Less than forty-eight hours before Montgomery’s thundering guns opened the Battle of El Alamein, three British commandos and five United States Army officers landed on a dark and deserted beach on the coast of French Algeria, some 2,500 miles to the west. Lying offshore in the Mediterranean was the British submarine Seraph, which had brought them there. As they quickly hid their canoes in a grove of trees behind the beach, American diplomat Robert Murphy appeared out of the darkness to greet them. “Welcome to North Africa,” Murphy whispered. Major General Mark W. Clark, panting from his exertions, replied simply, “I’m damn glad we made it.” They raked the sand smooth over their tracks and hurried to a house on a bluff overlooking the beach.

Shortly after dawn on October 22, another group of men arrived by car from the capital city of Algiers, seventy-five miles away. After exchanging greetings, the newcomers, carrying suitcases, marched into bedrooms and soon emerged wearing uniforms of the French armed forces. After a quick breakfast, everyone sat down to a long round of discussions, arguments, and exchanges of military information.

That afternoon, the owner of the house received a telephone call and shouted excitedly that the police were approaching. Since the Americans were violating the rights of a neutral nation, and the French officers were committing treason, pandemonium broke loose. Some of the Frenchmen ran for their cars after scrambling back into civilian clothes with a speed, General Clark noted, “I have seen exceeded only by professional quick-change artists.” Others jumped out of windows and dashed into the woods. Clark and his aides scurried through a trap door into a dusty wine cellar.

When the police burst in a few minutes later, they found diplomat Murphy and three companions around a table littered with wine bottles, playing poker. The sudden activity at the secluded house, Murphy explained, was only “a little party.” He was sure, he added, that the police would not embarrass him further by disturbing the “ladies” upstairs. After poking about, the police left.

With the talks so abruptly ended, Clark decided to leave as soon as it was dark. The Seraph, which had submerged during the day, surfaced and moved to within 100 yards of the shore. But the wind had risen and breakers were crashing across the beach. When the canoes were put into the water, they immediately capsized. Stripped to their shorts, Clark and his men tried repeatedly to launch the frail craft; in the confusion, the general’s pants and $2,000 in gold, brought along “for possible use in buying our way out of a jam,” went to the bottom. At last, with the help of Murphy and his staff, all four canoes made it safely through the pounding surf. As dawn was breaking, the Seraph snatched up the bedraggled party, submerged, and headed for Gibraltar.

Clark’s secret mission, full of boldness and confusion, was typical of Operation Torch. The Torch plan called for the United States, heavily supported by Britain, to invade the French North African possessions of Algeria and Morocco. In victory or defeat, Torch was sure to be spectacular. An amphibious assault from the sea is one of war’s most complex operations, and the Americans were making not one but three landings. No one knew whether the troops would be greeted with bouquets or bullets; in fact, it was entirely possible that Torch would tip the balance against the Allies rather than for them.

After the fall of France in 1940, German troops had occupied only half the country and none of France’s African territories. In return, the government of Marshal Philippe Pétain at Vichy in southern France cooperated with the Nazis. Pétain, France’s great hero of World War I, required all ranking French officers to honor the armistice that had ended the fighting and to swear a personal oath of loyalty to him.

This action left the officers in North Africa in a painful quandary. Military honor - which meant a great deal to a French officer - clearly required them to obey Pétain’s orders to oppose an Allied attack. But it was equally clear to most of them that Nazi Germany, not the Allies, was France’s mortal enemy. Their dilemma was how to uphold their honor and still serve the best interests of their country.

To further tangle an already tangled situation, many of these officers bore a grudge against their onetime ally Great Britain. Part of the reason was Britain supported General Charles de Gaulle, who had denounced the armistice and had rallied Free French forces - thus implying that any general or admiral loyal to Marshal Pétain was a traitor. But most of all, their hatred dated from July 3, 1940, when the Royal Navy attacked and severely crippled a French fleet at Oran in Algeria to prevent it from falling into German hands. Torch would have to be an all-American operation - or at least look like one.

The driving force behind Torch came from Churchill and Roosevelt. Churchill had long supported a Mediterranean grand strategy while Roosevelt was insistent that American forces join the fight against Hitler in 1942. When it became clear that the Allies were not yet strong enough to dare a frontal attack on the Germans across the English Channel, the two leaders settled on northwest Africa as the target. Their decision was made on July 25, 1942, as Auchinleck fought Rommel to a standstill at El Alamein. “Now we are on our way shoulder to shoulder,” Roosevelt wrote to Churchill.

