Реферат: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II
Marshall ordered Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, then in England, to
take command of the invasion. Meeting the November deadline required
improvisation of every kind Army troops were hurriedly trained in amphibious
warfare. Technicians modified commercial vessels to serve as landing ships.
While General Eisenhower monitored operations from Gibraltar, American forces,
convoyed directly from the United States, landed along the Atlantic coast of
French Morocco, near Casablanca. Meanwhile, American and British troops sailing
from England landed in Algeria. Despite efforts to win support among French
military officers in North Africa, some fighting occurred. Nevertheless
negotiations soon led to a cease-fire, and French units joined the Allied
forces.
While the Allies tightened their grip on Morocco and Algeria, their
troops raced to reach strategic positions in neighboring Tunisia. A month
earlier the British in Egypt under Lt. Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery had
mounted a powerful attack on the Germans at El Alamein, sending Rommel and his
German-Italian Panzer Army reeling back into Libya. If strong Allied forces
could reach the coast of Tunisia, Rommel would be trapped between them and
Montgomery's troops.
Awake to the threat, the Germans poured troops into Tunisia by air
and sea, brushing aside weak French forces there. Axis air power, based in
Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy, pounded the advancing Allied columns. As
torrential December rains turned the countryside into a quagmire, the Allies
lost the race. Instead of catching Rommel, they faced a protracted struggle.
While his forces dug in along the southern border of Tunisia opposite
Montgomery, a second powerful Axis force, the Fifth Panzer Army, barred the way
to the Tunisian coast.
A chain of mountains separates coastal Tunisia from the arid
interior. In a plain between two arms of the mountains and behind the passes in
the west lay important Allied airfields and supply dumps. On 14 February 1943,
the Axis commanders sent German and Italian forces through the passes, hoping
to penetrate the American positions and either envelop the British in the north
or seize Allied supply depots.
German forces quickly cut off and overwhelmed two battalions of
American infantry positioned too far apart for mutual support, and the experienced
panzers beat back counterattacks by American reserves, including elements of
the U.S. 1st Armored Division. U.S. troops began evacuating airfields and
supply depots on the plain and falling back to the western arm of the
mountains. Dug in around the oasis town of Sbeitla, American infantry and armor
managed to hold off the Germans through 16 February, but defenses there began
to disintegrate during the night, and the town lay empty by midday on the 17th.
From the oasis, roads led back to two passes, the Sbiba and the Kasserine. By
21 February the Germans had pushed through both and were poised to seize road
junctions leading to the British rear.
Rommel and other German commanders, however, could not agree on how
to exploit their success. Meanwhile Allied reinforcements rushed to the
critical area. The 1st Armored Division turned back German probes toward
Tebessa, and British armor met a more powerful thrust toward Thala, where four
battalions of field artillery from the U.S. 9th Infantry Division arrived just
in time to bolster sagging defenses. On the night of 22 February the Germans
began to pull back. A few days later Allied forces returned to the passes. The
first American battle with German forces had cost more than 6,000 U.S.
casualties, including 300 dead and two-thirds of the tank strength of the 1st
Armored Division.
In March, after the British repulsed another German attack, the
Allies resumed the offensive. The U.S. II Corps, now under the command of Maj.
Gen. George S. Patton, attacked in coordination with an assault on the German
line by Montgomery's troops. American and British forces in the south met on 7
April as they squeezed Axis forces into the northeastern tip of the country.
The final drive to clear Tunisia began on 19 April. On 7 May British armor
entered Tunis, and American infantry entered Bizerte. Six days later the last
Axis resistance in Africa ended with the surrender of over 275,000 prisoners of
war.
The U.S. Army learned bitter lessons about the inadequacy of its
training, equipment, and leadership in the North African campaign. Army Ground
Forces acted quickly to ensure that American soldiers would receive more
realistic combat training. Higher commanders realized that they could not
interfere with their subordinates by dictating in detail the positions of their
units. Troops had to be committed in division-size, combined arms teams, not in
driblets. The problem posed by American tanks, outgunned by the more heavily
armed and armored German panzers, took far longer to correct. But the artillery
established itself as the Army's most proficient arm.
