No Letters from Stan - what's happening in North Africa?

 Readers will have noticed that we have not heard from Stan since his letter no. 32 written on 25 June.  As his next letter will be numbered 36, we have to assume that numbers 33 to 35 have been lost or perhaps never arrived.  However, life is not standing still for Stan in Tunisia.

Even before the Allies had successfully ejected the German and Italian armies from North Africa, a debate was taking place amongst Allied leaders about what the next step should be.  Should we hold North Africa but concentrate all our efforts in planning and launching an attack on German forces in Northern France, or should we follow up the success in North Africa with an attack on Italian forces in the Balkans or against one of the Mediterranean islands: Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily or Crete?  This would be the first step in aiming to knock Italy out of the war.

At this time fighting was only actually taking place in Russia, on the Eastern front, and Russia was desperate for the British and Americans to open a 'Second Front' to engage Axis forces elsewhere.

In January, 1943, a conference had been held by the British and Americans in Casablanca at which the options were discussed.  It was not, however, until May that the final decision was made that Sicily would be the next target of the Allied armies and in early July bombing raids on Sicily began in earnest.  

During this time Stan would be involved in preparing for his unit of the Royal Signals to play their part in the attack on Sicily.