Today in world war two history 1943 A force of 50,000 us troops launches a westward offensive to destroy strong Japanese jungle positions. A disease ridden and starving force of 15,000 Japanese troops mount fierce resistance and fights a rearguard action at tassafaronga point. The Japanese have decided to evacuate Guadalcanal. british prime minister winston churchill and us president franklin d. roosevelt meet at casablanca, morocco. the conference highlights differences between them regarding the defeat of hitler. the british want to keep fighting in the mediterranean before the main attack on europe via the english channel. they propose invasions of sicily and italy as a means of drawing german reserves away from france and the low countries, which will precipitate the fall of mussolini; and establishing air bases in italy, from where german armaments factories and romanian oil-producing facilities can be bombed. the americans believe this will only dissipate resources for the cross-channel invasion, and tie down forces in a sideshow. they believe the quickest way to defeat hitler is an invasion of northern france. however, as a cross-channel invasion is not possible in 1943, they grudgingly accept the invasion of sicily. a further source of disagreement is roosevelts unconditional surrender call. churchill wants to split the axis by treating italy differently, but is presuaded to go along with the us view after considering that a more lenient treatment of italy will only antagonize greece and yugoslavia
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:36:27 +0000
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