The African Theater

American troops fought their first battles against the Germans in North Africa. Operation Torch put them ashore in Morocco and Algeria on November 8, 1942; by February they were in Tunisia, and at Kasserine Pass Rommel's veterans drove a green II Corps back fifty miles in a week.

Patton took over the corps in March and turned it around at El Guettar on March 23. Under Bradley it took Bizerte on May 7, 1943. The Axis armies in Tunisia surrendered six days later — roughly a quarter of a million prisoners.

The desert taught the Army how to fight: how to use armor, how to bring in air support, how to keep a column moving. The men who walked out of Tunisia in May 1943 landed in Sicily two months later. They were not green any more.

The palette is almost one color — sand, dust and a sky the same warm ochre — so the dark shapes of the column and the tank carry the whole composition. Twelve men march right, evenly spaced, their long shadows raking toward the viewer across the stony ground. Behind them the Sherman's commander stands in the turret against the sunset; the hills are a low blue line. The dust kicked up at far left is the only softness in the picture.