An evening with Saul David

Join military historian and bestselling author Saul David, as he chats about his epic new book Tunisgrad: Victory in Africa

On 8 November 1942, British and American troops invaded French North Africa as part of Operation Torch, the largest amphibious operation of the war to date. The Germans responded by flooding troops into Tunisia and the stage was set for one of the most decisive clashes of the war. When it ended, six months later, the Allies were ‘masters of the North African shores’.

It was, with Guadalcanal in the Pacific and Stalingrad in Russia, one of three Axis defeats in early 1943 that changed the course of the war. Historians have recognized the significance of the others, but not Tunisia which they have either ignored or characterized (as the Americans did at the time) as a sideshow. Yet it ended Axis seapower in the Mediterranean, destroyed more than 2,400 Axis aircraft (40 per cent of the Luftwaffe’s strength), and resulted in the surrender of over 250,000 German and Italian troops, more than were captured at Stalingrad. Such was the scale of their defeat that the German public wryly dubbed it ‘Tunisgrad’.

It was the first campaign fought by the Anglo-American alliance, and would determine how and where the Allies would fight for the rest of the war.