Operation Torch

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Operation Torch
Operation plan
Operation plan
date D-Day: November 8, 1942
place Morocco , Algeria , Tunisia
output Allied victory
Parties to the conflict

United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom United States Free France
United States 48United States 
Free FranceFree France 

France VichyVichy France Vichy France German Empire
German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) 

Commander

Overall operation: Dwight D. Eisenhower , USA ; Naval Operations: Andrew Cunningham , RN
United States 48United States

United KingdomUnited Kingdom

France VichyVichy France François Darlan

Troop strength
106,000 soldiers,
Western Task Force (against Casablanca): 2 battleships, 5 aircraft carriers, 7 cruisers, 38 destroyers;
Center Task Force (against Oran): 1 battleship, 2 aircraft carriers, 3 cruisers, 13 destroyers;
Eastern Task Force (against Algiers): 1 battleship, 2 aircraft carriers, 3 cruisers, 5 destroyers
60,000 soldiers
losses

1,100 dead,
756 wounded

Navy: 462 dead,
Army: 326 dead,
Air Force: 15 dead,
a total of 1,000 wounded

Operation Torch ( English for Operation Fackel ) was the code name of the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War . It began on November 8, 1942. The older name from the first planning phase was Operation Gymnast .

background

As part of the anti-Hitler coalition, Stalin had urged American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill several times to open a second front against Hitler's Germany in the west in order to relieve the Soviet Union in its struggle . While the American General Staff, led by General Marshall , ultimately called for a direct attack with a quick advance into northern France, from where it intended to move directly eastwards to Germany, the British, especially Winston Churchill, preferred an approach via the European periphery in which they were could bring the Allied superiority at sea to better advantage. Churchill had not forgotten the bitter experiences of the First World War ( Battle of Gallipoli ) as well as of Dunkirk and Dieppe . President Roosevelt feared that a military operation in Africa could delay an invasion of Europe in 1943, but he supported Churchill nonetheless.

Destroyed Italian hangar and aircraft on the Castel Benito airfield near Tripoli

Morocco , Algeria and Tunisia belonged to French North Africa, which was nominally subject to the Vichy regime , but in which the German Empire had a great influence. The Vichy French had about 60,000 soldiers and coastal artillery , a handful of tanks and aircraft in Morocco, about ten warships and eleven submarines in Casablanca . Since Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain had not complied with Hitler's demand for a French entry into the war on the German side, the Allies believed that the French colonial troops would not fight. However, there were fears about the French Navy , which could harbor feelings of revenge because of the British Operation Catapult of July 1940. The Allies co-opted a French general, Henri Giraud , as the potential commander in chief of French forces after a successful invasion. They intended to advance quickly eastwards to Tunisia and thus stabbed the troops of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's German Africa Corps . The American General Eisenhower was given command of the operation and set up his headquarters in Gibraltar .

The “Africa Agency” of the Polish secret service in exile, under the leadership of Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski , provided the Allies with important information that was essential for planning the invasion.

The landing

Fleet deployment plan

The Allies planned to capture the key ports from Morocco to Algeria at the same time, primarily targeting Casablanca, Oran and Algiers .

The Western (Naval) Task Force , targeting Casablanca, combined all American units with Commanding Major General George S. Patton and Rear Admiral H. Kent Hewitt , who led the amphibious operation. It consisted of the 2nd Panzer Division and the 3rd and 9th Divisions, a total of 35,000 soldiers. They were transported there directly from the United States .

The central force with the target Oran comprised parts of the 82nd US Airborne Division and the 1st US Armored Division with a total of 18,500 men. She was brought up on ships from Great Britain and commanded by Major General Lloyd Fredendall , while the naval units were commanded by Commodore Thomas H. Troubridge .

The eastern force with its destination Algiers was commanded by Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson and consisted of the British 78th and 34th US divisions, a total of 20,000 men. The naval units were under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Harold Burrough .

