CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY UNITED STATES ARMY WASHINGTON, D.C., 1988 First Printed 1951—C M H Pub 12-2 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001...

Kent Roberts Greenfield, General Editor Advisory Committee James P. Baxter President, Williams College Henry S. Commager Columbia University Douglas S. Freeman Richmond News Leader Pendleton Herring Social Science Research Council John D. Hicks University of California William T. Hutchinson University of Chicago S. L. A. Marshall Detroit News E. Dwight Salmon Amherst College Col. Thomas D. Stamps United States Military Academy Charles S. Sydnor Duke University Charles H. Taylor Harvard Universit

During World War II the photographers of the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard created on film a pictorial record of immeasurable value. Thousands of their pictures are preserved in the photographic libraries of the armed services, little seen by the public. In the volumes of UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II now being prepared by the Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, it is possible to include only a limited number of pictures. A s

The occupation of French North Africa by Allied troops was determined in July 1942 when the American and British Governments agreed to launch a Mediterranean operation in the fall of 1942. The invasion, designated as Torch , was to coincide with a British advance westward from Egypt. Before American soldiers did any actual fighting in North Africa, however, and before the United States was at war, civilian and military observers had been informally attached in May 1941 to the U. S. military atta

In June 1942 an American theater of operations called U. S. Army Forces in the Middle East was established with headquarters at Cairo. Under this command were merged various groups and military missions that had been active in this area since the spring of 1941. American responsibilities for moving supplies to the Soviet Union led ultimately to a separation of the Persian Gulf activities of USAFIME and their establishment under an organization that was known from December 1943 to October 1945 as

The decision to assault Sicily was made by the Chiefs of Staff at Casablanca in January 1943. After the conclusion of the Tunisia Campaign, plans were completed and preparations for the attack were accelerated (Operation Husky ). The island of Pantelleria, located between North Africa and Sicily, occupied mainly by Italian troops, was bombarded by Air Forces and Navy units and fell on 11 June. Troops for the invasion were embarked from the United States, United Kingdom, Algeria, Tunisia, and the

(9 September 1943–4 June 1944) The Allied victory in Sicily helped to bring about the surrender of Italy. The terms of the Italian surrender were signed on 3 September 1943 and announced on the night of the 8th. Allied troops received the news on shipboard while under way to invade Italy. Fighting did not cease with the surrender. Instead, the Germans took over the country with troops on the spot and sent reinforcements. The defeat of the Germans in Italy would strengthen Allied control over the

The offensive operation in southern France, originally scheduled to be executed simultaneously with the Normandy landings, was conceived with the aim of pushing northward from the southern coast, creating a diversion of enemy troops from the northern assault, and generally weakening the German Army in France. This operation was given the code name Anvil . A serious shortage of landing craft delayed the invasion until 15 August 1944. Meanwhile preparations for such a landing served as a threat an

(5 June 1944–2 May 1945) The Allies did not halt after taking Rome, but their northward progress was soon slowed by skillful delaying tactics of the retreating enemy and by the fact that all the French and some of the American divisions were being withdrawn from the U. S. Fifth Army for the operation in southern France. The Germans speeded construction of the Gothic Line in the north Apennines, and early in August 1944 the Allies paused for reorganization on a line running approximately from ten

The photographs in this volume came from the Department of Defense. All are from the U. S. Army files except the following: U. S. Navy: pp. 13, 14, 15, 19, 20b, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 30, 77, 107, 116, 122b, 125b, 139, 190, 258, 316, 339, 354. U. S. Air Forces: pp. 10, 12, 18, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 64, 71, 73, 80, 90, 91, 92, 94, 97a, 101, 109, 111, 157, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 173, 182, 185, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 224, 225, 239, 240, 257, 285, 305, 306, 307, 308, 317, 318, 323, 324–25, 326,