First, there's no question about the immense battles in the Soviet Union. As Hitler said, "When Operation Barbarossa begins, the world will hold its breath." And FDR's later statement, "The people of the United States will be eternally grateful to the Soviet Union…." Those are the epic battles of history.

North Africa was a training ground–a combat apprenticeship–for U.S. troops. The dominant allied force in N.A. was British Eighth Army.

General Marshall and the U.S. Joint Chiefs were opposed to Torch and stood strong for an initial landing on the French coast to fight straight to Berlin. The British opposed the landing in France (and probably because they lost a generation there in WWI). FDR finally deferred to Churchill and agreed to Torch in N.A.

My question is: If the U.S. had landed in France in November 1942, how strong were the beach fortifications then? (I don't think those massive coastal pill boxes were built at that point.)

Thanks,

Heydon

There was virtually no experienced large U.S. land formations in existence in the Western Theater before the Med Campaign. The Britihs forces had some experience, but many of those units were already directly involved with the 8th Army fighting the Axis in Egypt/Tunisia.

Overall the campaign provided a huge training ground for land formations, operational and strategic tactics and most importantly provided a massive testing ground for logistics that would be required by the Allies when they eventually invaded France at D-Day.

Despite what has been said after the fact by the "what if" camp, the Allies likely could never have performed an invasion like D-Day without both the experience of a number of smaller African and Italian invasions, and even if they had, there would have been massive problems in combat caused by inexperienced units and generals which had senior positions in the the Allied command prior to being weeded out by what was learned in the Med fighting.

Without the Med Campaign how would the U.S. army have figured out that some generals, such as Patton, were the right men to lead much larger formations in France rather than a number of senior generals who were dismissed and/or relegated to much less important roles once it was determined that they did not have the right skills to win a war when actual combat occurred?

Unfortunately, most history involves a large element of what if, and the small items such as training and experience is forgotten when compared to the much broader scope of what might have been able to be achived if such minor items are intentionally ignored.

Also don't forget landing craft. Throughout the war there were never enough and locations and timing of operations were frequently influenced by the availability or non-availability of landing craft.

The cost to the Axis for the North African campaign had been nearly one million men killed or captured. The Allies were entering into a grand alliance which was not yet cemented by cooperation on the ground. The Tunisian campaign had not gone well. Reverses came as shock but now that the continent had been cleansed, operational momentum had to be maintained.

The Med had all the pre-requisits to a successful British operation; namely Naval. Control of the Med offered advantages to maritime operations, principally the shortening of supply lines via the Suez Canal and the removal of dependence on the Murmansk run for Lend-Lease shipments to Russia.

The amphibious assault on Sicily was the cement that bonded the US and UK forces as an Allied command. Control of Sicily ensured control of the Med and opened new possibilities for advance through Tito's Yugoslavia or Greece.

To knock Italy out of the war would, it was hoped, send a message to Spain and Turkey that the Axis could not win this war. Operations against Yugo and Greece would give Britain leverage in any post-war agreements with Stalin.

Allied presence in Italy tied down two dozen A-class German divisions in a side-show. It also tied down German divisions guarding against Allied excursions into the Balkans.

It was also true that no attempt at Sledgehammer/Roundup could be made until the U-boat menace was delivered from the Atlantic while a quick advance up the boot of Italy might offer opportunities to enter Europe through the south of France either concurrent with or prior to Overlord.

But the one argument to clinch the reason for an Italian campaign was that to do nothing was the greater evil. And that was the only realistic alternative to Husky.