200: The North African Campaign: Desert Rats, the Desert Fox, & Operation Torch

It's an early Wednesday morning, July 3rd, 1940, and Captain Cedric Holland has a stern, tense face as his vessel. The Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Foxman, cuts through the Mediterranean Sea, making its way to Al-Mars-el-Kibir, Algeria. Well, currently, that's Mers-el-Kibir, French Algeria. See, for nearly a century, the French have considered this North African region just across the Mediterranean more than a simple colony within its vast worldwide empire. Rather, it's held to be an integral part of France itself. French Algeria is home to the French Foreign Legion, And right now, the bulk of the mighty French Navy now lying at anchor in the harbor of Meurs-el-Kébir. And it's the fleet's presence in this French-Algerian harbor that brings us to Cedric Holland's mission. A mission that the trim, calm captain with a sense of discipline that exudes from his angular, serious face is very much not looking forward to. It's now around 9 a.m. The foxhound is entering Meurs-el-Kébir's waters. Cedric sends word to the French Navy's highest-ranking officer here, Vice-Admiral Marcel Boulon-Jean-Soul, asking for an audience. The French Vice-Admiral knows Cedric fairly well from his days as British naval attaché in Paris. But as a man of propriety, he won't receive an officer at such a significantly lower rank than himself. That said, the Vice-Admiral won't leave the request unanswered either. Aboard his flagship, the Dunkerque, he sends his flag aid, Lieutenant Bernal Dufey speak with the British captain instead. Yet another old friend of Cedric's. Yes, also from those same bygone days in Paris. Lieutenant Dufey is quickly drawn into the discussion. But this visit is a far cry from reminiscing on old memories. As they talk, Cedric fulfills this mission that he hates so very much. Delivering an austere ultimatum. Here's the deal. The British government is deeply concerned about the French Navy in the wake of the new French government, the Vichy regime, signing an armistice with Nazi Germany last month. Although the Vichy regime is led by the great war hero, Marshal Philippe Pétain, it only exists at the pleasure and in the shadow of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. And given Adolf's track record of broken diplomatic promises, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and other British government leaders don't trust the Nazis won't use the French fleet to attack the United Kingdom. Thus, Cedric is now presenting his old friend with a message for Vice Admiral Marcel Bruno Jeansoul from Royal Navy Vice Admiral Sir James Somerville. It's written as kindly as possible, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a brutally hard message. The French fleet must join the Allies, sit out the war, or be destroyed. It reads, in part, to Admiral Jean Soull, it is impossible for us, your comrades, up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German or Italian enemy. We are determined to fight on until the end. And if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer, we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose, we must make sure that the best ships of the French navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty's government have instructed me to demand that the French fleet now at Mez al-Kabir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives. The message then offers four alternatives. One, join the fight against the Germans and Italians. Two, sail for British ports to sit out the war. Three, sail for the West Indies to sit out the war. Or four, sink his own fleet. And if the Frenchman doesn't choose one of these options immediately, Then, the British Vice-Admiral clarifies, I have the orders from His Majesty's government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German or Italian hands. Translation, the Royal Navy will attack and destroy his fleet. Today. Good God. With the gravity of the situation sinking in, Vice Admiral Marcel Bournon-Jean Soule tries to contact Vichy France's Admiral of the Fleet, François Dallin. No dice, but he gets François's subordinate, who, understanding only that the British are demanding surrender, conveys that French ships in the Mediterranean will rally to his support. Meanwhile, propriety is out the window. For the next few hours, he and Captain Cedric Holland have a long talk aboard the Dunkirk. But all the Vice Admiral's assurances that his fleet was effectively being demilitarized already and would never fall into German hands are for naught. The sun is setting. It's too late. Originally sailing from Gibraltar, a strike force from Vice Admiral Sir James Somerville's 27 vessel Force H begins its attack on French vessels. in Merce-el-Kébir's harbor around 6 p.m. His flagship, battlecruiser HMS Hood, along with the battleships HMS Resolution and HMS Valiant, unleash their deadly guns. The destruction of French ships in life is nothing short of catastrophic. A magazine on the French battleship Bretagne explodes. She capsizes within minutes, taking 977 Frenchmen to their watery graves. Vice Admiral Marcel Brunon-Jean Soule's great flagship, the battleship Dunkerque, suffers four hard hits and is disabled. She runs aground. Another battleship, the Provence, and the destroyer, Mogador, are also heavily damaged and soon beached near the coast. All of this in a mere ten minutes. When the British guns fall silent, the French battleship, Strasbourg, and five destroyers swiftly set sail to escape the harbor. Other French warships join them, but as much as Sir James Somerville might want to let them go, he can't allow that. With a lump in his throat, he orders aircraft from the carrier HMS Ark Royal to pursue the fleeing French warships. The British attack from the air continues until the last rays of light disappear on the western horizon. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. When all is said and done, Britain's July 3, 1940 attack on the French fleet at Merce-el-Kébir and neighboring Oran in French Algeria left 1,299 Frenchmen dead. Nor was that the sum total of Britain's move against the French Navy. That same day, French warships in the English harbors of Plymouth and Portsmouth were seized. Two died as a result of the British seizing the French submarine, Surcouf, one British and one French. Cool-headed naval officers on both sides managed to keep the neutralization of French ships bloodless in the British-controlled harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. But later that week, July 8th, the British do serious damage to the French battleship Richelieu at Dakar in French West Africa, or as you and I know it, Senegal. The French are devastated. A long-time Anglophobe, Admiral of the Fleet François Dallon immediately orders his crippled navy to attack British warships and seize British merchant ships. Vichy France's head of state, Marshal Philippe Pétain, revokes those orders, but oh, is the relationship damaged. Even the leader of the Free French, Charles de Gaulle, or anglicized as Charles de Gaulle, now in exile in London, struggles hard to swallow this bitter pill. Yet, he does. He'll continue to work with the British. And two decades later, when emotions have subsided a bit, the Frenchman will even say that he understands. That, were he in Winston Churchill's shoes, fighting for his nation's long-shot survival in a war that appeared all but over as Nazi Germany held a conquered continent, he'd have done the same thing. I realize I nodded to this British attack back in episode 189, but it bore an in-depth telling today. The reason is that today's tale requires understanding the complications of France's position as a defeated British ally turned Nazi collaborating regime that nonetheless still has a massive colonial empire. An empire that includes the very place where the Americans are going to take their first major swing at the Nazi empire, North Africa. To capture all the intricacies at play here, we'll begin with a basic primer in France's colonization of North Africa, which includes moving from west to east, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. We'll also note Italian colonization in Libya and British control in Egypt. With this full context, we'll be on solid ground to follow why Benito Mussolini has a presence in North Africa, how he botches it so badly that the soon-to-be infamous Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel, and his Africa Corps have to come bail him out, and how the Allies' pincer movement, consisting of British forces coming from Egypt and mostly American forces landing on, then advancing from French North Africa, will ultimately put the squeeze on the axis. All that said, ready to see our boy Dwight D. Eisenhower lead the amphibious landing, codenamed Operation Torch, and Vichy administered French North Africa, then team up with his fellow tank lover, George Patton, to battle their way east across these dunes-strewn and arid lands as Bernard Montgomery leads his British and Commonwealth forces west in a combined attack on the Axis? Excellent. Then let us begin with France's first colonial step in North Africa, taken in the region more than a century before World War II. Rewind. In the summer of 1830, France's deeply unpopular King Charles X makes an odd play to stave off revolution. He sends his military across the Mediterranean to conquer the nominally Ottoman-controlled North African city of Algiers. The king and his prime minister, Jules de Polignac, think this will help the regime's popularity. They even frame the invasion as a matter of national honor, pointing to an incident three years earlier in which the city's ruler, the Dei, slapped the French consul with a fly whisk during a dispute over a nearly three-decade-old debt. one taken out by a French revolutionary government that the restored French king has zero intent of pain. Well, the ploy fails. The French people want representation, not conquest. But even as France's second, or rather July, revolution rips up the cobblestones of Paris and sweeps Charles X out to usher the liberal-minded citizen king Louis-Philippe in, the 37,000-strong French force sent to Algeria's shores have already done the job. As of July 1830, France, not the Ottoman Empire, rules Algiers. This French foothold in North Africa only grows. In a little less than two decades, France takes the whole of Algeria. As France's third revolution, the Revolution of 1848, gives rise to the Second Republic, this new government