THE FIRST TASK WAS TO SELECT AMERICAN AND British officers to fill key positions in the command and staff organizations we would need for the African invasion.
In modern war, battle areas frequently extend over hundreds of miles of front and are equally extensive in depth. Throughout such a theater are combat troops, replacement camps, hospital centers, lines of communication, repair shops, depots, ports, and a myriad of service organizations, both air and ground. In the same region dwells a civil population, sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, sometimes neutral or mixed in attitude. All these units, individuals, and activities must be carefully controlled, so that everything is co-ordinated toward the achievement of the commander’s strategic plan. Even when all this is done the task of the highest headquarters is not finished. Everything needed by the theater commander comes from his supporting nation or nations. Daily there are exchanged between his staff and the governments to his rear hundreds of messages dealing with plans, estimates, losses, requisitions, individuals, shipping, and all the other things necessary to carry out the purposes assigned him by his superiors. The military methods and machinery for making and waging war have become so extraordinarily complex and intricate that high commanders must have gargantuan staffs for control and direction. Because of this it is sometimes assumed that the influence of the individual in war has become submerged, that the mistakes of one responsible officer are corrected or concealed in the mass action of a great number of associates. This is not true.
The individual now works differently; indeed, one of the most important characteristics of the successful officer today is his ability to continue changing his methods, almost even his mental processes, in order to keep abreast of the constant change that modern science, working under the compelling urge of national self-preservation, brings to the battlefield. But personal characteristics are more important than ever before in warfare. The reasons for this are simple. It was not a matter of great moment if a Wellington happened to be a crusty, unapproachable individual who found one of his chief delights in penning sarcastic quips to the War Office. He was the single head, who saw the whole battlefield and directed operations through a small administrative staff and a few aides and orderlies. As long as he had the stamina and the courage to make decisions and to stand by them, and as long as his tactical skill met the requirements of his particular time and conditions, he was a great commander. But the teams and staffs through which the modern commander absorbs information and exercises his authority must be a beautifully interlocked, smooth-working mechanism. Ideally, the whole should be practically a single mind; consequently misfits defeat the purpose of the command organization essential to the supply and control of vast land, air, sea, and logistical forces that must be brought to bear as a unit against the enemy. The personalities of senior commanders and staff officers are of special importance. Professional military ability and strength of character, always required in high military position, are often marred by unfortunate characteristics, the two most frequently encountered and hurtful ones being a too obvious avidity for public acclaim and the delusion that strength of purpose demands arrogant and even insufferable deportment. A soldier once remarked that a man sure of his footing does not need to mount a horse!
Staffs develop plans from basic decisions made by responsible commanders. The planning process sometimes, as in the case of a vast triphibious undertaking, takes weeks and months. As a consequence these plans must be founded in fact and intelligent conclusion, and once made they must be fixed and clear. Deviation from fundamental concepts is permissible only when significant changes in the situation compel it. The high commander must therefore be calm, clear, and determined—and in all commands, especially allied organizations, his success will be measured more by his ability to lead and persuade than by his adherence to fixed notions of arbitrary command practices. This truth applies with particular force during the time necessary to build up confidence—a confidence that reaches back into the governments at home as well as throughout the length and breadth of the command. But whenever any incident or problem requires the commander to exert and maintain his authority, then compliance must be exacted promptly and fully.
An early, happily minor, break of security by an American officer who had taken too much to drink brought to my attention the need for exercising particular care as to the habits of every individual assigned to an important post. Loyalty and efficiency were not enough—discretion, reliability, and sobriety were mandatory. Where individuals were relatively unknown or untested our highly efficient Secret Service organization was called upon to conduct a confidential investigation. All on my personal staff, without their knowledge, were so checked and tested over a period of weeks. The issues were too great to trust to chance; even chauffeurs had occasional opportunity to pick up information of value to the enemy.
In the organization, operation, and composition of my staff we proceeded as though all its members belonged to a single nation. Nevertheless we tried to include in every section individuals from both nationalities, and certain modifications in normal United States organization were compelled by differences in the staff procedures of the two countries. In the early days officers of the two nationalities were apt to conduct their business in the attitude of a bulldog meeting a tomcat, but as time went on their own discoveries of mutual respect and friendship developed a team that in its unity of purpose, devotion to duty, and absence of friction could not have been excelled if all its members had come from the same nation and the same service.
Because of the chance that through accident something might incapacitate me, particularly in the early stages of the operation, it was decided best to have the deputy also an American, so that the fiction of a practically exclusively American operation would be preserved as long as possible. To this post was named General Clark, who had come to England as commander of the II Corps.1 He was a relatively young man but an extremely able professional, with a faculty for picking fine assistants and for developing a high morale within his staff. During the planning stages of Torch, General Clark acted as deputy and, until the arrival of General Smith in early September, as chief of staff. More than any other one person, Clark was responsible for the effective co-ordination of detail achieved in this, the first Allied plan for amphibious attack in the Mediterranean.
