<text id=00he0700><title>Tactical Air Power Matures: Introduction</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Tactical Air Power Matures: Introduction</hdr><body>
<p>Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Russian defense of Stalingrad, heroic Free French fighters, faulty German grand strategy and American supply lines to the Far East are tied together in an untidy package that was called the Desert War. Fought along the coastline of North Africa from Morocco to well inside Egypt, the Desert War saw the development of hard-hitting tactical air power become a major factor in the eventual Allied victory there and later in Italy.
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<p>In 1941, Rommel's Afrika Korps and the British played a deadly game of cowboys and Indians across the sands of the desert wastes, in short sharp tank engagements and clashes of infantry. In early 1942, from his position at El Agheila, on the southern tip of the Gulf of Sidra in Libya, Rommel began a drive toward the Suez Canal, more than 800 miles (1,287 km) to the east. Tobruk, chosen by the British as a place to stand and defend, fell on 20 June to Rommel's army. After that, he saw a larger prize. Originally, Rommel's goal was to take Malta, Britain's supply station in the Mediterranean, but the Suez Canal now was only 500 miles (800 km) away, and Hitler agreed it was the priority target. It was a strategic blunder.
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<p>But it was a frightening threat to Britain. Egypt, the key to the Middle East, was vital to the continuation of their war and, by then, it also was vital to American interests.
