Latest, Recent, Archives, email alert
History tours: Third Reich, WW2WW2 category: North Africa & Italian Front :: Latest WWII news reviews. See also 'Rommel: Desert Fox', 'Fascist Italy'.
The Desert Rats and the friend who was once a foe reunite, recall Erwin Rommel mirror.co.uk :: 2009-06-15 :: Reunions: World War II soldiers
It is a n emotional moment when a band of Desert Rats are reunited with an old foe. German soldier Rudolf Schneider first saw Alex Franks in the Libyan desert 68 years ago. Ambulanceman Franks recalls: "We didn't so much meet as share a moment together. I was on my rounds and accidentally ran my ambulance into a German tank position." It just so happened that his mistake coincided with Erwin Rommel's inspection. There was nothing to do but surrender. But the Desert Fox waved him away: ambulances were not tanks, and for the German General there was no honor in capturing medics. Standing next to Rommel that day was Schneider - part of Rommel's personal battle squadron.
The Kasserine Pass: Facing Erwin Rommel's panzers for the first time foxnews.com :: 2009-02-12 :: North Africa & Italian Front
Feb. 14, 1943: American 34th Infantry Division faced off against a battle-hardened German Army in North Africa. In command of Hitler's Panzers was General Erwin Rommel. In 2002 Joe Boitnott and Duane Stone recalled their face-off with the Wehrmacht at the Faid Pass. "The commanding officer... run out of ammunition and run out of manpower," said Boitnott. On Feb. 25, the battle for the Kasserine Pass was over. "They had more than 6,000 casualties. They'd had units completely destroyed. In terms of yardage lost, it was the greatest defeat for the American Army in WW2," said Atkinson. Dwight D. Eisenhower reacted to the loss, calling in General George Patton.
The Battle of Anzio: Veterans planning a trip to Italy during Memorial Day weekend hattiesburgamerican.com :: 2009-01-29
in 1944 staff sergeant Bob Ledford was on a landing craft on the beach of Anzio. 5 months later he had 3 Purple Heart medals. The defenses on the coast were caught off guard, but Germans regrouped soon. Between Jan. 22 and May 25 Ledford had wounds in the leg, shoulder and back - which took him out of combat for good. Harvey Smith, a private first class in the 45th Infantry Division, said the Allied forces got bogged down and the Germans held the high ground: "We had to stay in foxholes in the day time." He was hit by mortar shrapnel in both legs. After recovering he was sent to France where a sniper's bullet hit him in the chest, ending his combat duty.
Battles of the 1st Armored Division recalled beacononlinenews.com :: 2008-12-03
When J.D. Womack was in Italy 6 decades ago, the country was not a nice place for tourists. Drafted into the U.S. Army in Feb 1941, he was assigned to the 1st Armored Division, which was put under British command for Operation Torch (the invasion of North Africa). Womack was in one of the first tanks to hit the beach of Morocco: "The first time... I was so scared I had to reach up and see if my helmet was still there. We fought the French for 3 days [referring to the forces of the pro-Nazi Vichy government]. They were like us. Their equipment was pretty old." One of the most unforgettable memories was "the Stuka dive bombers. That's the worst thing."
Britain at War: Overview of North Africa and the Italian Campaign telegraph.co.uk :: 2008-10-29
Britain won critical victories over the Italians in Africa for 3 years before the battle of El Alamein in Oct. 1942. For example, in Feb. 1941 the British Western Desert Force under General Sir Archibald Wavell won the battle of Beda Fomm against Marshal Graziani's much bigger 10th Italian Army, and took 113,000 POWs. So huge were the British victories in Africa, that Adolf Hitler had to save his fellow dictator Benito Mussolini. Soon after the arrival of General Erwin Rommel in Tripoli in March 1941, Afrika Korps began to achieve such victories (like seizing the vital Libyan port of Tobruk on 21 June 1942) that disaster threatened British-run Egypt.
