Operation Torch (aka the North Africa landings) landed Allied troops in French Morocco and Algeria on 8 November 1942 with the aim of removing German and Italian forces from North Africa. The first jointly-planned Allied operation of the Second World War (1939-45), Torch overcame difficulties such as the testing logistics of shipping troops directly from the United States and Britain and the large presence of Vichy French forces in North Africa, but the landings were ultimately successful, establishing the region as a launchpad for a future invasion of Italy.
The Importance of North Africa
Right from the start of WWII, both the Axis powers of Germany and Italy were interested in controlling North Africa because a presence there would help protect shipping in the Mediterranean and provide support for such campaigns as the attacks on enemy-held Crete and Malta. The Allies, particularly Britain, had the same strategic interest but were, in addition, anxious to protect the vital Suez Canal and the Middle East oil fields. In addition, in the early years of the war, North Africa remained the only place where Britain could fight a land war against the Axis powers and so hopefully gain much-needed victories that would encourage the British people after the debacle of the Dunkirk Evacuation and the horrors of the London Blitz. Here in the great desert plains of Libya and Egypt, then, a series of battles were fought, which became known as the Western Desert Campaigns (June 1940 to January 1943).
The Desert War became something of a pendulum affair. First, the Italians pushed across from their colony of Libya into British-held Egypt but were then pushed back by the British and its empire forces in Operation Compass (December 1940 to February 1941). The German army arrived in February 1941 with superior armour, weapons, and training compared to both the Italians and the Allies. Axis forces in Africa came under the command of General Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) who proceeded to win a number of battles, notably the Battle of Gazala, which ended in the capture of the port of Tobruk in June 1942. Rommel was then held back at the First Battle of El Alamein (July 1942) and roundly defeated by the British Eighth Army led by General Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976) at the Second Battle of El Alamein (October-November 1942). Rommel was obliged to retreat back to Tunisia. Without sufficient supplies, Rommel recommended to Adolf Hitler, who was wholly preoccupied with the Russian Front, that North Africa be abandoned, but he was ordered to continue the desert campaign as best he could.
The Allied commanders, in sharp contrast to Rommel, were keener than ever to control North Africa as they realised this region could be used as a platform for a full invasion of southern Europe, in particular, Sicily and the Italian mainland. Such a plan would fulfil a long-made promise to their ally Russia that there would be a second front to the war after the Eastern Front had opened in the summer of 1942. In order to finally remove Axis forces from North Africa, then, a massive and complex joint landing operation was months in the planning: Operation Torch.
The Vichy French
In 1942, an invasion of France was still considered beyond the logistical capabilities of the Allies, although several US commanders still wanted to try. Other commanders preferred to concentrate on the Pacific War, but, in the end, the landings in North Africa received the green light. Although Torch would be on a much smaller scale than the D-Day Normandy landings of 1944, the operation would be a good opportunity to gain invaluable experience in conducting an amphibious landing using the services of various nations. Further, at this time, US troops had no battle experience, and so Torch would provide an easier test than an invasion of well-defended northern Europe.
A key stumbling block to the plan was the question of how the Vichy French forces in North Africa would react. Since the fall of France in 1940 and the establishment of the Axis-friendly Vichy government (so-called because its government was based in the town of that name), Vichy French forces in North Africa had promised to defend such territories as French Morocco and French Algeria against any Allied attacks. To help ensure the French would, at the very least, not interfere with Torch, a French general was taken to North Africa by submarine. General Henri-Honoré Giraud (1879-1949) was a strong opponent of Germany, but, in the end, he was a poor choice since he procrastinated and refused to aid the Allies because he wanted nothing to do with either British forces or General de Gaulle (1890-1970), then the recognised leader of the Free French but in exile in Britain. The French attitude to Britain was largely hostile. The British Dunkirk Evacuation and the British attacks in Syria and on the French Navy (to prevent it from falling into enemy hands) at Mers-el-Kébir had not been forgotten or forgiven. In addition, the Vichy troops in North Africa refused to recognise Giraud as their leader, and Giraud was himself uncooperative when he learned that he would not be made commander-in-chief of all Allied forces in North Africa. In another diplomatic avenue, secret negotiations had been conducted with another prominent Frenchman, Major-General Charles Mast. Mast gave assurances the French response to the landing would be muted. The Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein, which forced the remaining Axis troops to retreat to Libya, did much to convince both the army and air force of the Vichy French that the Allies were going to be the ultimate winners in this particular theatre of the war. The Vichy French Navy, though, had other ideas. In summary, although a great effort was made, the pre-invasion diplomatic manoeuvres achieved very questionable results: some Vichy forces might not fight the Allies, others certainly would.
