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The North African campaign was the first major combat experience that the USAAF gained against the Luftwaffe,
The USAAF had been planning to start air operations from Britain, using the 8th Air Force to directly attack German targets. The first combat units reached the UK in June 1942, and the first heavy bomber mission using American aircraft came in mid-August. However this plan was disrupted by the decision to invade French North Africa – Operation Torch of November 1942. This diverted American attention away from the 8th Air Force, in particular costing the 8th its P-38 long range escort fighters.
The first USAAF involvement in North Africa actually came in the summer of 1942, when a small number of units were rushed to the Middle East to help the beleagured British Eighth Army.
The book begins with a look at the impressive flights that saw P-38s move directly from Britain to Gibralter or North Africa at the very start of the campaign. We then get an overview of the situation in 1942, before we move on to two chapters looking at that involvement with the Eighth Army (up to the victory at El Alamein). After El Alamein the rapid pursuit of Rommel’s retreating army into Tunisia meant that the two wings of the Allied air forces were soon close enough for their stories to overlap, and eventually for them all to come under one over-arching command – Mediterranean Air Command.
We get some useful details on the evolving command structure – at first the USAAF was split into the 12th Air Force in the west and 9th Air Force in the east, but these numbered air forces were effectively subsumed into the Northwest African Air Forces in February 1943, which was split into strategic, coastal and tactical air forces. The old numbered forces kept an administrative role, but lost their combat functions. This was one of the most important leasons to emerge from North Africa – instead of having a single Air Force carrying out a wide range of topics, it was better to have very focused organisations. One of the main reasons this was a success was that it forced the USAAF and RAF to take tactical air forces and ground support more seriously – theorists on both sides had long believed that strategic air power could win the war by itself, and had to almost be forced to agree to carry out the more mundane (but probably more effective) role of actually directly supporting their armies.
Next comes a look at the German and Italian side – their best units, aircraft, etc. The Luftwaffe started this campaign as a potent force, often with the better fighters in the theatre, and with a mix of very experienced ‘experten’, plenty of pre-war airmen and wartime replacements.
The largest section of the book – five chapters – looks at Operation Torch and the Tunisian campaign. This is the period when the USAAF in North Africa both massively expanded in scale and became a very effective air force. We can see both happening as we go through the text – new units are arriving, new aircraft and new techniques are being introduced. Sometimes this was as simple as learning how best to use the existing aircraft – don’t dogfight in a P-38, instead use its fast dive speed and rapid rate of climb to fight the Germans in the vertical axis instead. The Germans and Italians were never entirely outclassed in this theatre – they had too many high quality pilots and fighter aircraft that were often equal or better than their British and American opponents – but they were eventually overwhelmed. We finish the North African section with the massacres of German transport aircraft trying to get supplies from Sicily to Tunisia, including the famous ‘Palm Sunday Massacre’, which saw 24 Ju 52s shot down and another 35 forced to crash land on Sicily. The massive Me 323 also suffered heavy losses.
We finish with two chapters on the conquest of Pantelleria, the first time an island surrendered in the face of air power, before a land invasion was needed (although only when one was clearly imminent), and on Sicily, where the lessons learned in North Africa were put to the test.
The book combines a good overview of events with a detailed narrative of daily combat, supported by plentiful eye witness accounts from the US pilots. This emerges as one of the most significant air campaigns of the war – doing serious damage to the Luftwaffe (costing it many of its per-war veterans), and establishing the USAAF as a major combat force in the war against Germany.
Chapters
1 – The Mad Dash
2 – 1942 – The Lowest Year
3 – First in the Blue
4 – El Alamein
5 – Opponents
6 – Air War over Casablanca
7 – Race to Tunisia
8 – Bomber Boys
9 – Kasserine Pass
10 – Tunisgrad
11 – Pantelleria
12 – Air War over Sicily
Author: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
Edition: Paperback
Pages:
Publisher: Osprey
Year: