North Africa Campaign (1940-43)

The North African Campaign (1940-1943) produced some of the British army's most iconic moments of the Second World War, and the Allied and Axis armies repeated advance back and forward across Libya, before the Allied victories of El Alamein and Operation Torch forced the Axis forces back into an increasingly small bridgehead in Tunisia.

The overall campaign falls into three sections. The Desert War or Western Desert Campaign saw the British and Germans fightin in Egypt and Libya, and lasted from late in 1940 to the start of 1943. Operation Torch was the Allied invasion of French North Africa, and only lasted for a few days in November 1942. Finally the two Allied armies came together for the Tunisian Campaign, which lasted from December 1942 until the final Axis surrender in May 1943.