Considering our problem in London in early August 1942, it was obvious that if we were to launch a serious attack during that year there was not a moment to waste in preparation. Summer was already fading and good campaigning weather would soon be gone. The need for haste was so great as to admit of no opportunity for planning for the surest or the best—the satisfactory had to become the ideal.
A thousand intricacies had to be solved in close co-ordination with the British Ministry of Transport, the Director of Movements, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Air Ministry, the Director of Shipping, and the Prime Minister. In the United States these processes were equally involved. The venture was new—it was almost new in conception. Up to that moment no government had ever attempted to carry out an overseas expedition involving a journey of thousands of miles from its bases and terminating in a major attack.
One of our earliest and continuing problems was the determination of exactly what ground, air, and naval forces could and would be made available for the operation. Ordinarily a commander is given, along with a general objective, a definite allocation of force upon which to construct his strategical plan, supported by detailed tactical, organizational, and logistical programs. In this case the situation was vague, the amount of resources unknown, the final object indeterminate, and the only firm factor in the whole business our instructions to attack. We were still existing in a state of scarcity; there was no such thing as plenty of anything. A diary of the time quotes excerpts of dozens of messages, most of them transatlantic, on the one subject of possible availability of United States ground, air, and naval forces.2 The United States Navy, in particular, was loath to commit itself firmly to an estimate of the vessels it could provide for the expedition. It was a nerve-racking state of uncertainty in which we had to work and plan.
Any narration of the problems that faced us during the late summer and fall of 1942 must take them up in turn; but solutions had to evolve together. Grand strategy, tactics, procurement of landing craft and ships, allocation of supporting naval forces, organization of air forces, provision of staging and training areas, arrangements for early and later supply, and determination of actual composition of each element of each assault force—all these were matters that had to be handled progressively and simultaneously. Difficulty in any of these produced at once difficulties in all the others.
The first requisite was to determine the areas and the general strength of the attack. As early as January 1942 our governments had briefly considered, but laid aside, a plan for an American attack, labeled Gymnast, against Casablanca alone.3 It had as its object the mere denial of West Africa to the Axis as a submarine base. Later the scope of the initial plan for Gymnast was enlarged to include an attack within the Mediterranean by the British. Parenthetically, I should here remark that in all our later campaigning we never found, in West Africa, any evidence that the ports on that coast had ever been used as submarine bases by the Axis.
In fixing upon the landing areas for our expedition a primary consideration was the practicability of providing adequate air cover for our convoys, from the moment they should come within range of the hostile bombers until landings were successful. The danger range included the western Mediterranean up to Gibraltar, and extended even far west of that for the enemy’s long-range bombers. Allied carriers were not available in significant numbers; indeed, during our entire experience in the Mediterranean we never had available more than two or three carriers at any time.
Land-based aircraft had to take almost the entire load of providing air protection, and the only available spot from which this could be done was Gibraltar. This made Gibraltar the focal point of our air umbrella and this in turn fixed the distance to which we could safely proceed into the Mediterranean with surface ships. Availability of shipping limited the size of the force that could be carried, while shortages in naval escorting and support vessels limited our attack to three major points; during early planning weeks it appeared that we would be limited to two.
Four important ports or port areas, within the extreme limits of our capabilities, were indicated as desirable objectives. These were, from west to east, Casablanca on the Atlantic coast, and Oran, Algiers, and the Bône area on the Mediterranean. A successful direct landing in the Bizerte-Tunis area would have yielded great results, but that locality was far outside the range of fighter support, and since British experiences in running convoys to Malta had been only little short of disastrous, this particular project was quickly given up as beyond the bounds of justifiable risk.
However, it was extremely desirable to capture the Bizerte-Tunis area at the earliest possible moment so that we could succor Malta and by land, sea, and air operate against Rommel’s line of supply, thus assuring a victorious end to the war in Africa.
At the other end of the line, Casablanca was important at that moment for two reasons only. First, Casablanca was the terminus of a long, rickety railway line that wound its way through the Atlas Mountains and on to the eastward through Oran, Algiers, and finally into Tunisia. The capacity of the railway was small but it did offer a weak life line to our forces if the enemy should decide to advance down through Spain, which was friendly to him, and, with bombers and artillery, render the Strait of Gibraltar useless to us for maintenance purposes. Without the rail line, bad as it was, from Casablanca to Oran, all the troops sent inside the Mediterranean would then have been cut off; even their escape might have been hazardous.
The other factor that made Casablanca important was the anticipated influence of a strong landing at that point upon Spain and the Moroccan tribes. If we failed to land there it was possible that the Vichy French would carry those warlike tribes into open conflict against us, and this circumstance would almost certainly give Spain greater reason for intervening on the Axis side.
There was an unusual operational hazard connected with the Casablanca project. During the late fall and winter the northwest African coast is a forbidding one from the standpoint of small-boat landings. The long Atlantic swells break up on the beaches in terrifying fashion and even in relatively good autumn weather this condition exists, on the average, four days out of five.4 From a naval viewpoint, the risk involved in this operation would be many times greater than inside the Mediterranean, where relatively good weather was to be expected.
