Photo chronicle of Patton’s Americans versus Rommel’s Afrika Korps in World War II In November 1942, eleven months after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. launched Operation Torch, its first major offensive against the Germans. This photo chronicle covers the initial landings in Morocco and Algeria and the subsequent desert clashes in Tunisia as American forces under Eisenhower and Patton battled the German Afrika Korps of Erwin Rommel, the famous “Desert Fox.”