The Battle of Guantánamo Bay was the first significant land engagement of the war, fought between June 6 and 17, 1898, as U.S. Marines under Lieutenant Colonel Robert Huntington seized and held a coaling station to support the naval blockade of Cuba. The Marines landed at Guantánamo Bay and fought off several Spanish counterattacks over multiple days in dense jungle terrain. War correspondent Stephen Crane, covering the battle, wrote vividly of the fighting. Cuban guerrillas allied with the Americans played a crucial role in the final assault that silenced the Spanish wells and broke the enemy's will to hold the area.
The seizure of Guantánamo Bay established the first American military foothold on Cuba and provided the Navy with a critical coaling and supply base. The location would take on enormous historical resonance: the United States would retain a naval base at Guantánamo Bay — over Cuba's objections — for the next 125 years and beyond.
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A see-saw campaign across the North African desert lasting nearly three years. Rommel's Afrika Korps nearly captured the Suez Canal before being halted at El Alamein. Montgomery's victory at El Alamein in November 1942 was the first major British land victory of the war. American forces landed in Operation Torch; the Axis forces were squeezed from both sides and surrendered in Tunisia in May 1943.
El Alamein was the turning point Churchill called 'the end of the beginning.' Victory cleared the Mediterranean for Allied shipping and enabled the invasion of Sicily and Italy. 275,000 Axis soldiers surrendered in Tunisia — a catastrophe comparable to Stalingrad.
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