that way.
- Maybe they do but suppose somebody tried
to use you or me like that Joe.
Suppose somebody said, "Put that fella's
eyes out or turn a horse pipe on that
Jew or on that woman." Would we do it?
- What do you think?
- You and me Joe, we may not always
think alike, but we do think,
you and me and old Alphonse.
Then the rest we certainly
think, all right.
- You know George, I got an idea. Why
can't we after the war, the same work gang
I mean, keep on swinging together?
What couldn't we do?
- You mean build more houses than ever was?
- Yeah, that's it.
- And ships, thousands of ships?
- Right.
- And food, so that nobody
be hungry no more?
- Yeah, building things up instead of
blowing things up. Like I,
I don't know like dams in the desert and
roads through the jungles,
maybe bridges across all the oceans.
We could do it, I bet you.
- Yeah, do all the jobs at once doing and
knock the block off anybody who wants to
start another war and bring the smiles
back to the kids' faces
all over the world.
- Boy, what a job.
- But just know Joe it's the same rough
road, the same road you and me have just
come, the same bloody hard road
and for quite a while yet.
- Boy oh boy, what a job, bringing back
the smiles to kids' faces.
♪ [music] ♪ [cheering]
- Africa is free and Europe that much
nearer freedom.
The liberating hosts
are on the wing.
♪ [music] ♪