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Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ) was theheadquarters that controlled allAllied operational forces in theMediterranean theatre ofWorld War II from August 1942 until theend of the war in Europe in May 1945.
AFHQ was established in theUnited Kingdom on 14 August 1942 underLieutenant GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower in order to command the forces committed toOperation Torch, the Allied invasion ofFrench North Africa, set for November. Eisenhower had the titleCommander-in-Chief, Allied Expeditionary Force. Shortly after the establishment of the headquarters, "Expeditionary" was deleted from its title, for reasons of operational security. Eisenhower thus became Commander-in-Chief, Allied Force. The HQ was moved toGibraltar on 5 November 1942, and then on toAlgiers on 28 November 1942.
Towards the end of 1942, there was a need to unify command of the Allied forces in North Africa, since those from the west, theBritish First Army, under the command ofLieutenant-GeneralKenneth Anderson, landed during Operation Torch, and those from the east, theBritish Eighth Army, commanded by Lieutenant-GeneralBernard Montgomery, that had fought and won theSecond Battle of El Alamein, were now close enough together to need coordination. Therefore, on 10 February 1943, AFHQ assumed control of the Eighth Army advancing from the east as well.
In March 1943 AFHQ supervisedMediterranean Air Command (later replaced by theMediterranean Allied Air Forces);18th Army Group; the Royal Navy Commander-in-Chief, of theMediterranean Fleet, acting as the Allied naval commander, and theFifth United States Army.[1]
Eisenhower remained in command of AFHQ until 16 January 1944, overseeing theAllied invasion of Sicily (with thecodename of Operation Husky) which began on 10 July 1943, and theAllied invasion of the Italian mainland (Operation Baytown andOperation Avalanche) on 3 September 1943. Eisenhower, then afull general, returned to the United Kingdom on 14 January 1944 to assume command 2 days later of the Allied forces assembling forOperation Overlord, the Allied invasion ofNormandy, scheduled for the spring of 1944. He was succeeded byGeneralSir Henry Maitland Wilson. Wilson's title becameSupreme Commander,Mediterranean theater of operations.
Wilson was in command for just under a year, until he was sent toWashington, D.C., in December 1944 to replaceField MarshalSir John Dill of theBritish Joint Staff Mission who had died suddenly. Wilson was succeeded by Field MarshalSir Harold Alexander who was Supreme Commander and commander of AFHQ until the end of the war. After the war AFHQ became a small inter-allied staff responsible for combined command liquidation activities and commanded by Lieutenant-GeneralSir William Duthie Morgan as Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean.[2] AFHQ was abolished, effective 17 September 1947, by General Order 24, AFHQ, on 16 September 1947.
