In 1942, during Operation Torch, U.S. troops fought their first battle in the European theater. After defeat and more bitter fighting, the Allies won the North African theater in May 1943, and the encirclement of Germany began to shrink tighter and tighter.
Since the beginning of 1941, the entry of the United States into the war has gradually changed the situation on the European battlefield. From the beginning, U.S. Army commanders were convinced that the way to defeat Hitler was through a cross-strait operation from Britain. President Roosevelt ordered that U.S. troops must be deployed to fight against Germany during 1942, so the final decision was to land in Morocco and Algeria, thus eliminating axis troop deployments in North Africa.
Morocco and Algeria were French colonies controlled by the regime of Pétain Vichy. Anglo-American relations were somewhat awkward in 1940, so the Americans took the lead in leading the pre-landing negotiations and tried to persuade the Vichy government's massive military leaders in Africa not to resist the Allied advances, but to join a smaller "Free French" force, which had already been put into battle on the Allied side. It was true that the French did not resist the landings, but it took months of political strife to form a joint "Free French" force.
The battle, known as Operation Torch, began on November 8, 1942, just four days after the victory of the Allied Eighth Army in El Alamein, which ultimately drove the Italians and Germans out of Egypt. If it went well, the attack should have gone deep into Tunisia, but the plan was rejected because it would be too dangerous. Instead, the landing site was chosen on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, near Casablanca, and located around the Algiers and Oran regions of Algeria. The Anglo-American coalition, the First Army, immediately developed a platform toward Tunisia, but it was too late.
German Field Marshal Albrecht Kesselring was a very capable commander-in-chief. After 9 November, he began to transfer troops, tanks and aircraft from Sicily into Tunisia, engaging in a duel with the Allies and bringing them to a standstill in the rugged mountain roads of western Tunisia, engaging in a series of uphill battles that lasted from November of that year to the beginning of January 1943.
By February 1943, axis forces in Tunisia had rendezvoused with Rommel's forces, which had successfully completed their retreat from Egypt. The Allied Eighth Army was still doing everything in its power to make the most of the port of Tripoli and was therefore not fully prepared to advance further into the southern part of Tunisia. This gave the Germans a chance to launch an offensive against the First Army, which was launched on 14 February.
At the Battle of Kesarin, the inexperienced U.S. forces became the primary target of the Axis offensive and suffered a crushing defeat. American and British reinforcements, storming the threatened areas, prevented a critical breakout, and then gradually regained the lost territory in late February. General George Patton took over command of the U.S. ground forces in Tunisia, and his leadership soon improved the operational efficiency of the army.
In early March, the Eighth Army crushed a German attempt to attack, and for the time of the month, during the arduous Battle of Maret, the Axis forces were driven to the periphery of their main defensive line in southern Tunisia. In April, the First and Eighth Armies continued their offensive, eventually advancing to the port of Bizerte and the Tunisian area in May. After a decisive battle, the remaining 250,000 Axis forces finally surrendered on May 13, and Africa was completely under Allied control.