Question to the PTO buffs..

Greetings,

As my first post, i'd like to add some info to this topic.

When the Battle for Guadalcanal started it was Aug 7 1942, and continued until the tokyo express was used to ferry troops from this Island of Death on Feb 9 1943. Mop up operations continued til much later tho.

Torch was initiated Nov 8 1942 and resulted in the surrender of Axis forces on 13 May 1943, from all of North Afrika.

The Battle of Stalingrad began about Aug 23 1942
culminating with the surrender of 6th army on
Feb 2 1943.

All three of these events resulted in German and Japanese defeats.

The 1st Marine division spearheaded Operation Watchtower
16,000).

Operation Torch consisted of three invasion forces broken down as follows:
1st Infantry and 1st Armored
31,000 men)
Regimental Combat Teams (RCT) of the 9th Infantry and 34th Infantry divisions.
32,000 men)
3rd Infantry, 9th Infantry(-), 2nd Armored divisions (34,000 men)

During the course of these operations The majority of Resources went to the ETO.
Smaller amounts went to the PTO.
The Marines were literally on a "Shoestring" budget. Still using Springfield 1903 bolt action rifles.
The U.S. Army using M1's.
Marine armor M3a1 Stuarts
U.S. Army armor M4 Shermans and Grants and Stuarts.
The Marines held Henderson Field, which was subject to bombardment and possible capture.
North Africa after the Vichy French surrendered had many airfields to choose from to project airpower.

IMHO, Stalin would have asked for a Second Front no matter what the situation was. The fact is if u add up the Battle for the Atlantic, North Africa, Air operations in the west, and Italy, prior to D-Day. It amounted to a second Front. The germans could not ignore the loss of men and material to Allied pounding in the Air, Land And Sea.

The use of 1 Elite Marine Division to capture a potentially dangeous airfield in Aug 42, did more in the long run for the overall War Effort, than adding it to the ETO could ever have.

Well its a bit longwinded, but i invite any commets.

------------------------------------------------
Courage is fear singing a hymn arranged for four voices.
Fear passes. But leaves a record of its stay.
You want to be brave. You also want to be.
But your greatest danger is from your fellow human beings.
(Beach Red, Peter Bowman 1945)

 

RicKhan, welcome aboard!!! I hope you enjoy yourself a lot in this forum and also hope to see many posts from you!

We also need some more PTO buffs, because the very few ones here are always complaining about us, Eastfronters... It would be nice that you came and we all, ignorant Eastfronters would learn something!!!

 

Welcome!

Agree with the Eastfronters-view, I'm a protoptype of it (D-Day? What's that? studdering?), my only excuse is that that's was the place where the war was won for the Allies and I have not enough time to study all the sideshows

Cheers,

 

Well, I agree with Andy in that. It was the most important theatre of the war in Europe, where evrything was decided.