Sicily and Italy
Meeting in Casablanca in January 1943, President Roosevelt, Prime
Minister Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that the large
Italian island of Sicily would be their next target. Montgomery's British
forces landed on the southeast coast, while Patton's newly activated Seventh
Army landed on the southwest, with the mission of seizing airfields and
protecting the flank of the British drive. Airborne troops spearheading the
attacks scattered wide of their targets but managed to disrupt enemy
communications. Hours after the initial landings on 9 July, German armor struck
the American beaches. Naval gunfire, infantry counterattacks, and the direct
fire of field artillery landing at the critical juncture broke up the German
formations. But two attempts to reinforce the beaches with parachute and
glider-borne troops ended in disaster when Allied antiaircraft batteries
mistook the transport planes for enemy aircraft and opened fire, causing severe
losses.
Meanwhile, the Germans solidly blocked the British drive on the
Sicilian capital, Messina. General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, Allied ground
commander, ordered Patton to push toward Palermo, at the western tip of the
island. Once in Palermo, since the British drive was still stalled, his forces
attacked Messina from the north. Patton used a series of small amphibious end
runs to outflank German positions on the northern coastal road. American and
British troops arrived in Messina on 17 August, just as the last Axis troops
evacuated Sicily.
In late July the Allies decided to follow up their success in Sicily
with an invasion of Italy. Having lost hope of victory, the Italian High
Command, backed by the king, opened secret negotiations with the Allies. The
Germans, suspecting that Italy was about to desert the Axis, rushed in
additional troops.
The Germans swiftly disarmed the Italian Army and took over its
defensive positions. A British fleet sailed into the harbor of Taranto and
disembarked troops onto the docks, while the U.S. Fifth Army under Lt. Gen.
Mark W. Clark landed on the beaches near Salerno on 9 September. The Germans
reacted in strength. For four days vigorous attacks by German armor threatened
the beaches. But on 16 September American and British forces made contact, and
two weeks later American troops entered Naples, the largest city south of Rome.
Allied plans called for a continued advance to tie down German troops and
prevent their transfer to France or Russia, while Hitler decided to hold as
much of Italy as possible.
As the Allies advanced up the mountainous spine of Italy, they
confronted a series of heavily fortified German defensive positions, anchored
on rivers or commanding terrain features. The brilliant delaying tactics of the
German commander in Italy, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, exacted a high
price for every Allied gain. The campaign in Italy became an endless siege,
fought in rugged terrain, in often appalling conditions, and with limited
resources.
Moving north from Naples, the Allies forced a crossing of the
Volturno River in October 1943 and advanced to the Winter Line, a main German
defensive position anchored on mountains around Cassino. Repeated attempts over
the next six months to break or outflank it failed. An amphibious end run,
landing the U.S. VI Corps under Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas at Anzio in January
1944, failed to turn the German flank, for Lucas waited too long to build up
his reserves before moving aggressively against the German defenses. Kesselring
had time to call in reinforcements, including artillery, which soon brought
every inch of Allied-held ground under fire. As the defenders dug in, the end
run turned into another siege, as American and British troops repulsed repeated
counterattacks.
Meanwhile, an American attempt to cross the Rapido River, timed to
coincide with the Anzio landing, miscarried with heavy casualties. Allied
efforts to blast a way through the enemy's mountain defenses proved futile,
despite the use of medium and heavy bombers to support ground attacks around
Cassino. Finally, in May 1944, a series of coordinated attacks by the Fifth
Army and Eighth Army pried the Germans loose, and they began to fall back. On 4
June 1944, two days before the Normandy invasion, Allied troops entered Rome.
The Normandy invasion made Italy a secondary theater, and Allied
strength there gradually decreased. Nevertheless, the fighting continued. The
Allies attacked a new German defensive line in the Northern Appenines in August
but were unable to make appreciable headway through the mountains. Not until
spring of 1945 did they penetrate the final German defenses and enter the Po
valley. German forces in Italy surrendered on 2 May 1945.
