1 January, 1943 - an update on the war

Stan and Grace are meeting up in Doncaster at lunchtime today and happily spending their leave together in Grimethorpe, but what is happening in the wider world and how is the war progressing?

By January, 1943, the war had lasted more than three years.  Hitler’s forces occupied most of mainland Europe plus Norway, the Balkans and Greece.  Italy was allied to Germany.  Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland were neutral.

Germany was engaged in the invasion of Russia, with the battle for Stalingrad in process at the end of 1942.

The British, Americans and their allies were engaged with Japan in the Far East and with Germany and Italy (the Axis powers) in North Africa.  What was so important about North Africa? 

Firstly, the British were reliant on oil from oilfields in Iran, which was our main supplier in the 1940’s.  This oil came by tanker via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean and on to the UK through the Straights of Gibraltar, past neutral Spain.  Without oil, Britain could not fight the war, so control of Egypt and the Suez Canal together with the Northern coast of Africa was vital to the UK war effort.

Secondly, plans were being made for opening a ‘second front’ in Europe (the Russian front being the only part of the Europe where fighting was still taking place).  This could be an invasion through Northern France, but it was also possible to invade Italy and/or Southern France if the Allies controlled North Africa. 

The battle for North Africa had been going on since early 1941 and eventually the German and Italian forces were defeated and pushed back from Egypt at the second battle of El Alamein (early November, 1942).  This was followed by ‘Operation Torch’.  American and British forces made landings in French North Africa: around Casablanca in Morocco (US) and Oran and Algiers in Algeria (UK).  By the end of the year these forces occupied the whole of the North African coast up to the Tunisian border in the West.  The British were also continuing to push German forces back from the Egyptian side, so the Allied forces were approaching Tunisia from both East and West.  However, Rommel’s German forces were being supplied and reinforced via Sicily and the port of Tunis.

What will 1943 bring to the Allied forces in North Africa?