Out of all the great operations and campaigns in World War 2, why is Operation Torch not often mentioned? I've noticed that most WW2 documentaries and texts fail to mention Operation Torch and it's significance.
Is it because of Montgomery's push through North Africa against Rommel from the East is of more interest or what?
Firstly, the obvious. Documentaries and general texts which are abstract enough to ommit it tend to only focus on the major details. Hence why you get mentions of Overlord but not Anvil, Wacht am Rhein but not Nordwind, etc...
As for why Torch is considered less important, well, it was. Torch came towards the end of the North African Campaign, after the decisive battle (2nd Alamein), and didn't involve too much fighting in itself. Whilst the resulting Tunis Campaign did involve some tough fighting it bore more of a resemblance to a clean-up than an actual battle, the Axis always being on the strategic backfoot and their policy of shovelling in more resources essentially just adding to the goodie bag the Allies could pull apart. Or in other words, Torch was an annexure to the North African Campaign and one that only really became significant in Tunisia, which in itself was more of an epilogue.
From a cultural perspective, the US appreciation is dulled because US troops were not present in such numbers as later, were not under their own command, and did not perform particularly well. Meanwhile, from a British perspective, all focus was on Monty and 8th Army, as they were the chaps who had done the decisive fighting and been in the public view for a good long while (this actually caused substantial resentment amongst other British troops).