The Landings
The Allied Expeditionary Force which landed in North Africa, being mostly American, was commanded by Lieutenant-General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969). The second-in-command was Major-General Mark Clark (1896-1984). General James Doolittle commanded the Allied Western Air Force. Below these commanders was a range of British officers ensuring what Eisenhower called "a single nation" task force (Dear, 634). The objective of Operation Torch was to land in French Morocco and French Algeria, defeat the German-Italian armies, and ensure the Allies controlled the entirety of North Africa from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.
The principal landing sites of Torch were Casablanca (Western Task Force), Oran (Central Task Force), and Algiers (Eastern Task Force), although each force had multiple landing targets. The commanders of the task forces attacking these respective targets were Major-General George Patton (1885-1945), Major-General Lloyd Fredendall, and Major-General Charles Ryder. The Western Task Force came directly from the United States while the other two sailed from Britain. All three task forces were to be supported by air attacks from over 1,000 Allied aircraft. The idea after landing was for the task forces to link up and push eastwards to Tunisia where they would meet the British Eighth Army, coming from Egypt. As a result, the remaining Axis forces would be sandwiched between two Allied armies. The total landing force of Torch was around 110,000 men, and they had a naval escort of some 650 ships. The Western Task Force consisted of around 35,000 troops. The Central Task Force had 39,000 men. The Eastern Task Force had 33,000 men (23,000 British and 10,000 US troops). The Vichy French could field around 130,000 men.
In order to ensure that the French resistance was at a minimum, both the Western and Central task forces were to be composed entirely of US military personnel, at least in the first waves. Despite this plan not to antagonise the Vichy French, the air and naval elements of the landing operation to the east remained mostly British. In the end, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was correct in his suspicions it made no difference, once stating that he did not "wholly share the American view that either they were so beloved by Vichy or we so hated as to make the difference between fighting and submission" (Liddell Hart, 265).
The three assault fleets reached Africa without any great losses thanks to Allied air and naval superiority in the Mediterranean. Another 250 merchant ships, which carried the supplies for the landings, had already reached the North African coast. The landings came at dawn on 8 November and, thanks to tight security, were a surprise to the French. Just like D-Day 1944, the amphibious attack was supported by a naval bombardment from US and British warships and by parachute troops whose objective was to land behind the enemy lines where they would take over enemy airfields and cause general disruption to communications and supplies. Also like D-Day 1944, the landings suffered problems such as mist-timed landings and overloaded landing craft which were wrecked in the heavy seas off Casablanca (a point which had been raised by British military intelligence). This was all to be expected, though. Patton had stated the day before the landing: "Never in history has the navy landed an army at the planned time and place. But if you land us anywhere within fifty miles of Fedala and within one week of D-day, I'll go ahead and win" (Liddell Hart, 270). The navy did rather better than that, and the surprise factor ensured that serious Vichy resistance, which was given at Mehdia and Oran (where the paratroopers had landed 40 miles / 65 km away instead of right next to the port), came too little, too late. Thanks to General Mast, Algiers, with the exception of the coastal battery at Cap Matifou, was taken without serious resistance.