Not only would Torch deny a large part of the North African coast to the Axis, but successful landings and a rapid advance into Tunisia would trap Rommel in the Western Desert. Control of the Mediterranean sea lanes would be in Allied hands, and the entire southern flank of Europe – “the soft underbelly,” as Churchill liked to call it - would be uncovered.

Set against these advantages was the chance that France would fight, perhaps routing the invaders or even going over entirely to the Axis camp. A stronger possibility was that Hitler would funnel an army into Tunisia from Sicily - only ninety miles away - and gain passage through neutral Spain for a second army to seize the Strait of Gibraltar. If this happened, the Torch forces would be trapped.

Despite all these unpleasant ifs, the war situation in the summer of 1942 demanded Allied action of the boldest kind. The road to triumph seemed to stretch ahead endlessly, and if Torch would provide a shortcut, Churchill and Roosevelt were willing to gamble on it. But it would have to be done soon. There were hints that the Germans planned to occupy French North Africa. After November, bad weather would prevent any amphibious operations until spring - probably too late. The Torch planning headquarters in London, under the command of Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, set to work at a furious pace.

After much argument and juggling of forces, it was decided to make three simultaneous landings. Two convoys would sail from England, slip through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, and land at Oran and Algiers in Algeria. To guard against an enemy seizure of the strait, a third convoy would sail directly from the United States to occupy Casablanca, on the Atlantic coast of French Morocco. These moves would open an emergency lifeline to the Torch forces in the Mediterranean over the railroad connecting Casablanca and Oran. The assault troops at all three points would be American, followed ashore by the British. Until landing fields could be captured, air cover would be provided by aircraft carriers. The target date (D-day) was set for November 8, 1942.

While Eisenhower and his commanders dealt with the military details of the operation, Robert Murphy tried to smooth the way for the invading troops. Sounding out French officers, the diplomat put together an underground network of those friendly to the Allied cause. Their role would be to take over key strong points on D-day. General Clark, Eisenhower’s second in command, was a part of this secret plot.

The plotters needed to find someone besides Marshal Pétain who the French armed forces would rally to, someone who would quickly come to terms with the American invaders and get the 120,000-man French army in North Africa into the battle against the Axis. They chose General Henri Giraud, who had escaped from a German prison camp and had strong anti-Nazi opinions.

Another figure to be reckoned with was Admiral Jean Francois Darlan, head of the French Navy. Darlan had an unsavory reputation for cooperating with the Nazis, but he would probably join whichever side seemed the strongest. If the Allies won him over, he would bring the French fleet along with him. Because so many French generals and admirals opposed him, General de Gaulle was given no role in Operation Torch.

In late October, the 650 ships involved in Torch began steaming from various ports toward North Africa. Few of the thousands of soldiers, sailors, and airmen had any combat experience, and many of them were short of training as well. The last amphibious operation the United States Army had launched was in the Spanish-American War in 1898. But the risks had to be taken. “There are times in history when we cannot afford to wait for the final polish,” wrote British admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, naval commander of Torch, and in Cunningham’s opinion this was one such time.

On November 5, General Eisenhower arrived at his operational headquarters at Gibraltar. He and his staff were greeted with the news of Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein, and that night they watched the ships of the Algiers and Oran convoys glide through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. Axis agents in neutral Spanish territory could not help but see the ships as well, but it was assumed that they were headed for Egypt or Malta. The German and Italian high commands laid plans to ambush them off Sicily.

By the early morning hours of November 8, the Center Task Force was in position off Oran. At 3 a.m., Hartland and Walney, onetime U.S. Coast Guard cutters turned over to the British, made a dash for the harbor to try to seize ships and port installations before the French could sabotage them. They missed the narrow entrance in the darkness; as the cutters maneuvered for another try, searchlights flicked on along the shore.

With Walney leading the way, the cutters charged again, smashing through two floating booms strung across the mouth of the harbor to keep out enemy submarines. By now, the defenders were fully alert. Searchlights held the two ships fast in their brilliant grip, and guns of all kinds poured out a storm of fire at them.

Nearing the spot where she was to land her assault forces, the Walney came under the point-blank fire of the guns of a pair of French destroyers. Torn to pieces, her decks piled high with dead and dying, Walney lost all power, burst into flames, and blew up. Hartland fared little better. Her gun crews were slaughtered, and a French destroyer pumped shell after shell into her at a range of 100 feet. The survivors abandoned ship as the burning cutter drifted aimlessly with the tide.