From the first it was clear that Oran and Algiers must be attacked under any plan of operation. Both were important ports and the airfields near Oran were essential for later operations, particularly for staging short-range fighter aircraft from Gibraltar to front lines, wherever they might happen to be. Algiers, of course, was the center of political, economic, and military activity in the area.
Fixing the flanks of the assault, then, was what we had to decide. In the one case we could attack Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers; in the other, Oran, Algiers, and Bône.
Over this question we studied long and earnestly. I came to favor, personally, taking the entire force inside the Mediterranean. I believed that Tunis was so great a prize that we should land initially as far east as Bône. Admittedly, to pass inside the Mediterranean without establishing a base at Casablanca involved additional hazard, but I felt that as long as we were risking so much we might as well put all our chips on one number with the idea that Casablanca, when cut off from the eastward, would either fall of its own weight or could be captured by columns moving back down the railway from Oran. I was influenced also by the desire to avoid the very great natural hazards involved in landing at Casablanca.
We communicated this scheme to the Combined Chiefs of Staff and found that the United States Chiefs of Staff were opposed to omitting Casablanca from the original attack plan.5 They were of the belief that the risks involved in depending entirely upon the Strait of Gibraltar for a line of communications were too great and that, in spite of the limited capacity of the Casablanca–Oran railway, we must quickly secure it as partial insurance against possible Axis attempts against the Gibraltar bottleneck. Moreover, they believed that unless a strong force landed instantly in Morocco the Spanish would be much more inclined to enter the war or to permit the Germans to use Spain as an avenue of advance against our rear. Another objection to the Bône operation was doubt as to our ability to provide adequate air cover so close in under the Axis air forces stationed in Italy and Sicily. Later losses to the hostile bombers in that port and others in the neighborhood tended to support the validity of this doubt.6 Since this decision by the Combined Chiefs of Staff made it impossible to attack Bône initially, any later advance eastward from Algiers could be accomplished only by land marches, coupled with local seaborne attacks against the smaller ports along the coast toward Tunis.
As far as I can recall, this was the only instance in the war when any part of one of our proposed operational plans was changed by intervention of higher authority. We cheerfully accepted the decision because the governing considerations were political more than tactical, and political estimates are the function of governments, not of soldiers. However, we did point out that the early capture of Tunis was, by this decision, removed from the realm of the probable to the remotely possible.7
The next major decision concerned the timing of the attack. Meteorological reports indicated that a steady deterioration of weather was to be anticipated, beginning in the early fall. Naturally, therefore, time became of the essence. Everything was done to launch the attack at the earliest possible date, even to the point of sacrificing desired strength in sea, air, and ground formations when to secure any greater strength than that having a fighting chance for success would have meant delay.
In organizing the venture one of the most important factors was the estimated political situation in North Africa. This was an extremely complicated question, which had been under study by both the United States and British governments for a considerable length of time. Both governments were convinced that the expedition should be as exclusively American in complexion as it was possible to make it,8 but it was deemed equally important to make the expedition so large in numerical strength that the local French government and military commanders could logically plead “overwhelming strength” to the Vichy government and its Nazi overlords, as an excuse for the prompt surrender and later co-operation we hoped to obtain.
PUNCHING OUT A SNIPER
“The trained American possesses qualities that are almost unique. Because of his initiative and resourcefulness, his adaptability to change and his readiness to resort to expedient …” This page
Anti-Tank Gun Gets New Normandy Role (illustration credit 5.1)
CONQUEST IN SINGLE FILE
“In the advance eastward from Palermo … the only road was of the ‘shelf’ variety, a mere niche in the cliffs interrupted by bridges and culverts that the enemy invariably destroyed as he drew back fighting.” This page
Infantrymen Advance Along Sicilian Cliff (illustration credit 5.2)
Fundamentally the expedition was conceived in the hope that the French forces, officials, and population of northwest Africa would permit our entry without fighting and would join with us in the common battle against Germany. However, there was nothing in the political history of the years 1940–42 to indicate that this would occur; it was a hope rather than an expectation. Consequently we had to be prepared to fight against forces which, in all, were estimated to number 200,000.9 But our governments were clear in their instructions that we were to strive to create an ally in North Africa; we were not to act as if we were conquering a hostile territory unless this attitude should be forced upon us by continued French resistance.10 Everything that might induce the French forces in Africa to join us was incorporated into our plans, including careful wording of pronouncements and proclamations to be issued coincidentally with the beginning of the invasion.
To provide an entirely American façade to the attacking force was easy enough at Casablanca and Oran. All the attacking forces at the former place were to come directly from the United States. The Oran assault involved the U. S. 1st Infantry Division and parts of the U. S. 1st Armored Division, both then stationed in the United Kingdom. Since lack of shipping did not permit us to bring more forces directly from the United States, the only American troops that could be committed to the Algiers attack were part of the 34th Division, then in Ireland, reinforced by a regiment of the U. S. 9th Division and a Ranger battalion. This was not strong enough for the task in the event that any real resistance should be met, but British supporting units were so distributed in the landing tables that in only a few instances were they in the actual assault waves.11
Obviously the French African forces and the population would learn, soon after the initial landings, of British participation but it was believed that if entry could be gained and our friendly attitude promptly and clearly proved, possible complications would be minimized. American flags would identify our men and vehicles.
