WWII The Complete History Episode 10 The Beginning of the End
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00:30The fortune of war has turned its back upon the Axis.
00:37For the first time, Germany's soldiers have suffered massive and crushing defeats.
00:42In the sands of the desert, the legend of Rommel has been shattered at El Alamein.
00:48In the smashed and tortured rubble of Stalingrad, the 6th Army's surrender has destroyed the
00:53myth of the irresistible blitzkrieg.
00:57A disaster at Dieppe and a success in North Africa teach hard-learned lessons as the Allies
01:03develop the skills of amphibious warfare that will bring liberation to Europe.
01:09In the Pacific, U.S. forces capitalize on the victory of Midway, rolling back the Japanese
01:15at Guadalcanal.
01:18Following El Alamein, Winston Churchill spoke of the end of the beginning for the Axis.
01:24The coming days and months would be the beginning of the end.
01:41The Battle of El Alamein, in November 1942, had been decisive.
01:47The Afrika Korps had been forced into retreat.
01:50British General Montgomery's pursuit of the German forces had been so well organized that
01:56every time, in this retreat across Western Egypt and then Libya, that Rommel had turned
02:02and attempted to make a stand, he had been defeated and sent on the retreat again.
02:10For the last time, the war would sweep back across Libya, across the desert, over which
02:16fighting had raged back and forth for the previous two years.
02:22Early in 1943, the Afrika Korps had been forced to withdraw from the Italian colony of Libya.
02:29British troops entered at Tripoli, the capital of the territory.
02:33They had expected to fight, but found the city deserted, the Axis forces having withdrawn.
02:43In the face of pursuit, the Afrika Korps and its Italian allies had withdrawn into the
02:47neighboring territory of Tunisia.
02:51The fighting in the desert of Libya now began to merge with the campaigns fought by the
02:56Axis against the Anglo-American forces which had landed in Algeria and Morocco in Operation
03:02Torch.
03:05The forces were mostly American and under the command of Dwight Eisenhower.
03:14Through late 1942, these armies had advanced along the coast of Algeria towards Tunisia.
03:22The aim of the Allies was to capture the coastal ports and cut the Axis forces' lines of supply
03:28and retreat, to cut the Axis forces in two, preventing Rommel from joining up with the
03:35other Axis forces.
03:39In February, it was the turn of the Americans to encounter the genius of Rommel, when, at
03:44the Battle of Kasserine, he struck, as usual taking his enemy by surprise.
03:51Rommel's tanks operated in terrain dismissed as difficult to armor.
03:55The German attack caught the Americans unprepared and struck at a position that could have led
04:01to a decisive defeat of the Allied forces.
04:04Italy though demanded caution from Rommel and prevented him from exploiting his victory.
04:09The battle was not decisive in any way, but deflated the confidence of the American forces.
04:16Time and time again, in the latter years of the war, all the genius and all the determination
04:22was to be of no avail to the Axis.
04:25In early spring of 1943, after Kasserine was not exploited and the German and Italian
04:30forces were worn down, the Allied forces were showing the coordination of air, land and
04:36sea forces that was to characterize later operations.
04:40The desert air force of the RAF was increasingly effective.
04:45The Royal Navy had imposed a tight sea blockade around the Tunisian ports.
04:50The Axis forces were growing increasingly short of supplies and ammunition.
04:55Slowly, the Axis forces were pushed into a smaller and smaller pocket.
05:01In early May, the two German panzer armies in Tunisia collapsed against concentrated
05:08American attacks from the west and from the British in the south.
05:15The last German surrendered on May 13th.
05:19Paul had been ordered to Germany, a sick man.
05:23Two hundred thirty-eight thousand Axis forces became prisoners.
05:49The operation in North Africa was a slow moving process for the Allies, but lessons
06:11were learned that were to pay results in the coming years.
06:16The war on the desert had seen important operations by the first of what were later
06:20to be called the special forces.
06:23It was in the western desert that Britain's special air service regiment was first formed.
06:29The first special forces had operated deep behind Axis lines, attacking supplies and
06:34airfields.
06:37Far away in Burma, in the war between the forces of the British Empire and Germany,