 Plans for the Allied counter offensive after the attack on Pearl Harbor were ongoing by mid @-@ 1942 . An invasion of Europe in 1943 would be <unk> , but the allies could attack the " soft <unk> of Europe " through the Mediterranean , as Prime Minister Winston Churchill put it . <unk> by President Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill and code named Operation <unk> , the plan was to occupy French North Africa : Morocco , Algeria , and Tunisia . From these French colonies , attacks could be launched that would drive Italy out of the war . 