Out of study, revision, checking, and rechecking finally evolved the essentials of the attack plan, and these, regardless of changing details, were adhered to religiously. We would attack Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers. United States forces would then protect our rear in Morocco, and the British forces, as rapidly as they could land and the situation might permit, would rush for Tunis.12
I notified General Marshall of my desire to have General Patton command the Casablanca expedition and within a short time George reported to me in London, where he was thoroughly briefed on his portion of the plan.13 Hardly had he returned to Washington before I received a message stating that he had become embroiled in such a distressing argument with the Navy Department that serious thought was being given to his relief from command. Feeling certain that the difficulty, whatever its nature, was nothing more than the result of a bit of George’s flair for the dramatic, I protested at once, suggesting that if his personality was causing any difficulty in conferences the issue could be met by sending him out with his troops and allowing some staff member to represent him in the completion of planning details. In any event the matter was passed over.
I well knew that Patton delighted to startle his hearers with fantastic statements; many men who believed they knew him well never penetrated past the shell of showmanship in which he constantly and carefully clothed himself. But he was essentially a shrewd battle leader who invariably gained the devotion of his subordinates. From early life his one ambition was to be a successful battlefield commander. Because of this he was an inveterate reader of military history and his heroes were the great captains of past ages.
All the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies he developed were of his own deliberate adoption. One of his poses, for example, was that of the most hard-boiled individual in the Army. Actually he was so softhearted, particularly where a personal friend was concerned, that it was possibly his greatest fault. Later in the war he once vehemently demanded that I discharge eighty of his officers because, as he said, of inefficiency and timidity bordering on cowardice. He was so exercised and so persistent that I agreed, contingent upon his sending me a report in writing. Apparently astonished by my acquiescence, he began postponing from week to week, on one excuse or another, the submission of his list. Finally he confessed, rather sheepishly, that he had reconsidered and wanted to discharge no one.
The Center Task Force, the U. S. II Corps, to attack Oran, was under command of Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall. I had known him only slightly before the beginning of the African operation but his reputation as a fine trainer and organizer was unexcelled.
The Eastern Task Force, to capture Algiers, had a somewhat curious organization. To preserve the American character of the assaulting forces they were placed under Major General Charles W. Ryder, the commanding general of the U. S. 34th Division. He had established a splendid record in the first World War, in which he won battlefield promotions to the grade of lieutenant colonel at a very early age and had enjoyed a reputation as a sound soldier throughout the years intervening between the two wars. He was a man of sterling character and great gallantry in combat. Ryder was to lead the attack only until the city was captured. Once our Eastern Task Force was firmly established, command was to be taken over by Lieutenant General Sir Kenneth A. N. Anderson, commanding the British First Army. It was his mission to dash eastward as rapidly as the situation might permit, in an effort to secure Tunis. General Anderson was a gallant Scot, devoted to duty and absolutely selfless. Honest and straightforward, he was blunt, at times to the point of rudeness, and this trait, curiously enough, seemed to bring him into conflict with his British confreres more than it did with the Americans. His real difficulty was probably shyness. He was not a popular type but I had real respect for his fighting heart. Even his most severe critics must find it difficult to discount the smashing victory he finally attained in Tunisia.
From the inception of the invasion project, our governments carefully considered the possibility of including General de Gaulle, then in London, in Torch planning. Units under his command had taken part in the ill-fated Dakar expedition, where the attacking forces had to retire in confusion in the face of local French resistance. The British always believed that this fiasco resulted from leaks in De Gaulle’s London headquarters. Our instructions from the two governments, possibly colored by this unfortunate early experience, were to the effect that under no circumstances was any information concerning the proposed expedition to be communicated to General de Gaulle.14
There was confirmation of the assumption that General de Gaulle’s presence in the initial assaulting forces would incite determined opposition on the part of the French garrisons. During the course of our planning in London a constant stream of information came to us from consuls and other officials whom our State Department maintained in Africa throughout the war. All of this information was to the effect that in the regular officer corps of the French Army De Gaulle was, at that time, considered a disloyal soldier. His standing with the resistance elements of the civil population was vastly different. But at that moment resistance elements, particularly in Africa, were inarticulate and ineffective—and we had to win over the armed services as a first objective.
It is possible to understand why De Gaulle was disliked within the ranks of the French Army. At the time of France’s surrender in 1940 the officers who remained in the Army had accepted the position and orders of their government and had given up the fight. From their viewpoint, if the course chosen by De Gaulle was correct, then every French officer who obeyed the orders of his government was a poltroon. If De Gaulle was a loyal Frenchman they had to regard themselves as cowards. Naturally the officers did not choose to think of themselves in this light; rather they considered themselves as loyal Frenchmen carrying out the orders of constituted civilian authority, and it followed that they officially and personally regarded De Gaulle as a deserter.