The Cross-Channel Attack
Preparations for an attack on German-occupied France continued as
did the campaigns in the Mediterranean. The defeat of the German U-boat threat,
critical to the successful transport of men and materiel across the Atlantic,
had been largely accomplished by the second half of 1943. The success of the
war against the U-boats was immeasurably aided by secret intelligence,
code-named ULTRA, garnered by Anglo-American breaking of German radio
communications codes. Such information also proved valuable to the commanders
of the ground campaign in Italy and France.
By early 1944 an Allied strategic bombing campaign so reduced German
strength in fighters and trained pilots that the Allies effectively established
complete air superiority over western Europe. Allied bombers now turned to
systematic disruption of the transportation system in France in order to impede
the enemy's ability to respond to the invasion. At the same time, American and
British leaders orchestrated a tremendous buildup in the British Isles, transporting
1.6 million men and their equipment to England and providing them with shelter
and training facilities.
Detailed planning for the cross-Channel assault had begun in 1943
when the American and British Combined Chiefs of Staff appointed a British officer,
Lt. Gen. Frederick E. Morgan, as Chief of Staff to the as yet unnamed Supreme
Allied Commander. When General Eisenhower arrived in January 1944 to set up
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), Morgan's work served
as the basis for the final plan of assault. The Allies would land in Normandy
and seize the port of Cherbourg. They would establish an expanded lodgment area
extending as far east as the Seine River. Having built up reserves there, they
would then advance into Germany on a broad front. Ground commander for the
invasion would be General Montgomery. The British Second Army would land on the
left, while the American First Army, under Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, landed on
the right. Intensive exercises and rehearsals occupied the last months before
the invasion. An elaborate deception plan convinced the Germans that the
Normandy landings were a feint, and that larger, more important landings would
take place farther east, around the Pas de Calais. Here the Germans held most
of their reserves, keeping their armored formations near Paris.
Developments on the Eastern Front also aided the success of the
invasion. In early 1943 the Russians destroyed a German army at Stalingrad. The
Germans tried to regain the initiative in the summer of 1943, attacking a
Soviet-held salient near the Russian city of Kursk. In the largest tank battle
known to history, they suffered a resounding defeat. Henceforth, they remained
on the defensive, in constant retreat, while the Soviets advanced westward,
retaking major portions of the Ukraine and White Russia during the fall and
winter and launching an offensive around Leningrad in January 1944. By March
1944 Soviet forces had reentered Polish territory, and a Soviet summer
offensive had prevented the Germans from transferring troops to France.
On 5 June 1944, General Eisenhower took advantage of a break in
stormy weather to order the invasion of "fortress Europe." In the
hours before dawn, 6 June 1944, one British and two U.S. airborne divisions
dropped behind the beaches. After sunrise, British, Canadian, and U.S. troops
began to move ashore. The British and Canadians met modest opposition. Units of
the U.S. VII Corps quickly broke through defenses at a beach code-named UTAH
and began moving inland, making contact with the airborne troops within
twenty-four hours. But heavy German fire swept OMAHA, the other American
landing area. Elements of the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions and the 2d and
5th Ranger Battalions clung precariously to a narrow stretch of stony beach
until late in the day, when they were finally able to advance, outflanking the
German positions.
American and British beachheads linked up within days. While the
Allies raced to build up supplies and reserves, American and British fighter
aircraft and guerrillas of the French resistance blocked movement of German
reinforcements. On the ground, Allied troops besieged Cherbourg and struggled
to expand southward through the entangling Norman hedgerows. Earthen
embankments hundreds of years old, matted with the roots of trees and shrubs,
the hedgerows divided the countryside into thousands of tiny fields. The narrow
roads, sunk beneath the level of the surrounding countryside, became deathtraps
for tanks and vehicles. Crossroads villages were clusters of solidly built
medieval stone buildings, ideal for defense. Small numbers of German infantry,
dug into the embankments with machine guns and mortars and a tank or two or a
few antitank guns for support, made advancing across each field costly.