El Alamein battlefield scars - World War II desert warfare thenational.ae :: 2008-06-12
Oct 23 1942: 200,000 Commonwealth soldiers faced 150,000 German and Italian forces in the final desert battle of the North Africa Campaign. 4 months earlier Britain had a depressing defeat with the fall of Tobruk. Previously El Alamein was a barren watering station, but by the time Britain launched its attack, its landscape was transformed into a battlefield of trench warfare for the face-off between Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel. Evidence of the battle is everywhere: billboards warn of active mine fields, the Teutonic-looking German memorial, the white-marble Italian mausoleum and the British and Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery.
A bittersweet day for D-Day Dodgers; Italian campaign reunion recalls 'forgotten war' orilliapacket :: 2008-05-13
The word "bittersweet" was being tossed around during the 30th and last D-Day Dodgers reunion. "It's bitter because we've noticed, as the years go on, time catches up with us. It's sweet because you are here," explained Colin Wackett. 93,000 Canadian military personnel served - and 6,000 died - in "the forgotten war," as the Italian campaign would become known. Art Angus who served with the 7th Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment, apprehended why this reunion was the last. "We've had our day. There's so much going on in the world today, and there's other troops. There's not too many of us left."
Project by Italian university to safeguard historical battle site at El Alamein adnkronos :: 2008-04-11
The University of Padua and the National institute of Oceanography and Geophysics in the port city of Trieste have began a project (including a data bank of geographic information) to safeguard the site of one of the key battles of World War II at El Alamein. The project's purpose is to access its socio-cultural importance and increase its value as a tourist location. Two key battles were fought at El Alamein in 1942 between the Axis and Allied forces. The research involves mapping out the thousands of battle positions, items and sites where the soldiers set up their camps during the battle.
Was the Italian Campaign worth it? -- Italy's Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-45 telegraph :: 2008-03-22
"It was mind-numbing!" recalled Stan Scislowski, of the Canadian 11th Infantry Brigade, of the Allied barrage against the Senger Line south of Anzio at 6am on 23 May 1944. He is one of many witnesses who bring alive James Holland's history of the last year of the war in Italy. Interviews with veterans, hours trawling through the archives at the Imperial War Museum and the WWII Experience Centre at Leeds, weeks spent walking the battlefields (Holland is a badged member of the respected Guild of Battlefield Guides), mixedd with the German point of Italian Campaign, has produced a great work.
Nazi landmines block Egypt's access to natural resources spiegel :: 2008-03-12
Desert Fox Erwin Rommel and the British 8th Army left behind about 22 millions mines and unexploded shells in their North African battles of World War II. The explosive relics are preventing Egypt's access to oil and gas reserves in the desert. Many of the mines are near the battlefield of El-Alamein, where the British Eighth Army forced the Africa Corps to retreat back to Tunisia. Anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines and unexploded artillery shells block today's routes because wherever the armies of the Axis powers and the Allies clashed in North Africa, they limited each other's mobility by minefields.
1942 - Operation Torch rocktownweekly :: 2007-11-06
Nov. 8 marks 65 years since the start of Operation Torch - The first offensive by Allied High Command against Nazi Germany and Italy. It was deemed practical to land forces in northwest Africa along the coast of Morocco and Algeria. Both under the control of Vichy France, which was in collaboration with Nazi Germany. After little resistance and much cooperation from the Vichy forces, the Allied soldiers were able to establish a beachhead. As they moved inland, the Allies engaged German forces under the Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. In 1943 battles were fought in Tunisia, including the engagement at the Kasserine Pass.
The British Army's victory over Rommel's Afrika Korps at El Alamein Article no longer available from the original source. :: eveningstar :: 2007-10-28 :: North Africa & Italian Front
The Duchess of Cornwall attended a memorial service in Thetford Forest to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the start of the battle of El Alamein. Winston Churchill knew it was a crucial victory: since 1940 the British Army had been in a war of attrition. Morale was at rock bottom and the allies had been pushed back by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps to within 30 miles of the Nile. To lose Cairo and the Suez Canal would have been a disaster. But the tide was turning. Richard Heseltine, in 1942 a camouflage expert in the 3rd The King's Own Hussars, remembers his first encounter with Field Marshall Montgomery.