Casablanca

American landing forces in North Africa

The landing in Morocco was a purely American affair. The troops of the Western Task Force (Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, USA ) were shipped directly from military bases on the east coast of the USA ( Western Naval Task Force , Rear-Adm. H. Kent Hewitt , USN ). They landed on November 8, 1942 at three points: Safi (→ Operation Blackstone ), Fedala (→ Operation Brushwood ) and Mehedia - Port Lyautey (→ Operation Goalpost ). Landing began before dawn. There was no preliminary bombing because of the assumption that the French would not offer any resistance.

The landing in Safi was successful. The landing was carried out without cover fire in the hope that the French would then offer no resistance. When the transport ships were shot at by the coastal artillery, the escort ships returned fire. By the time Commanding General Harmon arrived, French snipers had locked Allied stormtroopers (most of them first time fighting) on ​​the beaches. The landing was delayed. Carrier aircraft destroyed a French convoy of trucks in support of the defenders. Safi capitulated on the afternoon of November 8th. On November 10, the remaining defenders were overthrown and the main train of Harmon's forces advanced to siege Casablanca.

Around Lyautey the landing forces were unsure of their position and the second wave was delayed. This gave the defenders time to organize their resistance and the subsequent waves had to go ashore under artillery fire . Finally, with the help of air support, the first targets could be taken.

In the Fedala area , where the largest landing took place with 19,000 men, the weather interrupted the landing. The landing beaches came under fire after daybreak. General Patton landed at eight o'clock, and the beachheads were secured during the day. The Americans surrounded the port of Casablanca on November 10th and the city surrendered an hour before the decisive assault was due to begin. Patton's troops entered the city without encountering any resistance.

In general, apart from the coastal batteries, the French resistance in Morocco was sporadic. The French Navy , which was massively represented in Casablanca only a few minutes from the landing section, attacked the US unit with a light cruiser, destroyers and submarines; their attack was repulsed. The French light cruiser Primauguet was badly damaged, the destroyers Fougueux and Boulonnais sank, and the large destroyer Albatros had to hit the beach to avoid sinking. The Americans included eight sunk or badly damaged French submarines and several ships that were badly damaged in port.

Oran

The landing forces were divided into three beaches, two west of Oran and one east of the city. The landing on the westernmost beach was delayed because of a French convoy that showed up as the deminers were clearing a swath. Some delays, confusion and damage to the DropShips were caused by the unexpectedly shallow water and sandbanks; no reconnaissance units had previously been dropped on the beaches. The beach had previously only been observed from submarines with periscopes , a procedure that was abandoned in later invasions.

An attempt to drop US Army Rangers directly in the port to prevent destruction and ship sinking failed when the two destroyers with the landing force were stopped by the crossfire of French warships. French ships left the port and attacked the invasion fleet, but were sunk or pushed back against the coast.

French coastal batteries and the invasion fleet had exchanges of fire several times during November 8th and 9th, with Vichy French troops beginning to defend Oran and the surrounding area. Heavy fire from the British naval artillery resulted in the surrender on November 9th.

For the first time, the American MI Esso fog machine was used, which fogged 2.5 km² within 10 minutes.

Algiers

In the early hours of November 8th, 400 resists , supported by an American vice-consul, launched the coup in Algiers : the small force under the command of José Aboulker , Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie , Bernard Karsenty , Roger Carcassonne and Colonel Germain Jousse arrested the majority of the Vichy military and civilian authorities at night and occupied the key positions including the switchboard, the radio station, the governor's palace, the prefecture, the staff headquarters, the headquarters of the 19th Corps of Vichy French troops and the coastal artillery of Sidi Ferruch. The poorly equipped Resistance fighters kept their opponents in check for 15 hours, which made it possible for the Allies to encircle the city.

Admiral François Darlan was surprised by the Allied landing in North Africa. He was arrested along with General Alphonse Juin , the Vichy-French commanding officer for North Africa, by a handful of students from the Ben Aknoun Lyceum, commanded by the reserve cadet Pauphilet. Darlan managed to return to the Admiralty, which he commanded to resist the Allies. Liberated by the Mobile Guard , he sent a telegram to Vichy the following morning, in which he demanded a bombardment by the German Air Force on the Allied troop transports in the Algiers area.