also designates Algeria's coastal regions as départements, or departments. This means that, at least on paper, Algeria isn't a colony anymore. It's an integral part of France, known as French Algeria. Citizens here vote and send representatives to the French legislature in Paris. But wait, who gets to be a citizen? European settlers, known as pieds noirs, certainly are, but most others, predominantly Muslims and Jews, are not. Well, until 1870, that is. As Napoleon III's Second Empire falls and the Third Republic begins, I know, the French change governments a lot, but this Third Republic is it for a while, I promise. The Camille Decree grants Algerian Jews citizenship, but just them, not Algerian Muslims. The Arabs and Berbers in these départements who want to vote, or rather vote fully, will have to renounce their status under Islamic law. Effectively, this means abandoning their faith, their identity. Few will. French rule also spreads east and west from French Algeria. To the east, the French use a Tunisian tribe raiding over the border as pretext to wrest Tunisia from Ottoman rule in 1881. It's made a protectorate, and skipping past the politics of the Africa-dividing Berlin Conference of 1884 that we covered in episode 128, as well as the hard diplomacy of the Algeciras Conference in 1906 that we touched on in episode 116, that same fate befalls Morocco to French Algeria's west. The Sultanate becomes a French protectorate in 1912. Now, France isn't the only colonial power, North Africa. To the east of Tunisia, Italy takes Libya in 1911, as we saw in episode 183's tale of the rise of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. At the same time, Britain rules in Egypt. The exact legal status of Britain's dominance here shifts over the years, but de facto rule began in 1882, and despite nominal independence in 1922, that will continue until 1952. Thus, by the time Adolf Hitler rises to power, the whole of North Africa is under European rule, and the entire western half is under French rule. Indeed, Morocco, Tunisia, and especially Algeria comprise a treasured region in the global French empire, an empire that stretches from the Caribbean across much of the African continent, Southeast Asia's Indo-Chinese peninsula and beyond. And that vast empire matters in the context of World War II. It raises important questions as the Nazi war machine blitzkriegs into France in May 1940 and as the French government flees leaving the perfectly timed clump of the Wehrmacht goose boots to echo through the almost empty streets of the capital that June, even if European or metropolitan France has fallen, could the French Empire carry the torch? Could the French government, its virtually untouched and fourth largest in the world navy, and what remains of its army, all evacuate to French Algeria, set up a new capital, and, with the help of colonial subjects like the half a million who fought for Le République during the First World War, continue the fight. Britain wishes France would, but this would require a level of global vision and risk tolerance far beyond current French leadership. Instead, the Third Republic collapses, and a new government, led by great war hero Marshal Philippe Pétain signs an armistice. If you remember episode 188's opening, you know what that armistice entails. But broadly, I'll remind you that it allows the Nazis to occupy northern and Atlantic coastal France, it makes POWs of the whole French army in Europe, and it permits Philippe Pétain to set up a government in the ski town of Vichy to administer metropolitan in France's unoccupied zone libre, or free zone, as well as administer the global French empire. And I say administer quite intentionally. Per the armistice, Vichy survives only at Germany's sufferance. That's why, embattled, lonely Britain takes such extreme action to neutralize the French navy, despite the armistice saying that it's out of the war. And this is why Adolf Hitler can focus his attention elsewhere. Indeed, Vichy's collaboration means Adolf doesn't have to worry about France fighting on from the colonies, be that nearby North Africa or elsewhere. And setting Charles de Gaulle and the Free French aside, the armistice is pretty successful. But the Fuhrer does have one worry down in North Africa, his errant ally, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. As we learned in episode 183, Benito's ideology, fascism, is an extreme nationalism that, among other things, glories an empire. It's with this line of thinking that Benito, or il Duce, aspires to make his modern fascist Italy into a new Roman empire. And in his fascist mind, that means his Roman empire needs to conquer the same Mediterranean territory that the historical Roman Empire of Antiquity held. That includes coasts of the Middle East and North Africa. But perhaps miffed that Adolf kept him in the dark as Germany gobbled up bits, pieces, then finally large swaths of continental Europe, Il Duce doesn't give the Fuhrer much of a heads up before sending his armies forth. And that's a problem for Adolf because it soon becomes apparent that his fascist ally is more an ideas guy who isn't actually very good at this whole empire building thing. In October 1940, Benito informs Adolf of the impending invasion. Fjord, we