Despite this disastrous beginning, the Oran operation went like clockwork. The 39,000 assault troops streamed ashore on beaches some twenty miles east and west of the city. The French were surprised, but their opposition was sharp despite the abundance of American flags carried by the invaders. Fighting continued that day and the next as the Americans consolidated their beachheads and closed in on Oran. On the morning of November 10, the city surrendered.

At Algiers, meanwhile, the action had been more political than military. At three landing beaches flanking the city, the British and American troops came ashore against scarcely any opposition at all. As the landing forces began moving on Algiers itself, the city was in an advanced state of confusion. Murphy’s underground plotters had gone into action. Bands of young rebels armed with a rag-tag of weapons seized the radio station, the central telephone switchboard, police stations, and even some military headquarters. By two on the morning of D-day, as scheduled, the plotters were ready to hand Algiers over to the Americans without a drop of blood being shed. But no Americans appeared. They were ten or fifteen miles away. What the underground had not been told, because of the need for secrecy, was that the landings would take place on beaches well to the east and west of the city.

With infinite pains, one observer noted, Robert Murphy “had assembled a nicely filled apple cart”; now the American diplomat was trying to keep it from being kicked over. As the rebels ranged the city, Murphy hurried to the home of the French North African army commander, General Alphonse Juin. General Juin sympathized with the Allies, but he could not declare a ceasefire without the approval of his superior, Admiral Darlan, who had unexpectedly appeared in Algiers. Juin telephoned Darlan and asked him to join them right away.

It was not yet 2 a.m. when Darlan arrived. As Murphy told him of Operation Torch, Darlan exploded at what he called an unprovoked attack. While the short, stocky admiral angrily paced back and forth, the tall American diplomat paced alongside him, trying to match his steps to the short strides of the Frenchman and pleading with him to “strike an effective blow now for the liberation of France” by declaring a ceasefire. But Darlan had decided on a waiting game, to see if the Americans were really arriving in the strength that Murphy claimed. With the excuse that he would have to get in touch with Marshal Pétain, the admiral began to stall.

At dawn on D-day, the Vichy radio began to broadcast over and over Marshal Pétain’s statement – “We are attacked. We shall defend ourselves. That is the order I am giving.” Vichy police and military units set about reclaiming the key points in Algiers and hauling the rebels away to jail. Police arrived at General Juin’s home, overpowered the rebels that surrounded it, and put Murphy under arrest.

After a final dizzy whirl, the situation in Algiers was stabilized. One of the rebels managed to reach General Charles Ryder, commander of the American landing forces, and pleaded with him to abandon the methodical, carefully planned encirclement of the city. Algiers was Ryder’s for the taking, the Frenchman said – “but by noon it will be too late.” Ryder ordered a swift, direct advance, and late that afternoon, a local ceasefire was arranged. At dusk on November 8, the Allies held Algiers.

Admiral Darlan, however, was not willing to quit his slippery game just yet. He refused to order an armistice for all French North Africa, nor would he command French forces in Tunisia to stop German troops from landing there. His hand was strengthened when General Giraud, the “big name” Murphy had been counting on, arrived the next day in Algiers. It turned out that Giraud had no support at all, and he was ignored by everyone but the Americans. Only Darlan seemed to have the power of decision, and Darlan was going to wait a bit longer to see which way to jump. As a result, several hundred Americans and Frenchmen died unnecessarily at Casablanca and Oran.

The assault on Casablanca was the biggest gamble of all, for the Atlantic coastal waters were seldom calm that late in the year. As the Western Task Force approached the Moroccan coast, weather forecasters in Washington and London predicted a storm and a fifteen-foot surf on November 8, too high for landing craft. But the task force’s own weatherman insisted that the storm would pass. The advice of the man on the spot was taken, and by the early hours of D-day, as the ships took position off Casablanca, the Atlantic was as calm as a millpond. The assault troops waited nervously, with only a few lights and the smell of charcoal smoke indicating that land was nearby. “Africa was never so dark and mysterious to ancient sea rovers as she seemed that night to these seventy thousand young men,” wrote an eyewitness, historian Samuel Eliot Morison.