The actual invasion was carried out by the US 34th Infantry Division with one brigade from the British 78th Division, while the other brigade acted as a reserve. General Ryder , commander of the 34th Division, was given command of the first wave because it was believed that the French would be kinder to the Americans than to the British. The landing was split across three beaches - two west of Algiers and one east. Some landing forces reached the wrong beaches, but this was meaningless as long as there was no French resistance, save for a few shots from the coastal batteries, which were quickly silenced by British commandos. A French commander openly welcomed the Allies.

The only fighting took place in the port of Algiers itself, where two British destroyers tried to drop some US rangers directly on the dock. Vichy French should be prevented from destroying port facilities and sinking ships. Heavy artillery fire kept one destroyer from landing, the other ran out a few hours later, leaving 250 men behind.

The landing forces advanced rapidly inland and by the afternoon a local ceasefire was agreed with the commander General Juin.

In the evening Darlan himself capitulated, but only for Algiers. Juin and Darlan refused to give an order to cease fires to the French in Oran and Morocco for three days. 1346 French and 479 Allies died, 1997 French and 720 Allies were wounded. On November 10, 1942, Darlan and Juin, under pressure from General Mark W. Clark and Dwight Eisenhower, ordered the ceasefire in Oran and on November 11th in Morocco.

After the battle

Political results

Eisenhower agreed in agreement with Roosevelt and Churchill for the establishment of the Vichy Admiral François Darlan as High Commissioner of French North Africa , which the Vichy regime with laws of the Pétain government - which among other things the Nazi Nuremberg Laws corresponded - restored and Democrats in concentration camps in the Sahara imprisoned. General Charles de Gaulle , who was passed over in this decision, reacted indignantly. This did not change after Darlan's assassination by the French resistance fighter Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle on December 24, 1942. General Henri Giraud , who had initially demanded the ultimate leadership of Operation Torch from the Allies in Gibraltar, had placed himself under Darlan and was there since November in Algiers without a specific task. He was an admirer of Marshal Pétain and rejected all democratic reforms. He had Bonnier de la Chapelle sentenced to death by a court martial and executed at 7.30 a.m. the next day. Giraud shocked the Americans when he ordered the arrest of the 27 Résistants who had previously enabled Eisenhower's troops to take Algiers. Roosevelt's representative, Robert Murphy , did not protest. The resists were interned in concentration camps in southern Algeria in the Sahara . American and British war correspondents alerted the home public to what they considered to be scandalous occurrences.

Despite the temporary restoration of the Vichy regime in Algiers under the American protectorate, the Résistance coup of November 8, 1942 had not only military but also political consequences (see also: Vichy regime in liberated Africa 1942 to 1943 ).

The Darlan-Giraud authority was initially called the "High Commissioner of France in Africa" ​​and was ruled by a self-proclaimed "Conseil Impérial" (Imperial Council), to which the French territories and armed forces in North Africa and French West Africa were subordinate. Initially resolutely “vichyistic”, the authority was gradually forced to increase the war effort against Germany, to democratize itself, to eliminate its principally vichy-friendly rulers and then to work with the French National Committee in London . The "Comité Français de la Liberation Nationale" (CFLN), which was initially run by Giraud and de Gaulle as equal presidents until de Gaulle outmaneuvered Giraud after a few months, emerged from the merger of the National Committee with the High Commissioner, against the resistance of President Roosevelt and formed an independent war government from France.

When Hitler learned that Admiral Darlan had surrendered and headed his own French authority under American supervision, he ordered the Anton company to occupy the previously “unoccupied” Vichy France.

Military consequences

Between November 8 and 10, the Vichy-French armed forces in Tunisia, under the command of General Georges Barré, left the entire country open to the Germans withdrawing from the Algerian border. The general received orders from General Juin to hold up until November 14th, but waited until the 18th before fighting the Germans. Then the French Tunisian Army, the so-called 19th Corps of approx. 60,000 men, fought despite their lack of equipment to keep the central Allied line of attack in the Tunisian mountains. For this purpose, they were equipped with American weapons and had to give back to the British the previously used British weapons, which they urgently needed themselves. The French were quickly supported by British troops. The British 1st Army was to the north and the VII US Corps to the south, while the French Sahara cavalry was supposed to attack the remains of Rommel's Africa Corps and General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim's 5th Panzer Army from the south.