Colonel Vic Senior - Won Military Cross in Tunisia in 1943, dies at 91 telegraph.co.uk :: 2007-08-24 :: Generals of World War Two Commanders
Colonel Vic Senior, who won an Military Cross in Tunisia in 1943 and a Bar to it in Greece in 1944, has died at 91. In March 1943 he was at Mareth in command of a troop of 50th Royal Tank Regiment (50 RTR). When Axis forces tried to break through the Allied defences, his squadron attacked an enemy position in the Wadi Melah. His squadron was able to cross the river bed and inflicted severe casualties on the Italians. Later when 15 Panzer Division attacked the bridgehead on the Mareth Line and 50 RTR lost 27 tanks, he took command of the 3 remaining tanks. Enemy infantry worked their way past his tanks, but he gave no ground until he was ordered to withdraw.
The Second World War battlefields in Egypt - The Battle of El-Alamein egypttoday :: 2007-05-30 :: North Africa & Italian Front
The Battle of El-Alamein saw Allied troops led by the newly promoted General Bernard Montgomery take on the Axis forces under the highly talented Desert Fox Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The strategic implications of losing control of the Nile Valley and the Suez Canal, would have been disastrous for the Allies, who placed a supreme urgency on defeating Afrika Korps. The Alamein War Museum features items that explain the war from both Allied and Axis perspectives. Large illustrated maps show how the battles took place and the decommissioned armored vehicles and artillery pieces in the garden make for interesting viewing.
Kiwi tank men came close to success at Cassino in World War II stuff :: 2007-04-17 :: Panzers & Armored Divisions & Tank War
Ron Crosby's book "Albaneta; Lost Opportunity at Cassino" details a little-known opportunity for C Squadron of the 20th Armoured Regiment to launch a surprise attack on the Germans, and seize the monastery on Monte Cassino. The reason Operation Revenge was not successful was because the tanks were not supported by infantry and armour. "There is no doubt that the Germans were initially taken by surprise, but without the infantry they (the tanks) were a sitting duck." The C Squadron tanks, with the aid of the 4th Indian Division, managed to build a road that would carry battle tanks to a strategic position overlooking enemy-held territory.
Where tanks fought fiercely: Golf and minefields at El-Alamein theglobeandmail :: 2007-03-23 :: North Africa & Italian Front
The sands of El-Alamein are being readied for tourism, but only once the land mines are cleared. There are 20 million landmines buried in the area. Wartime maps are hardly helpful because the mines have moved due to erosion. "The worst ones are the Riegel mines placed by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel as he was fleeing to Libya," after Allied forces led by General Montgomery, broke the Axis line in Oct 1942. The defeat of Afrika Korps ended the Nazis' hopes of capturing the Suez Canal. The absence of natural barriers led both armies to fortify their positions by mines. Since 1945, 700 people have been killed and 8,000 mutilated by anti-personnel or anti-tank mines.
A heavy weapons platoon in the World War II lompocrecord :: 2006-10-23
One of the scariest times for Hubert "Hube" Wolfe was when the Liberty Ship that he was on broke down and was left behind by the convoy - just when German U-Boats were operating in Wolf packs. It spent 3 days alone. Fortunately, the ship made it. He was assigned to the parachute regiment 504th and loaded up on LCIs (Landing Craft Infantry) landing at Anzio. They did not get a lot of fire from the beach but were attacked by Messerschmidt 109s and the Stuka Dive Bombers. What was worst was the German 35-pound, high-explosive rockets. Called Screaming Meemies, they were fired in groups of 6 with a sound that he will never forget.
WW2 in Africa is over; Gen. Von Arnim and 150,000 men captured - :: 2006-10-07
Col. General Dietloff von Arnim, the Prussian Commander in Chief of the Axis forces in North Africa, has been captured by the British, on Cap Bon. In all, 150,000 POWs are believed to have been taken since May 5, when the final assaults on Tunis and Bizerte began. This brings to 400,000 the total of Axis prisoners taken since the North African campaign. General von Sponeck announced that he would fight to his last bullet. Then, that Prussian point of military honor having began satisfied by fire from British guns heavier than his own, he surrendered.