The Casablanca landings, like those at Algiers and Oran, were made at beaches flanking the city. The main force, landing at a fishing village called Fedala, fifteen miles north of Casablanca, met little resistance. Its chief troubles came from batteries of coastal defense guns firing at the ships offshore, but before long, American cruisers and destroyers had silenced them. The light cruiser Brooklyn rained 757 shells from her six-inch guns on one coastal battery in a little more than an hour.

At Safi, well to the south of Casablanca, the landing operation was as smooth as silk. It was decided to attack the port head-on, the old destroyers Bernadou and Cole leading the way with loads of specially trained assault troops. Their sudden arrival out of the darkness triggered a blast of gunfire from the defenders, but the destroyers returned the fire with such accuracy that they all but silenced the entire harbor defense system. Before the day was far along, Safi was firmly under control, Sherman tanks were put ashore on the wharves, and the army could count only twenty-nine casualties in the landing.

The northernmost landing at Port Lyautey, by contrast, was the most fiercely contested of any in Operation Torch. Landing operations got into a fearful tangle, with landing craft coming ashore late, at the wrong places, and then being wrecked as they grounded. The defenses were well handled, and reinforcements were close by. For a time, the invaders were in a critical situation, but finally they began to gain the upper hand. Carrier planes helped break up a counterattack by French tanks, and the battleship Texas reached seven miles inland with its main battery of fourteen-inch guns to shatter a truck convoy full of reinforcements. Yet it took four days of hard fighting and cost close to 400 American casualties before Port Lyautey’s stubborn defenders were overwhelmed.

While the three landing forces flanking the city were consolidating their beachheads on D-day, a savage naval battle was raging off Casablanca itself. This was a tragic and unnecessary action, the bitter fruit of Admiral Darlan’s little game; hearing nothing to the contrary from Darlan, Admiral François Michelier at Casablanca obeyed Pétain’s orders to fight.

Michelier had eleven submarines, nine destroyers, and a light cruiser ready for sea, backed up by several batteries of coast-defense guns and the unfinished battleship Jean Bart, unable to sail but with her fifteen-inch guns operational. To guard against any French naval action and to screen the landing operations at nearby Fedala, American admiral Kent Hewitt had the new battleship Massachusetts, one light and three heavy cruisers, and more than a dozen destroyers, plus planes from the fleet carrier Ranger and a small escort carrier.

The problem of the Jean Bart was quickly solved. The French battleship opened fire on the Massachusetts at 7 a.m., narrowly missing the big battlewagon, which replied immediately. Within twenty minutes, five of her massive sixteen-inch shells had hit the Jean Bart, one of them putting the main battery out of action. The American warships had less luck silencing the pesky shore batteries.

An hour later, Admiral Michelier ordered seven of his destroyers and the light cruiser Primauguet to strike the troop transports and landing craft off Fedala. A black-robed priest stood on the breakwater, blessing the doomed ships as they steamed past. Admiral Hewitt’s warships converged to meet them. For an hour and a half, the outgunned French made skillful use of smoke screens and maneuvered radically to avoid the hail of shells splashing around them.

Their good luck could not last forever. A salvo from the Massachusetts and one from the heavy cruiser Tuscaloosa hit a French destroyer at the same time and blew her to pieces. The light cruiser Brooklyn sent another destroyer to the bottom, and along with the heavy cruiser Augusta, mangled the Primauguet, killing two thirds of her crew. Fighter planes from the Ranger caused heavy casualties by strafing the French ships. By noon, the gallant sortie of Michelier’s squadron was over. Two of his ships were sunk, a third was dead in the water, abandoned and burning, and four other cripples had limped back to Casablanca and beached themselves in the harbor. All of the eighteen or so torpedoes fired by French submarines in the engagement missed; the American force took five minor hits by naval or shore guns and lost one landing craft.

On November 10, General Mark Clark confronted Admiral Darlan in Algiers. Towering menacingly over the little admiral, Clark told him bluntly that he had the choice of ordering a ceasefire throughout North Africa or going to prison - and he had thirty minutes to make up his mind. Darlan gave the necessary orders, and the next day the fighting at Casablanca ended.

The ceasefire marked the end of Operation Torch. If it created more political problems than it solved, as a military operation it was a brilliant success - a fact the enemy realized only too well. On D-day, as news poured in of the landings at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers, a German staff officer stationed in Morocco exclaimed to a French official: “This is the greatest setback to German arms since 1918. The Americans will take Rommel in the rear, and we shall be expelled from Africa.” As he said it, the Frenchman noted, tears rolled down his cheeks.