are on the march. Victorious Italian troops crossed the Greco-Albanian frontier at dawn today. But the attack goes badly. Downright awful. German control of the Balkans and the crucial oil fields of Axis-allied Romania are at stake. Basically, the Italian army falls so flat on its face that Adolf has no choice but to absorb the distraction of sending the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe to bail out Ilduce. Germany takes Greece by May of 1941, but only after diverting forces that Adolf would have preferred to use elsewhere. And this isn't even Benito's only screw-up. Around the same time as the Greek disaster, in September 1940, Italian forces march east from their North African colony of Libya and into British-controlled Egypt. Side note, of course, they march east. To the west is French North Africa, and like Germany, Italy has an armistice with France as well. The Italian attack against Egypt threatens to open a path to rich oil fields in the Middle East, and of course, seafaring Britain's great treasure, the Suez Canal. But as in Greece, Italian forces prove less than capable here. In fact, the Italians are losing ground. British forces not only push the Italian invasion back, but take much of eastern Libya, a region known as Cyrenaica. Adolf's frustrated. Seriously, with a friend like Benito, who needs enemies? El Duce is proving more of a hindrance than a help, as he not only fails to shore up Germany's southern flank, but needs Nazi forces to fight his battles too. And it's not like the Fuhr isn't busy. As we know from episode 188, the Battle of Britain might be settled, but the Luftwaffe isn't done with its bombing efforts. And as we know from the last episode, the Wehrmacht is gearing up for its secret invasion of the USSR, Operation Barbarossa. Meanwhile, German U-boats are busy seeking Allied ships in the Battle of the Atlantic. All that to say, the Nazi war machine has a lot going on, and Adolf has no time for Benito's shenanigans. So, he sends one of his most capable men to clean up Il Duce's mess in North Africa, Johannes Erwin Rommel, or anglicized Erwin Rommel. On one level, Erwin is a surprising choice. I mean, this clever, charismatic, and short General de Panzertruppe with a hard-lined face made his name humiliating Italians in World War I. back in the fall of 1917, in the eastern Italian Alps at Caporetto. Then-Lieutenant Erwin Rommel led a few companies in seizing Mount Matagior, while taking 9,000 Italian prisoners and suffering a total German loss of 6 dead and 30 wounded. Oof. In Italian, Caporetto still means a devastating loss, a complete disaster. I guess the Italians will just have to swallow their pride and hope he does the same to their now common enemy, the British. In February 1941, the first elements of Erwin Rommel's newly created Africa Corps, whose ranks will soon swell to 30,000 men, stream into Libya to reinforce the reeling Italians. This combined force quickly pushes back the British soldiers, a.k.a. the Tommies, and lays siege to Tobruk, a British-captured deep-water port near Libya's eastern border with Egypt. The determined Rats of Tobruk, a garrison made up of mostly Australians, hold their position for 231 days until the Eighth Army comes to relieve them. Then it's back and forth once more. The Brits push as far west as El Agela, then are forced back to Tobruk again. And then it's into Egypt once more, where the British and Commonwealth forces hold back Erwin Rommel, or rather the Desert Fox, as he's now known, at the First Battle of El Alame in July 1942. If it feels like you're watching a tennis match, you're not alone. The campaign in North Africa is colloquially known as the Ding Dong War. This is due, in no small part, to the difficulty of maintaining supply lines in the harsh and desolate climes of the desert, which makes being pushed back even a little necessitate falling back a whole lot more. As the Brits and the Germans chase each other back and forth across Italian Libya and British-held Egypt, Both sides litter North Africa's coast and Sahara Desert, with miles of barbed wire tumbleweeds, minefields, burned-out vehicles, and endless papers. Then, in August 1942, shrewd, sharp-faced Bernard Monti Montgomery takes command of the British 8th Army. Monti is the victor of the September battle at Alam al-Halfa in Egypt, and a very slow-and-steady-wins-the-race type of commander. And he does seem to be on to something. After all, Monty is beating back the Desert Fox's advances. Indeed, his British 7th Armored Division, aka the Desert Rats, are well dug in and ready for the next fight as the Second Battle of El Alamein begins. It's about 4 o'clock in the evening, October 28, 1942. We're in El Alamein, on the northern Mediterranean coastline of Egypt, where the 29-year-old Londoner Reginald Louis Krim is lying in a sandy desert-slit trench. A part of the British 7th Armored Division's 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, Reginald's company is situated on what he describes as a sort of long, straggling island of soft sand a few feet higher than the flat, firmer desert which stretches off to a distant horizon on every side. With their wounded in the safer, deeper trenches that the battalion has appropriated from Germans who once held