1941-1945: Andartiko - the Greek Resistance partisans libcom :: 2006-09-18 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans
Andartiko - the Greek Resistance partisans who fought against Italian and German fascist occupation. Nowhere was resistance as simple as good guys in the hills with rusty rifles, and bad guys wearing swastikas and burning villages, but Greece was particularly complex. Even the Italian decision to invade seems bizarre, motivated by a desire to counter German influence in Rumania. After the Italians were humiliated by the Greek Army, the Wehrmacht stepped in and broke the resistance in April 1941. The Germans turned over most of the occupation to the Italians. At least in spirit much of the Greek population embraced resistance.
Australians denied the advances of the German Afrika Korps couriermail :: 2006-07-15 :: North Africa & Italian Front
A new book on the Rats of Tobruk fleshes out the Australian legend - the story unfolded over nine months in 1941, when 14,000 Australians denied the advances of the German army in North Africa. The German Afrika Korps, commanded by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, believed that once the Australians who had positioned themselves in the strategically crucial port were dealt with, all Africa would fall into their hands. However Tobruk and the Australians proved a thorn in the side of a previously unstoppable Nazi war machine that had already used its Panzer tanks and blitzkrieg fighting style to take Poland, Belgium and France.
Liberation of Axis Capital Rome obscured by D-Day Article no longer available from the original source. :: cincypost :: 2006-06-07
June 5th, 1944, Rome fell to the Allied forces. The announcement came just a few hours before D-Day. It was the biggest victory of the war to that moment, the first of the Axis capitals to fall. It was a culmination of 270 days of the toughest kind of campaigning by the U.S. Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army, slugging up the Italian boot against an experienced enemy. The landing at Salerno had been a close-run thing, and after victory at Naples, the winter struggles at places like Monte Cassino brought the advance to a standstill. In fact, the battle in Italy was starved for reinforcements while the Allies began the build-up for the Operation Overlord.
Infantry hated being dive bombed - Diary from Monte Cassino rhinelanderdailynews :: 2006-05-28 :: Infantry Soldiers of WWII: Foot Soldiers
Two things were certain in Charles E. Aubert's world - he hated being dive bombed and guard duty. The World War II combat vet cussed the bombers and his duty officer with equal rancor at times. Italy, May 11, 1944: "2400 guns 1800 tanks in this attack. The barrage is terrific. If we don't take Cassino this time we're thru! ... Air raid last night, one bomb came close; My God but that screaming of the bomb was terrifying." His diary also include the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans' desperate counter-attack (Ardennes Offensive) that stretched, but which did not break, the Allied line.
African-American artilleryman saw Europe the hard way - under fire staugustine :: 2006-05-23 :: Artillery of World War II
Joseph Luke Jones recalls the day in 1944 near Monte Casino, when he heard the whoosh of an incoming 88 shell - it hit the ground only yards away. The shell dug itself deep into the ground and exploded, spewing only dirt. He was then a sergeant in a 40mm battery for the all-black 450th Anti-Aircraft Battalion, the first African-American battalion to see combat in Europe. The unit endured 3 months of constant shelling near Monte Casino. The biggest worry was the 88, a Nazi gun used against tanks, troops and planes. But there also were Luftwaffe fighters, "They'd come 3 times a day: out of the sun in the morning, out of the sun at noon and out of the sun in the evening."
Crete visit brings war days back bayofplentytimes :: 2006-05-11 :: North Africa & Italian Front
In May 1941, Mr Coughlan, "Coggy", was a brengunner in the New Zealand Army's 19th battalion. To this day his most vivid memory was seeing thousands of German soldiers parachuting down from the sky onto the island, ready to attack. "The sky was littered with them." He was shot through the hand on the first day the battle for Crete began to rage. The makeshift army hospital he was taken to was in a ditch and his wound was never properly dressed. "We woke up one morning and found just two of us were left. Everyone else had moved out overnight and they had missed us."