Nevertheless, it was known that there was a strong anti-German and anti-Vichy sentiment in North Africa, even among some of the Army officers. It was believed possible that if a sufficient show of force could be made in the initial attack all these officers might find that their honor had been satisfied by token resistance and, bowing to the inevitable, would join in the fight against the traditional foe that had humiliated them in 1940. It was a complicated and hazy situation, but keeping the expedition entirely secret from the French in London was the fixed policy of the Allied governments. An added and most important motive in doing so was the fact that only through perfect surprise could the expedition succeed. The fewer people who knew anything at all about the matter the better.
Each day brought new difficulties in the development of plans for the operation. Among these intricate problems was, for example, interference with shipments to Russia. The withdrawal of shipping from the sea lanes in time to refit, load, assemble, and make the transit to the Mediterranean was certain to cut seriously into the Murmansk convoys; this interference began as early as September 1942.15 This same consideration applied to other vital shipping commitments of Britain and America but it was, of course, one of the inescapable costs of undertaking the operation.
Another complication arose out of the fact that all of the earliest shipments of American supplies and equipment into England were in anticipation of an eventual cross-Channel attack. Since haste in unloading ships and speeding up their turn-around was initially the pressing consideration, supplies and equipment were thrown into warehouses and open storage without regard for segregation and inventories. We had thought there would be ample time for this as the organization grew. Now we were suddenly faced with an immediate need for the things we had already brought over but without the necessary records under which required supplies could be selected, packaged, and loaded in the least possible time.16 We should have paid more attention to “red tape” and paper work.
Still another complication involved our air forces. In the summer of 1942 we had made only a good beginning at organizing a bomber and accompanying fighter command for conducting air operations against Germany. A considerable number of air units had to be hastily called away from their original tasks, retrained, and reshaped toward participation in the African invasion. Some American fighter organizations had to be equipped with the British Spitfire.17 Similar problems arose with respect to the internal transportation systems of England, the use of her crowded ports, and the training of ground troops.
Each week brought us records of additional ships sunk or damaged by enemy U-boats, ships that were included in our programs for the transport of troops, equipment, and supplies. Each sinking caused revisions in operational and tactical plans.
All these things called for constant conferences, usually with members of the tactical staffs and services in Great Britain but frequently also with the Prime Minister. During this time, at his request, I fell into the habit of meeting with the Prime Minister twice each week. On Tuesdays we would have luncheon at 10 Downing Street, usually present at which were one or more members of the British Chiefs of Staff or the War Cabinet. On Friday nights I would have dinner with him at his country house, Chequers, and this would sometimes be prolonged into an overnight stay, during which there would be an unending series of meetings with officials, both military and civil. Almost always the Foreign Minister, Mr. Anthony Eden, was present.
After some six weeks of intensive planning we were notified that Mr. Robert D. Murphy, the senior American State Department officer in North Africa, would pay us a secret visit to discuss with us the political implications and possibilities in that region.18 These factors remained among the great question marks of the entire operation. Vichy France was a neutral country and during the entire period of the war the United States had maintained diplomatic connection with the French Government. Never, in all its history, had the United States been a party to an unprovoked attack upon a neutral country and even though Vichy was avowedly collaborating with Hitler, there is no doubt that American political leaders regarded the projected operation, from this viewpoint, with considerable distaste.
Both the British and American governments believed that North African public opinion favored the Allies, and naturally desired to make the invasion appear as an operation undertaken in response to a popular desire for liberation from the Vichy yoke. Not only did we definitely want to avoid adding France to our already formidable list of enemies; we wanted, if possible, to make it appear that we had come into Africa on invitation rather than by force.
It was realized that, officially, some opposition would have to be made to the landing because within Europe itself the French dwelt constantly under the German heel. But if we could show that popular opinion was definitely in opposition to the Vichy rulers, any political antagonism to the invasion in Great Britain or America would be mollified.
Mr. Murphy, who had long been stationed in Africa, was early taken into the confidence of the President of the United States and informed of the possibility of military action in that region. With his staff of assistants he not only conducted a continuing survey of public opinion, but he did his best to discover among the military and political leaders those individuals who were definitely hostile to the Axis and occupying their posts merely out of a sense of duty to France. Affable, friendly, exceedingly shrewd, and speaking French capably, he was admirably suited for his task. Unquestionably his missionary work between 1940 and late 1942 had much to do with eventual success.
His trip to my headquarters in London, in the fall of 1942, was conducted in the greatest secrecy. In Washington, where he went first, he was placed in uniform, given a fictional commission as lieutenant colonel, and came to see me under the name of McGowan.19 I met him at a rendezvous outside the city and within a matter of twenty-four hours he was again on the way to Washington.
