Carrying The Torch

Eighty-three years ago - to be precise, between November 8 and November 16, 1942 - the first joint Anglo-American amphibious beach landings of the Second World War were launched. This also marked the first major blooding of the Americans in combat against the Axis powers - not in Europe but in the Vichy French-occupied North African territories of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The landings were codenamed Operation Torch and, though a vast flotilla of ships and landing craft (300 warships and almost 400 transports) was required to get over 100,000 men ashore, the ensuing bitterly fought 6-month campaign is much less well known than D-Day and the 1944 battle for Normandy or even the painfully slow conquest of Sicily and Italy that followed Torch in the summer of 1943. Essentially, the campaign was a compromise hammered out against a backdrop of Soviet pressure on the Western allies to start a second front in Europe. The British felt (rightly) that landings in mainland Europe (favoured by the US top brass) were simply not feasible as early as 1942: at its most basic, the Allies just didn't have enough shipping for the job. The decision to go for Torch was made almost unilaterally by Roosevelt, as a sop to Stalin and to concede to Churchill's strategic preoccupation with the Mediterranean and attacking Hitler's 'soft underbelly' from the south. One of the unknowns at the start of the campaign was whether the Vichy French would resist. In July 1940, following the fall of France and fearing the Germans would commandeer the French fleet, the British had sunk and damaged several French battleships in port, killing over 1300 French sailors. As a result, Roosevelt insisted that no British troops take part in the initial Torch landings. But in the event Vichy's forces did put up stiff resistance, much to the amazement of many American soldiers who assumed the French would be friendly. The US troops (who made up three-quarters of the total invasion force) had significant shortcomings: most had been in the army for less than three years, a good number for less than three months. Early on, a string of calamities showed poor American leadership and inept tactics, ensuring heavy casualties. However, the Americans learned quickly from their mistakes (a pattern repeated in other theatres they fought in, notably in the Pacific), and by May 1943, with Morocco and Algeria conquered, the Allied campaign ended in Tunisia, where the British and American armies of Torch met up with Montgomery's 8th Army, fresh from its successful sweep across Libya pursuing Rommel's Afrika Corps. The final surrender at Tunis of 200,000 German and Italian troops can be compared (and was by Goebbels) to the German capitulation at Stalingrad the previous February - though, to be accurate, twice as many German divisions were destroyed at Stalingrad. Arguably, though, Torch and Tunis marked the beginning of the Allied turnaround in the war in the West: Hitler had now lost the strategic initiative and Mussolini's Italian empire lay in ruins, along with the delusions of many Italians (Italy would surrender to the Allies in September 1943). Equally significant, the United States had proved itself and confirmed that going forward it would be the dominant partner in the Anglo-American alliance - not least for its astonishing capacity to produce the resources necessary to win a protracted war. The names of those Anglo-American commanders - Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Montgomery and Alexander - who had been at the helm during the North African campaign launched by Torch would remain in post till the end of the war in Europe to become household names. Last but not least, maybe Torch saved the Western allies from a disastrously premature D-Day in northern Europe, deferring that greater gamble until the odds had improved.

American troops make landfall in Algeria in Operation Torch (http://inspiredpencil.com). This looks like a stroll in the park, but some beach landings met fierce resistance: at Oran on 8 November two troop transports were struck by French shore fire, killing half of the men and wounding almost all the rest.

If you think you know about WW1 and WW2, it's time to think again

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