Egypt–Libya Campaign

The Egypt–Libya Campaign is the name used by the United States military for the US contribution to the Allied Western Desert Campaign, during World War II. From 1942, U.S. forces assisted the British Commonwealth in fighting Axis forces in Egypt and Libya. The U.S. Egypt–Libya Campaign was part of what the US military called the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

In June 1942 U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East (USAFIME) was created to replace both the North African Mission in Cairo and the Iranian Mission in the Persian Corridor. On June 16 the War Department named Army General Russell L. Maxwell as the first commander of USAFIME. An Army general, rather than an Army Air Corps general, was named because at the time it was still expected that there would be a large U.S. Army land force contribution to the campaign. The next day the War Department informed Maxwell that the Halverson Detachment would remain in Egypt as a part of USAFIME.

In anticipation of the arrival of the American air groups, the War Department sent Maj. Gen. Lewis H Brereton, commander of the U.S. Tenth Air Force in India, to Cairo for temporary duty to assist the Commonwealth forces. He arrived in Cairo on June 25, along with nine B-17 Flying Fortresses.

On June 30, Brereton had directed the B-17s which he had brought from India to move their operations to Palestine. The B-24s of the Halverson Detachment joined them at Lydda, Palestine. Both units flew day and night bombing missions against the Axis' increasingly inadequate supply lines, concentrating their efforts against the port of Tobruk.

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