Western Desert Campaign

The Western Desert Campaign, also known as the Desert War, was the initial stage of the North African Campaign during the Second World War. The campaign was heavily influenced by the availability of supplies and transport. The ability of the Allied forces, operating from besieged Malta, to interdict Axis convoys was critical. This denied the German commander, Erwin Rommel, the fuel and the reinforcements he desperately needed at critical moments. In early 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force started to build a contingent of bombers (supplemented with fighters later in the year) in support of the campaign, referring to it as the Egypt-Libya Campaign.

From the start, the Western Desert Campaign was a continuous back-and-forth struggle. In September 1940, the first offensive, the invasion of Egypt, was initiated by the Italian forces in Libya against British and Commonwealth forces stationed in neutral Egypt. The Italian offensive was halted and, in December 1940, the British counterattacked. What started as a five-day raid turned into Operation Compass, resulting in massive Italian losses. The Italians' Axis partner, Germany, provided a contingent of ground forces (Heer) and air forces (Luftwaffe) to prevent a total collapse, and Germany became the dominant partner.

Axis forces would twice launch more large-scale assaults against the Allies. Each time, the Axis forces pushed the Allies back to Egypt, but both times the Allies regained the ground lost. On the second (and final) Axis push, the Allies were driven far into Egypt; however, the Allies recovered at El Alamein and then managed to drive the Axis forces west and completely out of Libya to Tunisia, when the "Western Desert Campaign" effectively ended. The 8th Army and Rommel's forces then became part of the forces involved in the "Tunisia Campaign" which had begun previously in November 1942.