Search results for ""Author Jean-Paul Pallud""

In 2012 Jean Paul Pallud wrote the After the Battle account of the Desert War; now he completes the story with detailed coverage of the landings of Operation `Torch’ in North-West Africa in November 1942. When the western Allies decided to launch a second front in North Africa, they carefully considered the anti-British feeling left in France by the ill-advised attack by the Royal Navy on the French Fleet at Mers el Kébir in July 1940. Consequently, the operation was given an American rather than a British complexion, General Eisenhower was chosen to lead a mostly American force into battle and the major Royal Navy contribution was kept as inconspicuous as possible. At this point in the war, the Allies had almost no experience with amphibious operations and it was a risky undertaking to carry out such an immense operation covering multiple landings over 600 miles apart. Even more amazing was the fact that part of the invasion forces was to depart from the United States, 6,000 miles away. As the orders were not confirmed until a month before Operation `Torch’ was launched, there was very little time to organise such a logistically complex operation involving American and British forces, and even less time for the pro-Allied French to organise more than small measures of support. There were two landings in the Mediterranean, at three main points near Algiers and three near Oran, and three landings on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. There, the main landing came ashore at Fédala, 18 miles north-east of Casablanca, and the armour was brought ashore at Safi, 140 miles south-east. In spite of all the difficulties, the landings all went well and the operation quickly achieved all of its initial objectives. However, the Germans reacted swiftly and, with little Allied interference, they rushed in reinforcements to Tunisia by air and sea. The Allies were thus drawn into a six-month campaign in Tunisia, the First Army from Operation `Torch’ soon joining hands with the Eighth Army advancing from Libya to finally clear Axis presence along the southern shore of the Mediterranean. This operation marked the first time that American troops fought against German forces during the Second World War. They had a rough baptism of fire in southern Tunisia in February 1943, training, equipment and leadership failed in many instances to meet the requirements of the battlefield, but the US Army was quick to learn and revise army doctrines, particularly with respect to the use of armour. The successful campaign created thousands of seasoned soldiers of all ranks whose experience would prove decisive in subsequent campaigns. The next test was only two months away — the invasion of Sicily. In addition, Operation `Torch’ brought the French army back into the war. Most important of all, the Allies had seized the initiative in the West.

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From the Riviera, to the Rhine and on to the Colmar pocket, all three operations are covered in this volume by Jean Paul Pallud, and each show the action and locations in our unique then and now style. The project of a landing operation in southern France was debated between American and British Allies from mid-1943, the Americans favouring the idea, the British expressing doubts on the value of such an operation. The Russians intervened in November when, at the Eureka conference at Teheran Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet state, declared he was much interested in an operation in southern France. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to launch Operation Anvil in southern France at the same time as Operation 'Overlord', the Normandy landings. Convinced that the Allied forces in the Mediterranean would better be used in the Italian campaign, Churchill appealed directly to Roosevelt in June to cancel 'Anvil' but Roosevelt answered that he was definitely for 'Anvil'. On July 2, the Combined Chiefs-of-Staff directed General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, the C-in-C Mediterranean Theatre, to launch Operation 'Dragoon', a three-division assault against the coast of southern France by August 14. Under the shield of a large naval task force the US VI Corps and French forces landed on the beaches of the Riviera on August 15. Opposition from scattered German forces was weak. As the swiftly defeated German forces withdrew to the north through the Rh ne valley, pressed by the leaders of VI Corps, the French captured the ports of Marseille and Toulon, soon bringing them into operation. Troops from Operation 'Dragoon' met with the Allied units from Operation 'Overlord' on September 15. At the same time Headquarters of the US 6th Army Group, under Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, became operational taking command of the US Seventh Army and the French 1 re Arm e. The swift campaign soon came to a stop at the Vosges mountains, where Armeegruppe G was able to establish a stable defence line. The leaders of the 6th Army Group reached the Rhine in mid-November but there would be no crossing. Eisenhower ordered Devers to use whatever force necessary to clear the area between the Vosges and the Rhine and to turn the Seventh Army north as quickly as possible, attacking west and east of the Low Vosges. In spite of its uncertain antecedents, the well-planned Operation 'Dragoon' and the forces involved along with German unpreparedness and disarray contributed to a surprisingly rapid success that liberated most of southern France in just four weeks.

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Following Mussolini's declaration of war in June 1940, initially Italy faced only those British troops based in the Middle East but as the armed confrontation in the Western Desert of North Africa escalated, other nations were drawn in Germany, Australia, India, South Africa, New Zealand, France and finally the United States to wage the first major tank-versus-tank battles of the Second World War. First tracing the history of the very early beginnings of civilisation in North Africa, and on through the period of Italian colonisation, Jean Paul Pallud begins his account when the initial shots were fired at the 11th Hussars as they approached Italian outposts near Sidi Omar in Libya. It proved to be the opening move of a campaign which was to last for three years. When the Afrikakorps led by Rommel joined the battle in February 1941, the Germans soon gained the upper hand and recovered the whole of Cyrenaica, minus Tobruk, in the summer. The campaign then swung back and forth across the desert for another year until Rommel finally captured Tobruk in June 1942 and then moved eastwards into Egypt. With British fortunes at their lowest ebb, changes in command led to Montgomery launching his offensive at El Alamein the following November. This began the advance of the Eighth Army over a thousand miles to Tunisia, resulting in the final round-up of the German and Italian forces in May 1943. Jean Paul and his camera retraced the route just prior to the recent civil war in Libya and the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, so he was fortunate to capture the locations before yet another war left its trail of death and destruction. Although the campaign in 1940-43 was dominated largely by armour, nevertheless the Allies lost over 250,000 men killed, wounded, missing and captured and the Axis 620,000. Those that never came home lie in cemeteries scattered across the barren landscape of a battlefield that has changed little in over 70 years.

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The author presents an account of the Battle of France: the forty-five traumatic days from May 10 to June 24, 1940 that resulted in one of the most remarkable military victories of modern times. During those six weeks, six nations found themselves at war, fighting across four countries. From the polders of the Netherlands in the north to the mountains of the Alps in the south, and from the Rhine valley to the Atlantic coast, Jean Paul Pallud explores every corner of the battlefield, the camera recording the scenes today where 50 years ago Dutch, Belgian, German, French, British and Italian soldiers were locked in mortal combat. Battles great and small are described and illustrated to colour the canvas of both the broad strategy and the individual firefight in Hitler's victorious campaign of Blitzkrieg in the West.

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Drawing on contemporary material from public and private sources as well as combatants and civilians, this book uses photographs and still frames in their historical context in order to analyse the German advance during the Battle of the Bulge.

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