this position, Reginald lies in the sand, dug as best as he can into this slit trench that offers him little protection from German artillery or the elements. As the sun beats down, he sweats into his army-regulated helmet and prays that the Germans don't notice or hit him. From his position, face down in the sand, lying doggo, as he puts it, Reginald sees smoldering, abandoned medium panzer tanks on three sides of his quote-unquote island. But he's got little time to observe this. Other tanks are quickly approaching. The Brits 57mm anti-tank cannons, aka six-pounders, that so bravely repelled the German panzer's advance this morning, are slowing down. Clearly, they're running low on ammunition. Then finally, they fall silent altogether. As they do, the panzers lurch forward. They're soon only 200 yards out, then 100 yards. Nevertheless, the company holds its position. But then, the Brit's heavy artillery, the 25-pounders, open fire. Reginald breathes a sigh of relief as these massive shells scream and pounce, forcing the German armor to withdraw. All except for one answer, that is. This lone, daring tank steadily advances spraying machine gun fire to clear its path. Reaching a mere 50 yards of distance from Reginald, the Panzer pauses. It should be a sitting duck, but the Brits' anti-tank guns are completely out of ammo. This bold German tank crew's gamble has paid off, and apparently it's paying off at Reginald's expense. Again creeping forward, this German monster spits machine gun fire as it comes right up to the British perimeter. The men there lie low, their rifles about as useless as spears. But that doesn't stop them from taking in. The Panzer halts once more. As it does, the Germans inside swing the guns around. An enormous blast explodes from its cannon, painfully jolting Reginald's tin hat. But thankfully, that's the only thing Reginald feels. It seems the panzer has somehow missed. Another round flies, likewise failing to find its mark. Processing this, the London-born soldier questions, maybe he can't sink his barrel onto a low enough plane. Nonetheless, Reginald shifts nervously in the sand, anxiously wondering if this next one will end his life. Suddenly, one of the British anti-tank operators, or an AT chap as they're known, crawls out of a trench and sprints through the flying bullets in sand toward one of the north-facing six-pounder British guns. Reginald is aghast. Surely this is a suicide mission. But the brave AT soldier continues on, removing the shell already in the breach of the wrong-facing gun, after which, as Reginald tells us, he calmly puts the shell in his own gun, takes steady aim, and fires. Immediately, there's an explosion from the Panzer, whether the jerry-gunner had fired again or the six-pounder found its mark. You can't tell, but the machine gun cuts out and the tank stays still. A strand of smoke issues from the turret, and minutes later, it starts to blaze. Thanks to this daring AT chap, Reginald's entire brigade is saved. The Second Battle of El Alamein is a resounding Allied victory. Well, British victory, though their ranks include five Americans. After British forces picked their way through Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's minefields, with millions of landmines protecting the Axis defensive position, areas that become known as Gardens of the Devil, the Desert Fox orders a retreat westward to avoid the complete destruction of his Panzer divisions. Had the battle gone the Germans' way, it's possible that an Einsatzgruppen, that is, a mobile killing squad, might have been sent to attack the Jewish population in North Africa and the British mandate for Palestine. We don't know to what extent Erwin Rommel would have been involved. His loyalty to Germany is clear, while the depth of his adherence to Nazism is something historians will debate until the end of time. But whatever the desert foxes' views, his loss thankfully means that these extermination plans never have a chance to come to fruition. The victory re-energizes the beleaguered British, not least because it was against such an intimidating foe. Just three months earlier, in Cairo, Egypt, Churchill had exclaimed, Rommel, Rommel, Rommel! What else matters but beating him? But winning a war, as we know, is far easier said than done, especially since desert warfare presents serious challenges to supply lines. Soldiers and tanks both need fuel, and the Sahara doesn't have much to offer an entire army, let alone two. Soldiers learn to subsist almost entirely on canned foods. Water and ammunition are both precious. The only two plentiful things are, one, the flies, which one Scottish officer describes as appalling. One couldn't raise a piece of bread to mouth without it becoming covered in flies. And two, the sand. After all, it's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. Sand gets in weapons, food, shoes, engines, you name it. It's inescapable. Meanwhile, troops are also worried about sunstroke and diseases like dysentery. In short, it's no picnic out here. And yet, Monty's quote-unquote rats and other soldiers are somehow succeeding. But sweet as this victory at the second battle of El Alamein is The fight in North Africa is far from over Quote Winston Churchill amid the battle's aftermath