From Mr. Murphy we learned the names of those officers who had pro-Allied sympathies and those who were ready to aid us actively. We learned much about the temper of the Army itself and about feeling among the civil population. He told us very accurately that our greatest resistance would be met in French Morocco, where General August Paul Noguès was Foreign Minister to the Sultan.20 He gave us a number of details of French military strength in Africa, including information concerning equipment and training in their ground, air, and sea forces. From his calculations it was plain that if we were bitterly opposed by the French a bloody fight would ensue; if the French should promptly decide to join us we could expect to get along quickly with our main business of seizing Tunisia and attacking Rommel from the rear. It was Mr. Murphy’s belief that we would actually encounter a mean between these two extremes. Events proved him to be correct.
On another point, however, he was, through no fault of his own, completely mistaken. He had been convinced by the French Generals Charles Emmanuel Mast, chief of staff of the French XIX Corps in Algeria, Marie Emile Bethouart, commander of the Casablanca Division, and others who were risking their lives to assist us, that if General Henri Giraud could be brought into North Africa, ostensibly to aid in an uprising against the Vichy government, the response would be immediate and enthusiastic and all North Africa would flame into revolt, unified under a leader who was represented as being intensely popular throughout the region.21 Weeks later, during a crisis in our affairs, we were to learn that this hope was a futile one.
Mr. Murphy was certain that much more effective co-operation with our known friends in North Africa would be achieved if a high-ranking officer from my staff could go to Africa for a conference. Naturally the meeting had to be arranged clandestinely because, if discovered, my emissaries would certainly be interned, while any French officer found engaged in such an affair would probably be tried by Vichy as a traitor. It was immediately decided that it was worth the risk to send a small group to confer with General Mast and others. Since manifestly I could not go myself, I chose, from many volunteers, my deputy, General Clark, to make the journey. He was accompanied by a small staff.
The trip was made by airplane and submarine and was carried out exactly as planned except that local suspicion finally was aroused and the French conspirators were forced to escape very hurriedly, while General Clark and his group had to hide until they could re-embark in their submarine. Rough weather made the re-embarkation a difficult affair but, except for a ducking and the loss of a small amount of money, no great damage was done.22 This expedition was valuable in gathering more details of information. These did not compel any material change in our planned operations.
The conference with Mr. Murphy gave most of us, particularly the Americans, our first vicarious acquaintanceship with a number of French officials. He discussed at length the characteristics and political leanings of the principal generals and the officials we were likely to encounter.23 He especially emphasized that at that time the American Government and people were held in high esteem by the French as compared to the antagonism that had developed toward the British.
The Prime Minister accepted this view and gave his personal attention to assuring that the operation should bear the appearance, so far as was humanly possible, of an exclusively American force. He even seriously considered, at one time, requiring all British units that had to participate in the initial landing to wear the uniform of the American Army. In discussions involving political possibilities Mr. Eden, as head of the Foreign Office, was almost always present, as was frequently Mr. John Winant, our wartime ambassador to Great Britain. Our concern over these affairs illustrates forcibly the old truism that political considerations can never be wholly separated from military ones and that war is a mere continuation of political policy in the field of force. The Allied invasion of Africa was a most peculiar venture of armed forces into the field of international politics; we were invading a neutral country to create a friend. Important as were these political problems, they constituted only a fraction of the difficult matters with which we daily wrestled.
We were gambling for high stakes, but this is a constant characteristic of war and in itself was not a particularly disturbing factor. But uncertainty prevailed in many directions: uncertainty as to the attitude of the Spanish and the knowledge that the enemy had of our plans; uncertainty as to the exact number of ships that would be available when the expedition should sail; and uncertainty as to the ability of the Air Force to give proper protection to our convoys as they neared the African coast.
Another hazard involved a project for dispatching from England by transport planes a parachute force to capture the airfields of Oran.24 These planes had to wing their relatively slow course over a distance of more than twelve hundred miles, through areas from which they might be attacked by enemy planes. Parachutists had to drop, or the planes had to land, on fields of which we had only sketchy information. Many experienced officers literally threw up their hands in the face of such a “harebrained” scheme. Other projects involved direct and admittedly desperate assaults by selected forces against the docks of Algiers and Oran, in an effort to prevent sabotage and destruction and so preserve port facilities for our future uses.
The whole basis of our higher organization was new. Time and again during the summer old Army friends warned me that the conception of Allied unity which we took as the foundation of our command scheme was impracticable and impossible; that any commander placed in my position was foredoomed to failure and could become nothing but a scapegoat to carry the odium of defeat for the whole operation. I was regaled with tales of allied failure starting with the Greeks, five hundred years before Christ, and coming down through the ages of allied quarrels to the bitter French-British recriminations of 1940. But more than counterbalancing such doleful prophecy was a daily and noticeable growth of co-operation, comradeship, faith, and optimism in Torch headquarters. British and Americans were unconsciously, in their absorption in common problems, shedding their shells of mutual distrust and suspicion.