With time short and no room to maneuver, the struggle to break out
became a battle of attrition. Allied troops advanced with agonizing slowness
from hedgerow to hedgerow, in a seemingly endless series of small battles.
Advances were measured in hundreds of yards. Requirements for fire support far
exceeded preinvasion planning, resulting in a severe shortage of artillery
shells. The British made several powerful attempts to break through to the open
country beyond the town of Caen, but were stopped by the Germans, who
concentrated most of their armor in this threatened area. By 18 July the U.S.
First Army had clawed its way into St. Lo and, on 25 July, launched Operation
COBRA. As heavy and medium bombers from England pummeled German frontline
positions, infantry and armor finally punched through the defenses. Pouring
through the gap, American troops advanced forty miles within a week.
Rejecting his generals' advice, Hitler ordered a counterattack
against the widening breakout by Germany's last available mobile forces in
France. U.S. First Army forces stopped the Germans and joined Canadian,
British, and Polish troops in catching the enemy in a giant pocket around the
town of Falaise. Allied fighter-bombers and artillery now aided a massive
destruction of twenty enemy divisions. Suddenly, it seemed the Allies might end
the war before winter. Calling off a planned halt and logistical buildup,
Eisenhower ordered the Allied forces to drive all-out for the German frontier.
With enemy forces in full retreat, French and American troops rolled
into Paris on 25 August 1944. Meanwhile, veteran U.S. and French divisions,
pulled out of Italy, landed on the beaches of the French Riviera. While French
forces liberated the ports, the U.S. Seventh Army drove northward in an effort
to cut off withdrawing German troops. Moving rapidly through the cities of Lyon
and Besançon, they joined up with Allied forces advancing from Normandy
on 11 September.
Victory seemed to be at hand. But by mid-September Allied
communications were strained. Combat troops had outrun their supplies. British
and Canadian forces advanced into the Netherlands, and American troops crossed
Belgium and Luxembourg and entered German territory. Then both met strong
resistance. Bad weather curtailed unloading of supplies directly across the
Normandy invasion beaches, while the ports on the North Sea and the
Mediterranean were in ruins. As logistical problems piled up, Eisenhower
rejected as too dangerous British pleas to channel all available resources into
one deep thrust into Germany. He did, however, sanction one last bold gamble:
Operation MARKET-GARDEN. Two U.S. and one British airborne division were to
open the way for a British armored thrust to seize a bridge across the lower
Rhine at Arnhem in the Netherlands. The airborne troops took most of their
objectives, but German resistance was much stronger than expected, and the
operation failed to gain a bridgehead across the Rhine.
Battles of Attrition
There was to be no early end to the war. Despite its recent defeats,
the German Army remained a dangerous foe, fighting for its life in prepared
defenses. Furthermore, as the Allies approached the frontiers of the Reich,
they encountered a series of formidable terrain obstacles--major rivers,
mountains, and forests--and the worst weather in over thirty years. Yet
Eisenhower, believing that unremitting pressure against the enemy would shorten
the war, called for the offensive to continue. Battles of attrition followed
throughout October and November, all along the front.
Canadian and British soldiers trudged through the frozen mud and
water of the flooded tidal lowlands in the Netherlands to free the great
Belgian port of Antwerp. The U.S. First Army took the German city of Aachen on
21 October. The drive of General Patton's Third Army toward the German border
halted on 25 September due to shortages of gasoline and other critical
supplies. Resuming the offensive in November, Patton's men fought for two
bloody weeks around the fortress town of Metz, ultimately winning bridgeheads
over the Saar River and probing the Siegfried Line. In the south the U.S.
Seventh Army and the First French Army fought their way through the freezing
rain and snow of the Vosges Mountains to break out onto the Alsatian plain
around Strasbourg, becoming the only Allied armies to reach the Rhine in 1944.
But there were no strategic objectives directly east of Strasbourg, and a
pocket of tough German troops remained on the west bank, dug in around the old
city of Colmar.
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