The landings had been kept almost too secret – De Gaulle, for example, had no idea it was happening until after the event. The total surprise meant that the Allied-friendly French had no time to organise any serious help for the landings. Nevertheless, Oran was taken on the second day of the operation. On 10 November, the third major objective, Casablanca, was taken thanks to a general ceasefire ordered by the Vichy commander Admiral François Darlan (1881-1942). This came in the nick of time as Patton was determined to attack Casablanca; US dive bombers had already taken off, and the US Navy gunners had the port in their sights. Patton marched into Casablanca on his 57th birthday. The French ceasefire was ultimately applied to the whole of French Morocco and Algeria. The surrender was countermanded by an Axis decree, but it was too late as many pro-Vichy commanders and officials had already been rounded up. The situation remained fluid as Giraud did not prove anywhere near as popular or influential as the Allies had hoped. The confusion was not helped by Vichy duplicity back in France where leaders were anxious not to antagonise their German overlords but also, in many cases, were secretly glad to find a possible way of getting rid of them. Confusing orders and communications left everyone wondering what would happen next.
1,400 US troops and 700 French troops were killed during the Torch landings. All the objectives had been reached. The Allied commanders now had the problem of ensuring their logistics kept up with their rapidly advancing troops.
The Axis Reaction
The Vichy government in France broke off diplomatic relations with the USA as a consequence of the landings, declared the local ceasefire illegal, and invited its German allies to conduct air attacks in North Africa. German and Italian forces then took over airfields in Tunisia and began landing their own troops there, some 17,000 through November. In effect, North Africa was now cut into three slices, with the western and eastern slices under Allied control and the central, much slimmer slice occupied by two Axis armies, one guided from afar by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring (1885-1960) and another, very much led on the ground, by Field Marshal Rommel. Both commanders proved excellent at using what little resources they had. Rommel's position was unenviable as both his front and rear were under threat, but he was determined to exact a high price if the Allies were to gain total control of the region he had fought so long to control himself. Meanwhile, back in France, the Axis powers invaded and took over former Vichy territory, including Corsica, from 11 November. This action released many Vichy commanders in North Africa (and in France and its foreign territories) from their uncertainty as to who exactly to support. The French naval fleet at Toulon was scuppered, frustrating both the Allies and Axis powers that wished to use it against the enemy.
The North Africa Campaign was now in full swing, but taking Vichy ports in Operation Torch was an entirely different military task compared to defeating the vastly experienced and well-equipped German troops in Tunisia, which included the famed Afrika Korps. The Axis powers might now have been cornered, but there was still some fighting left in them, in fact, another six months' worth of resistance.
The Battle for Tunisia
The Axis armies had to hold on to Tunis or their supply line would be cut. Another problem was to ensure the Allies did not split the two Axis armies. These objectives were achieved as the Allies were obliged to wait for better weather and reinforcements as 1942 came to a close. The Allies were attacked in northern Tunisia and even defeated at the Kasserine Pass in February 1943. Axis tanks surprised the Allies by operating well in areas thought too mountainous for the effective use of armour. Rommel's offensive was then halted by the interference of the Italian High Command, to whom he was obliged to report. Short-term goals were preferred over gaining a longer-term strategic advantage, and so the Allies were permitted to re-enter the contest for Tunisia. Meanwhile, the British Eighth Army led by Montgomery was approaching the Mareth Line, a series of defensive positions located in the south of Tunisia. These defences were first built by the French but were now occupied by the Axis army. This army was now led by Marshall Giovanni Messe (1883-1968) since Rommel had been promoted to commander-in-chief of Group Africa. Meanwhile, the Allied command structure had become fractured and was only repaired by the appointment of the experienced General Harold Alexander (1891-1961), effectively Eisenhower's deputy and the commander in the field of all Allied forces in North Africa. The Allies won the Battle of Medenine (March 1943), and Rommel, who was by then quite ill, returned to Germany in March 1943; he would never fight again in Africa. Axis forces, lacking sufficient supplies and material thanks to a tight naval blockade, were entirely driven out of North Africa by May 1943. The campaign had cost 76,000 Allied casualties, but the Allies had finally secured a platform from which they could attack Axis-occupied Europe through Italy, what Churchill had described as "the underbelly of the Axis" (Holland, 430). At long last, with El Alamein, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the successful North African landings, the tide of the war was turning in the Allies' favour.