In the early fall Admiral Ramsay was relieved by the British Chiefs of Staff as the naval commander of the expedition and in his place was assigned Admiral Sir Andrew B. Cunningham, whom I then met for the first time. He was the Nelsonian type of admiral. He believed that ships went to sea in order to find and destroy the enemy. He thought always in terms of attack, never of defense. He was vigorous, hardy, intelligent, and straightforward. In spite of his toughness, the degree of affection in which he was held by all grades and ranks of the British Navy and, to a large extent, the other services, both British and American, was nothing short of remarkable. He was a real sea dog. There will always live with me his answer when I asked him in the fall of 1943 to send the British battle fleet, carrying a division of soldiers, into Taranto Harbor, known to be filled with mines and treachery.
“Sir,” he said, “His Majesty’s Fleet is here to go wherever you may send it!”
The terrific pressure under which we worked is hard to appreciate now for any who have not shared in the experience of planning a great allied operation in modern war. Yet this pressure remains a persistent and vivid memory for anyone who was a part of it.
It is equally difficult to classify our time-absorbing problems. There were, above all, people to see, most of them engaged in preparing the details of Torch but many others concerned with problems ranging from Red Cross affairs to the need for shipping white cloth to the Arabs, who insist on it for burial shrouds and will kill to get it. Press conferences were almost obligatory, since the problem of morale, both at home and in England, was never far from our minds.
We had to co-ordinate our plans not only with the British but also with the United States Navy. This was by no means simple, and it required a great many conferences. Two of the Navy’s capable officers had been assigned by Admiral King to assist in planning, and they were welcomed by Brigadier General Alfred M. Gruenther, chief American planner, with the statement that there were a thousand questions the Navy could help answer. “We are here only to listen,” was their answer. I knew that if I could talk personally to Admiral King there would be no difficulty, but under the circumstances these snarls had to be worked out with care and patience.
The Navy could remind us, after all, that we were asking for what was one of the greatest fighting armadas of all times—approximately 110 troop and cargo ships and 200 warships.25 The Navy was conscious of the need for watching the German fleet, which they thought at that time included at least one aircraft carrier and possibly two. Some American officers seemed at times to feel a resentment toward the operation, apparently regarding it as a British plan into which America had been dragged by the heels. I stated and restated at conferences during this planning phase that Torch was an order from the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States, and the Prime Minister, and that I proposed to move into West and North Africa, as the order instructed me, whether we had protective warships or not.
Axis attacks on British convoys in the Mediterranean continued to bring us bad news.26 One heavily escorted convoy of fourteen cargo vessels, attempting to take supplies to Malta, arrived there with only three of the supply ships still afloat. Of these, one was sunk at the dock. The aircraft carrier Eagle, which had been earmarked for Torch, was torpedoed and sunk. The naval staff brought us such news from time to time, and each time further revision of plans became necessary.
In the middle of September I sent a message to General Marshall on how the invasion’s chances looked to us some seven weeks before it took place:
“Tentative and unofficial details of contemplated British carrier-borne air support are as follows: In the covering force east of Gibraltar, one carrier with twenty fighters and twenty torpedo planes; at Algiers in direct support sixty-six fighters and eighteen torpedo planes. In addition to above one old carrier with thirteen planes may possibly be available.
“The following are the particular factors that bear directly upon the degree of hazard inherent in this operation:
“(a) The sufficiency of carrier-borne air support during initial stages.
“The operational strength of the French Air Force in Africa is about 500 planes. Neither the bombers nor the fighters are of the most modern type, but the fighters are superior in performance to the naval types on carriers. Consequently, if the French make determined and unified resistance to the initial landing, particularly by concentrating the bulk of their air against either of the major ports, they can seriously interfere with, if not prevent, a landing at that point. The total carrier-borne fighter strength (counting on 100 U.S. fighters on Ranger and auxiliary) will apparently be about 166 planes in actual support of the landings. Only twenty to thirty will be with the naval covering forces to the eastward. These fighters will be under the usual handicaps of carrier-based aircraft when operating against land-based planes.
“(b) Efficiency of Gibraltar as an erection point for fighter aircraft to be used after landing fields have been secured.
“Since Gibraltar is the only port available to Allies in that region, the rapid transfer of fighter craft to captured airdromes will be largely dependent upon our ability to set up at Gibraltar a reasonable number for immediate operations and a flow thereafter of at least thirty planes per day. The vulnerability of Gibraltar, especially to interference by Spanish forces, is obvious. If the Spaniards should take hostile action against us immediately upon the beginning of landing operations, it would be practically impossible to secure any land-based fighter craft for use in northern Africa for a period of some days.
“(c) Another critical factor affecting the air will be the state of the weather.
“It is planned to transfer by flying to captured airdromes in North Africa the American units now in Great Britain except the Spitfire groups. These last will necessarily be shipped and set up at Gibraltar or captured airdromes. A spell of bad weather would so weaken the anticipated air support in the early stages of the operation as to constitute another definite hazard to success.
“(d) The character of resistance of the French Army.
“In the region now are some fourteen French divisions rather poorly equipped but presumably with a fair degree of training and with the benefit of professional leadership. If this Army should act as a unit in contesting the invasion, it could, in view of the slowness with which Allied forces can be accumulated at the two main ports, so delay and hamper operations that the real object of the expedition could not be achieved, namely, the seizing control of the north shore of Africa before it can be substantially reinforced by the Axis.