Ethiopia demand Italy's compensation for 500,000 lives lost eitb24 :: 2006-05-05
Italy paid Ethiopia $5 million after a 1947 peace treaty, although the Emperor Haile Selassie had demanded $600 million. 70 years on, memories are still fresh in Ethiopia of the 1935 invasion ordered by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, whose forces used mustard gas and other chemical weapons in the country then known as Abyssinia. When Addis Ababa fell, Ethiopia formed part of Italian East Africa with Eritrea and Italian Somaliland until its liberation by WW2 allies in 1941. Mussolini's troops torched 2,000 churches and killed 5 million cattle, 70 million sheep and goats, 1 million mules and horses, and 700,000 camels during the campaign.
On the Run - After the order to surrender in Battle of Crete times :: 2006-04-27
When the order to surrender was given after the Battle of Crete in 1941, more than 6000 Australian, British and New Zealand soldiers were left behind. Some escaped immediately on abandoned naval barges or took to the hills. But the majority was marched back over the White Mountains to makeshift POW camps. Many escaped, relying on Cretan mountain villagers to shelter and guide them. Ian Frazer’s father was a survivor of the Battle of Crete, an Australian soldier who successfully evaded the Nazi occupiers for a year. He kept a meticulous diary.
The fascist invasion of Abyssinia socialistworker :: 2006-04-26 :: Fascist Italy - World War II
Abyssinia had been one of the few states to survive "the scramble for Africa" by the major European powers in the late 19th century, having defeated Italy at the battle of Aduwa in 1896. Now Benito Mussolini, Italy's fascist dictator, dreamed of taking revenge and carving out a "New Roman Empire" in East Africa. The Abyssinians were left isolated in the face of fascist Italy's far more technologically developed war machine. The Italian military used poison gas to wipe out the Abyssinian civilian population. The Italians bombed civilian targets, hospitals and even the International Red Cross.
William P. Yarborough: The plan for the airborne phase of North Africa thepilot :: 2006-04-24 :: North Africa & Italian Front
Soldiers paid tribute to a pioneer of modern warfare as Lt. Gen. William P. Yarborough was laid to rest. From the earliest days of paratroop experiments, his hand touched every part of airborne: he worked out the designs for jump uniforms and jump boots. He designed the airborne insignia, the famous jump wings of the parachutist's badge. He developed the initial concept and plan for the airborne phase of the WWII invasion of North Africa, then as executive officer went with that task force on its flight over Spain toward target objectives in Algeria - the longest operational flight ever made by parachute troops.
Commander who won a Military Cross at the Battle of Cassino telegraph.co.uk :: 2006-04-13
Lieutenant-Colonel Monty Ormsby, who has died aged 89, was a fighting commander of a very high order and won a Military Cross at the first Battle of Cassino and a Bar in Malaya. On the night of February 17 1944, the 1st Battalion (King Edward VII's Own) 2nd Gurkha Rifles was ordered to launch an attack in the hills north of Monte Cassino. The monastery had been destroyed by Allied bombing the previous day, but the Germans still held the area in strength. They were equipped with automatic weapons concealed in well-defended posts and covered by machine guns firing from enfiladed positions on both flanks.
War hero killed German soldiers disguised as a Nazi paratrooper nzcity :: 2006-04-09
A New Zealand war hero broke the international rules of combat by killing German soldiers in WWII while disguised as a Nazi paratrooper. The claim appears in a newspaper report about a new book. Alfred Clive Hulme was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest British and New Zealand bravery award, for his actions in the 1941 Battle of Crete. It is there that he killed 33 German snipers and other soldiers while dressed as a German paratrooper.
Special tribute to Swazi Army - Swazi Unit at Anzio Article no longer available from the original source. :: observer :: 2006-03-12
The Swazi contingent that fought on the side of the Allies during the WW2 last weekend received an unexpected accolade when it was remembered in the South African broadsheet ‘The Sunday Times’, 62 years after the war. Headlined ‘Swazi Unit at Anzio’ the paper wrote in 1944, about the exuberance our lads carried themselves about as they did their bit for the Empire. Excerpt: ‘The only African natives in the Anzio (Italy) beachhead are members of a Swazi smoke company that landed on January 21 and also participated in the landing at Salerno (Italy) last year.