This is not the end It is not even the beginning of the end But it is perhaps the end of the beginning As we heard about in the previous episode, the big three, that is, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, and Soviet General Secretary and Dictator Joseph Stalin, have spent much of 1942 talking about opening a second front against the Nazis, and by late summer, they've decided to make that front a combined Anglo-American attack in North Africa With the British out of Egypt hitting from the east and a mostly American force striking from the west this pincer strike on the axis of North Africa should pay off in three ways. First, it will force the axis out of the region and open up the dangerous Mediterranean for more shipping. Second, allied control of North Africa should pave the way for boots on the ground in continental Europe, likely via Italy. And third, this action in the west ought to hamper Nazi efforts against the Soviets in the East. Leading the invasion force that will strike the Desert Fox and his Africa Corps from the West is a good friend of ours from the last episode, the U.S. Commanding General of the European Theater, now named Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in North Africa, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Under his command are 107,000 mostly American troops, making this invasion the first major American engagement in the Western theater of World War II. And their first step is an amphibious landing, codenamed Operation Torch. His forces will make landfall at three points, one along the Atlantic coast at Casablanca in the French protectorate of Morocco, and two others from within the Mediterranean at Oran and Algiers in French Algeria. Yes, their landing in French North Africa. And what of the French? Though not occupied by the Germans, French North Africa is, as we know, in the hands of the Nazi collaborationist Vichy French government. So how will their 125,000 troops in North Africa respond? Will these Frenchmen, allies of the British and Americans in the last World War, and engaged in the fight against Nazism until their government capitulated two years ago. Fight back? Will they tow the Vichy line? Or will they welcome the Allies as their brothers in arms, finally liberating them so they can fight to regain their homeland, like Charles de Gaulle's Free French? Hard to say, but given the painful memories of the Royal Navy's most recent and deadly visit with the French Navy, and the value in showing that the Americans are truly committed to the war at this point, perhaps it's best that the Yanks, not the Brits, be the first ones to knock on France's North African door. Yeah, good call. Meanwhile, a pamphlet distributed to the American troops about to participate in Operation Torch reflects Allied hopes of a warm reception. To quote it in part, it is the wish of the President that the first blow in this assault should be primarily American. We have come from afar to hit the common enemy, and we are determined to do our fullest share to liberate the victims of oppression. You'll be landing on the shores of a country whose people are our traditional friends. We are not after the conquest of territory, but are out to destroy our enemy. Millions of Frenchmen are going to see the point, no matter what their Nazified government tries to tell them. Close quote. With these optimistic words ringing in their ears, the American troops board their 350 warships and 500 transports, then sail for North Africa. They sail with the full ability to read Vichy French naval codes, thanks in part to Elizabeth or Betty Pack slash Thorpe. Now a spy for British intelligence, codenamed Cynthia, the stunning and charming woman, seduced the French press attache at the Washington, D.C. Embassy at some point earlier in this same year and convinced him to help her steal his government's code books so they could be copied. And so, cutting through the Atlantic, fully capable of understanding the French Navy's messages, The Americans begin their Operation Torch Landing on the French North African coast in the early morning hours of November 8, 1942. But how will the Yanks actually be received? Well, let's join the Western Task Force at Casablanca and find out. It's around 2.30 in the morning, November 9, 1942. Second Lieutenant Edward W. Wellman of the 204th Military Police Company is aboard the second of four landing craft bound for Beach Yellow, or Fidala, just to the north of Casablanca, on the coast of French Morocco. The 113 men on these four boats have been tasked with bringing order out of the chaos on the beaches. The salty spray gets in the men's eyes as they motor toward the appointed beacon, an oil tank fire on the shore. But between the challenges of spin drift and the dark, the transports are actually about 15 miles off course. They're heading right toward Casablanca Harbor, right where the French fleet lies at anchor. That guiding beacon they've been following is actually the French-like cruiser, Crimonger, burning brightly after being hit by American naval fire. Luckily, the men spot what they think is a U.S. destroyer. The first two landing crafts draw near, and Edward watches as a military policeman on the lead boat. Perhaps company commander Captain William