“(e) The attitude of the Spanish Army.
“While there have been no indications to date that the Spaniards would take sides in the war as a result of this particular operation, this contingency must be looked on as a possibility, particularly if Germany should make a definite move toward entering Spain. In any event, Spain’s entry would instantly entail the loss of Gibraltar as a landing field and would prevent our use of the Strait of Gibraltar until effective action could be taken by the Allies. In view of available resources, it would appear doubtful that such effective action is within our capabilities.
“(f) The possibility that the German air forces now in western Europe may rapidly enter Spain and operate against our line of communications.
“This would not be an easy operation for the Germans except with the full acquiescence and support of Spain. Gasoline, bombs, and lubricants do not exist at the Spanish airfields and the transfer to the country of ground and maintenance crews and supplies would require considerable time. Certain facts that bear upon the likelihood of such enemy action are, first, that Germany already has excellent landing fields in Sicily, from which their long-range aircraft can operate without going to the trouble of establishing new bases. Secondly, the advantages to Germany of occupying the Iberian Peninsula in force have always existed. The fact that Germany has made no noticeable move in this direction, even under the conditions lately existing when substantial parts of the British naval strength have been inside the Mediterranean, is at least some evidence that the enemy does not consider this an easy operation.
“(g) Other factors that we have considered in arriving at the conclusions given below are the experiences of the recent Malta convoy and the assumption that Allied naval losses within the past ten days have been considerable. The Malta convoy did not come under air attack until it was practically south of Sardinia and its difficulties west of that point were from submarine action.
“Based on all the above, we consider that the operation has more than a fair chance of success provided Spain stays neutral and the French forces either offer only token resistance or are so badly divided by internal dissension and by Allied political maneuvering that effective resistance will be negligible. It is our opinion that Spain will stay neutral, at least during the early stages of the operation, provided we are successful in maintaining profound secrecy in connection with our intentions. She has done so in the past when similar large convoys passed through the strait. We believe, on the other hand, that we will encounter very considerable resistance from certain sections of the French forces. We believe the area in which the French will be most favorable to us is around Algiers, with the areas in which we will probably encounter resistance those between Oran and Casablanca and near Tunis.
“We believe that the chances of effecting initial landings are better than even but that the chances of over-all success in the operation, including the capture of Tunis before it can be reinforced by the Axis, are considerably less than fifty per cent. This takes into account the great difficulty surrounding the building up of a land-based air force, the low capacity of ports and consequent slowness in building up of land forces, the very poor character of the long line of communications from Casablanca to Oran, and finally the uncertainty of the French attitude.
“Further eventualities which might involve a change in Spanish attitude, as well as increasing naval and shipping difficulties and consequent slowing up in our reinforcements, are difficult to evaluate. Any sign of failure at this stage and a delay of reinforcements to arrive might be seized upon by the Axis as a reason for coming into Spain, and if Spain should then enter the war the results would be most serious.”27
Week after week this sort of thing went on. Although the essentials of our operational plan had been crystallized early, every day brought some slight change in detail until almost the final day before sailing.
Along with planning went inspections of training and physical preparation. Our final and most ambitious training exercise in landing operations took place in western Scotland, during abominable weather. A group of the staff accompanied me to observe the operation and were far from encouraged by the evident lack of skill, particularly among ship companies and boat crews. However, since these had been assembled at the last minute, to minimize interference in Allied shipping programs, we hoped and believed that major errors revealed by the exercises would not be repeated in actual operations. This proved to be the case.
While on this trip I received a piece of information that carried me back again to America’s traditional peacetime indifference toward preparedness. I was told by a troop commander that his unit had just received its final consignment of “bazookas,” the infantryman’s best weapon of defense against tanks. Since his command was to begin embarking the next day, he was completely at a loss as to how to teach his men the use of this vitally needed weapon. He said, “I don’t know anything about it myself except from hearsay.”
Nothing more could now be done in London. It was a relief to lock up a desk. To account for my absence from London an elaborate story was circulated that I was making a visit to Washington. Even the President helped out in this particular deception. Actually we took off for Gibraltar, in a flight of five Fortresses, on November 5, 1942.28 At Gibraltar we were greeted by the governor, Lieutenant General Sir F. N. Mason MacFarlane, who most hospitably welcomed us to Government House for quarters. By a series of minor mishaps the plane in which I was flying was unreported in London for several hours after the safe arrival of the others in the group had been reported. This caused some consternation among the staff, the larger portion of which was still in the United Kingdom, but of this we were unaware at the moment. One plane, which had failed to take off with us, made the flight on the following day and was attacked by two German JU-88s.29 One man was wounded but the gunners on the Fortress finally drove off the attacking planes.
I went to the tunnels of the Fortress, where our offices were located and where I met Admiral Cunningham, who had made the journey from London in a fast cruiser. He and I began to scan the reports of weather and of operation, to check and recheck everything we had done, and to talk over all the things that have so far been related in this book.