Battle for the Desert - footage from the frontlines of WWII smh :: 2006-03-04 :: WW2 Footage
Some of the most famous battle footage from the frontlines of WWII is included in this five-hour marathon of newsreel and documentary film. The highlight of the first disc is Roy Boulting’s Oscar-winning 1943 morale-booster Desert Victory. Using footage shot in North Africa by cameramen of the Army Film and Photographic Unit (4 of whom were killed during the campaign), it tells the story of the Allied defeat of Rommel's Afrika Korps and climaxes with the Battle of El Alamein.
Reunion of World War II Rangers ljworld :: 2006-03-03 :: US Army Rangers
Historians argue whether the demise of Darby’s Rangers was the result of faulty intelligence and poor planning on their mission to capture Cisterna, or was due to the German General Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s strategic deployment of forces. But the fight that ensued was the end of 3 battalions of untested replacements and battle-hardened veterans, most of whom had spearheaded invasions and fought their way through Africa, Sicily and Italy. Only a handful of men from the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions escaped after an overwhelming force of German soldiers — equipped with mortars and tanks — surrounded them.
I survived horrors of the Holocaust expressandstar :: 2006-01-28 :: North Africa & Italian Front
"You stinking Jew!" shouted an SS soldier, pointing his rifle at Jack Kagan. Jack, just 13 at the time, was among the 1,500 Jews held in a Polish ghetto by German troops under Hitler's reign during the Second World War. "My knees were shivering," he says. "I was lined up with about 50 others and a machine gun was assembled. I thought that was the end of it.
Americans smash Nazi winter line in Italy - This Day in History Article no longer available from the original source. :: lansingstatejournal :: 2005-12-04
Allied military might pounded hard and successfully at Adolf Hitler's Fortress Europe from land and air Saturday, giving forceful notice that the United Nations have the strength now to back up any agreements, plans or unconditional surrender demands made by the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin war conference. Striving to break out of the mountains into a broad valley that leads to Rome, the American Fifth army crashed into the heart of the German winter line in southern Italy.
Operation Mincemeat - How a Corpse Saved Lives in WWII local :: 2004-05-08
In the spring of 1943, after the campaign in North Africa, the Allies began to plan the invasion of Hitler's "Fortress Europe." The best target was Sicily: It would provide a springboard for the invasion, and eliminate the Luftwaffe's presence. Allies faced three obstacles: (1) Sicily is a mountainous island which favored the defenders. (2) The Axis knew that it was logically the next move. (3) The invasion, codenamed Operation Husky, required a build up which would likely be detected. Sir Archibald Cholmondley, of the British Intelligence interservice XX Committee conceived the idea to plant false documents on a dead man and let them fall into the hands of the Germans.
Monte Cassino: Italian bloodbath bbc :: 2004-02-13 :: Wehrmacht: German Armed Forces
The allies were fighting their way up from southern Italy towards Rome, and the monastery of Monte Cassino stood at the strongest point of a powerful German defensive line. The battle took four months, and by one estimate it left a 250,000 dead or wounded. The German commander, Lieutenant-General Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, wrote: "We found that divisions arriving from other theatres of war were not immediately equal to the double burden of icy mountain terrain and massed bombardment." Author Matthew Parker: "The largest land battle in Europe, Cassino was the bitterest and bloodiest of the Western Allies' struggles with the German Wehrmacht on any WW2 front."
Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Gibbon: Leading a tank attack near Tobruk telegraph.co.uk :: 2002-04-04 :: North Africa & Italian Front
Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Gibbon was awarded a DSO for leading a tank attack near Tobruk in 1941, and a Bar for escaping from a German PoW train in 1943 and leading a group of officers to safety in Yugoslavia. On Nov 29 1941 Gibbon was commanding "A" Squadron of the 44th Royal Tank Regiment, attached to the New Zealand Division. As part of the first phase of Auchinleck's "Crusader" operation, which lifted the siege of Tobruk, the New Zealanders joined the garrison and were soon deployed on the gravel ridge of Sidi Rezegh; they were attacked from three directions by the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions and an Italian unit.
See also:
'Rommel: Desert Fox'
'Fascist Italy'.