Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1761

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

.1 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

World War II Tunisian campaign photograph album, 1943, 1945, Ms. Coll. 1761, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1943, 1945 (inclusive)

Form:

Photograph albums

Abstract:

This photograph album contains photographs, currency, and other ephemera compiled by an unidentified American serviceman in the aftermath of the Tunisian campaign of World War II.

The Tunisian campaign of November 1942 through May 1943 was the culmination of the North African Campaign of WWII, which lasted from June 11, 1940 through May 13, 1943. The North African campaign began with the British raids of Italian Libya shortly after the Italians joined the war as German allies, which prompted the Italians to attack Egypt. In the ensuing years, there were several battles between Italy and Great Britain for control of Libya and Egypt. During this campaign, the Americans entered Northwest Africa in November 1942 to fight Vichy France.

The Tunisian campaign began with an Allied entry in Sfax, Tunisia on January 5, 1943. Soon after, on February 4, 1943, the British Eighth Army entered Tunisia from Libya. The Allies attacked the Germans in Gafsa, Tunisia on March 17, 1943. Because of the Allied positions, the Germans and their Italian allies were trapped and cut off from supplies bases. The Allies continued to force the Axis troops towards the central Tunisian coast until, on May 7, 1943, the only remaining Axis port, Bizerte, was captured by the British and Americans. On May 13, 1943, with over 250,000 German and Italian soldiers trapped by the Allies, the Axis forces surrendered.

The Tunisian campaign, and the North African campaign more broadly, eliminated the Axis threat in Africa and the Middle East and allowed the Allied forces to move into the Italian mainland.

Sources:

Hart, Basil Liddell. "North Africa Campaigns | Maps, Battles, Combatants, & Significance." Britannica, 2015, www.britannica.com/event/North-Africa-campaigns.

Hughes, Thomas A. "Tunisia, November 1942–May 1943 - World War II." Britannica, 1998, www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II/Tunisia-November-1942-May-1943.

"Tunisia Campaign." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/tunisia-campaign. Accessed 16 Apr. 2026.

This photograph album contains photographs, currency, and other ephemera compiled by an unidentified American serviceman in the aftermath of the Tunisian campaign of World War II. Most of the material dates to 1943, which is when the album appears to have been compiled, except for a newsletter laid in from 1945.

The photographs depict the aftermath of the Tunisian and broader North African campaign, including Bizerte, a Nazi graveyard, abandoned German and Nazi tanks, trucks, and planes, and ruinous structures; general life in North Africa; and the serviceman and his peers, including those identified as Tony Madonia and Frank Browski.

The currency includes five, ten, and twenty Franc notes and a one shilling note. The other ephemera includes French postal stamps, Bermuda Railway Co. tickets, "Visitez L'Algerie" cards, a clipping titled "How to Win French Friends," and a 1945 edition of Transcor News, the newsletter of the Transportation Corps, titled "For the Personnel of the Seattle Port of Embarkation."