After consolidation on French territory, the Allies moved to Tunisia. Forces of the British 1st Army under Lieutenant General Anderson reached Tunis before a counter-attack by German troops under the command of General Walther Nehring in Djedeida threw them back. In January 1943, German troops under Field Marshal Rommel withdrew from Libya westwards towards Tunisia.

The British 8th Army in the east, commanded by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery , stopped in the Tripoli area to allow reinforcements and increased the Allied dominance. In the west, the II. US Corps under Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall were attacked on February 14th at the Faid Pass and on February 19 at the Kasserin Pass . The Allied forces withdrew until reinforcements stopped the German advance on February 22nd.

British tanks at the port of Tripoli

General Harold Alexander arrived in Tunisia in late February to take command. The Wehrmacht attacked again on March 6, eastwards near Medenine , but were repulsed. Rommel asked Hitler to allow him a full retreat, but this was refused. On March 9, Rommel left Tunisia to be replaced by von Arnim, who had to spread his forces over more than 165 km in northern Tunisia.

These setbacks forced the Allies to consolidate their forces and develop their communications links and administrations so that they were able to support a major attack. The 1st Army and the 8th Army then attacked the Germans. Heavy fighting ensued, but the Allies, with their air and sea superiority from Egypt and Malta , but also from Algeria, cut off the Germans from supplies between Tunisia and Sicily . On May 6, British troops took Tunis and American forces reached Bizerta . On May 13th, the Axis forces surrendered in Tunisia. The desperate struggle of the trapped Germans, their Italian and a few remaining Vichy-French allies, who were largely cut off from supplies and reserves, lasted six months until 252,000 German and Italian soldiers surrendered to the Allies on May 11, 1943. 16,000 soldiers of free France were wounded in Tunisia alone.

See also

bibliography

Official war reports

  • Les Cahiers Français: La part de la Résistance Française dans les évènements d'Afrique du Nord. Commissariat à l'Information du Comité National Français, London, August 1943.

War correspondent

  • Melvin K. Whiteleather: Main street's new neighbors. JB Lippincott Co., Philadelphy PA et al. 1945.

Academic work on the events

  • José Aboulker, Christine Levisse-Touzé: November 8, 1942, les armées américaine et anglaise prennent Alger en quinze heures. In: Espoir. No. 133, 2002, ISSN  0223-5994 , pp. 11-65.
  • Yves Maxime Danan: La vie politique à Alger de 1940 à 1944 (= Bibliothèque de Droit Public. Vol. 53, ISSN  0520-0288 ). Pichon et Durand-Auzias, Paris 1963 (at the same time: Paris, university, dissertation, 1961).
  • Arthur Layton Funk: The politics of Torch. The Allied Landings and the Algiers Putsch, 1942. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence KS 1974, ISBN 0-7006-0123-6 .
  • George F. Howe: Northwest Africa. Seizing the initiative in the West. Reprinted edition. Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC, 1991.
  • Christine Levisse-Touzé: L'Afrique du Nord dans la guerre. 1939-1945. Albin Michel, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-226-10069-5 .
  • Henri Michel : François Darlan, Amiral de la Flotte. Hachette, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-01-235029-1 .

literature

  • Barbara Brooks Tomblin: With Utmost Spirit. Allied Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, 1942-1945. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington KY 2004, ISBN 0-8131-2338-0 .

Web links

Commons : Operation Torch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e cruiser. Two exciting documentary reports. Contains: Franz Kurowski : On all seas. Paul Schmalenbach: Heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen (= Heyne 02, Pavillon-Taschenbuch 36). Paperback edition. Heyne, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-15788-5 , pp. 344-349.
  2. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison : History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Volume 2: Operations in North African Waters. October 1942 - June 1943. University of Illinois Press, Urbana IL 2001, ISBN 0-252-06972-2 , pp. 99-111.