War on film: Tunisian Victory

This article is from Military History Matters issue 124

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Talk of the war in North Africa and most Brits will think of Tobruk or El Alamein, while most Americans will think of Operation Torch, the Kasserine Pass, and Tunisia. The victory at El Alamein was presented in a powerful British film made by the Army Film and Photographic Unit, Desert Victory, a box-office hit in 1943 which won a Best Documentary Oscar (director: Roy Boulting; see MHM May 2016).

The ultimate defeat of the Axis forces in North Africa was treated in an Anglo-American film, Tunisian Victory. This documentary, made from record film of the campaign, contains some superb material ranging from the landings in French north-west Africa in November 1942 to the Axis surrender in Tunis in May 1943. The film is a visual feast of the war in North Africa and powerfully encapsulates the first major test of Anglo-American cooperation during the conflict.

The decision to launch the campaign in north-west Africa had not been made easily. Stalin had been pressing for the launch of a Second Front in northern Europe since the summer of 1941 to relieve pressure on the East. But Britain did not have the assets to launch an invasion of Europe and concentrated instead on its fight with the Italian and German armies in the Western Desert.

When America came into the war in December 1941, the US chiefs of staff also pressed for an assault on France as being the most direct way to defeat the Nazi war machine. But the British chiefs resisted, knowing that there were so few American troops in the UK in 1942 that the British Army would have to bear the brunt of any invasion – meaning losses would be heavy.

Not only were there not enough British troops to mount an effective assault, but they were also not trained for an amphibious invasion. Nor were there enough landing craft: thousands would be needed and only a few hundred were available.

There were several meetings of the combined chiefs of staff in Washington and London in the first half of 1942 to thrash out future strategy. General Marshall led the US attempt to persuade the British of the need to assault northern Europe. In April, General Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and a key opponent of an invasion of France, argued that ‘the prospects of success are small and dependent upon a mass of unknowns, while the chances of disaster are great and dependent upon a mass of well-established military facts.’

Instead, the British position was that the Allies should concentrate on the defeat of Axis forces in the Mediterranean, where fighting was already taking place.

Finally, in July 1942, with the combined chiefs still in fundamental disagreement, President Roosevelt intervened. He accepted that an attack against northern France would be impossible in 1942 but was determined that US troops should engage with German land forces before the end of the year.