Tunisian Timeline
October 1942 -- May 1943






October 23, 1942: The last Battle of El Alamein begins.

November 3, 1942: German intelligence in Gibraltar notices massive Allied troop movement.
    Nothing is done.

November 4, 1942: Rommel orders a withdrawal of his troops.
    Lieut. General Montgomery, commander of Britain's Eighth Army, drives Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Panzer Army Afrika ( a group of German and Italian troops) west from Egypt then Libya on November 4th, retreating to southern Tunisia, to the Halfaya and Sollum passes. Montgomery follows.

November 6, 1942: The British Desert Air Force spots the retreating German Italian Army but fails to significantly bomb them.
     The Eighth Army only orders five air strikes that day.
 

November 8-11 1942: Operation Torch begins/The race for Tunisia begins.
    November 8th-- The joint British and American Allied envision of North Africa begins with amphibious landings in Casablanca in Morocco, Oran and Algiers in Algeria.  Axis preparations begin to counter the Allied invasion with a plan for Italian troops supported by German specialized units to take place on November 10th. Axis and Vichy French negations begin; Vichy French object to Italian ground troops entering Tunisia.

    November 9th-- Axis ground troops and supplies begin arriving in Tunisia by airlift.

    November 10th--  Darlan announces a ceasefire; Casablanca is taken; First Army leaves Oran for Tunisia by land, sea, and air at night; the 272nd Squadron of the Royal Air Force attacks German aircraft at the El Aouina airdrome of Tunis and the airlift.

    November 11th-- Germany violates the 1940 Armistice agreement invading southern France and Italian forces invading eastern France( the free zone). The Eastern Task Force in Algiers begins advancing to Tunisia as Allied representatives tried to negotiate with the Vichy French in Oran and Algiers to side with the Allies.
 

Mid-November 1942( some sources say the as early as the17th,): The first engagement between the Allied and the Axis troops takes place

November 13 1942: The Darlan deal is made.
    Admiral Darlan is allowed to keep control over North Africa. It is not made official until November 22 under the North African Agreement
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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