H. Sutton tries to get the attention of someone on board. The second lieutenant hears a yell in return, but he doesn't understand what's being said. Maybe it's the loud waves? The MP hollers, We are American! The overture is met by a burst of machine gun fire. Okay, definitely not an American ship. And definitely not a friendly Frenchman. Only 15 yards away from the guns, Edward watches its shock and horror as bullets rip through the officer, killing him instantly. Realizing the futility of resisting a warship's fire from a wooden landing craft, the men know they must surrender to survive. But even as the soldiers in the first boat stand with their hands raised, some waving their torn undershirts, the unnamed French vessel opens fire again, this time with the three-inch shells. The second lieutenant looks around and sees, as he'll later recall, that the air was full of metal. Suddenly, the coxswain, who has been desperately, madly zigzagging the boat away from the attacking French warship, has his leg blown off. Another officer rises to take the wheel, but he too takes a bullet to the leg. The wooden boat is slowly becoming little more than shrapnel as a massive splinter flies into Edward's foot, reportedly taking the front of his boot and two toes. Still, he scrambles to the wheel, just as a shell hits the motor, coating the barely still floating boat and burning gasoline. There's nothing more to do. Edward orders his men into the water. Edward Wellman and the survivors of this fraught action amid the Operation Torch amphibious landing are quickly fished out of the water and taken prisoner. Meanwhile, the few who managed to swim through the oily waters to shore are pounced on by Moroccan police, until unnamed French civilians chase the officers away, then use their own coats to wrap the dripping, freezing Americans. Ugh, right there. You can see the conflict of Vichy and real French sympathies playing out on the beach. It's not clear what happens to this group of GIs, but at least they're not among the upwards of 30 men killed in the harbor today. Speaking of Vichy, the leader of this collaborationist regime, the great war hero, Marshal Philippe Etain, stands by the French Navy's response. He makes no apologies in a telegram to President Franklin Roosevelt. France and her honor are at stake. We are attacked. We shall defend ourselves. And so they do. The Vichy French fight fiercely at nearly every landing site. They're successful in part, as historian Rick Atkinson writes, because they, quote, intended not just to fight, but to fight with passion, close quote. They're also aided by unpredictable tides and American inexperience. Boats are overturned, men drown, critical supplies are left on ships, guns arrive without ammunition. Truly, some of these landings are, to use a soon-to-emerge military term, FUBAR. Commander-in-Chief Dwight D. Eisenhower and Deputy Commander Major General Mark W. Clark, are desperate to find a French commander who can stand down their Nazi-aligned Vichy countrymen. With neither Winston Churchill nor FDR being fond of Charles de Gaulle, Ike turns to General Henri Giraud. Henri, or Henry, is promising, but he arrives at Gibraltar from France with a penchant for speaking in the third person and a briefcase full of his own plans for defeating Germany. He believes he'll be the supreme Allied Commander in North Africa. After hours of unproductive conversation with Ike and others, the Frenchman departs, stating, in the third person, naturally, Giraud will be a spectateur in this affaire. Ike is not heartbroken. Not after that waste of a breath of a conversation. In fact, he found Henri Giraud so difficult, the Cansan Darkly jokes that they should arrange, quote, a little airplane accident, close quote, for the Frenchman. Again, he's kidding. Mostly kidding. Anyhow, on to option two. A man in Algiers purely by coincidence on a visit to his sick son. Vichy's Admiral of the Fleet. Jean-Louis Xavier François Dallon. Yes, we met this Admiral amid and after the British attack at Merce-et-Cabir. The naval officer has no love for the Brits. But with the Allies closing in, he's willing to play ball now. And that's just what Ike needs. A ball player. The American commander desperately wants to end French opposition so he can get on with marching toward the French protectorate of Tunisia to hit Erwin Rommel's forces, already contending with the British out of Egypt. So, in the name of pragmatism, Ike strikes a deal with the Vichy Admiral on November 22nd. François Darlon orders a ceasefire and in return is recognized as the Supreme French Authority in French North and West Africa under the title High Commissioner. The world is shocked and dismayed by this arrangement, or the Darlan deal, as it comes to be known. See, François Darlan is a notoriously shameless Nazi collaborator. In France, he has a hand in mass arrests of anti-Vichy citizens and the persecution of French Jews. To make matters worse, he also directly provided Erwin Rommel's troops with supplies. Now in Africa, the admiral continues to uphold anti-Semitic laws and imprisons many who aided the Allied invasion. To most, he's a willing Nazi collaborator, an opportunist at best, and the circumstances of this flip to the Allies doesn't lessen that image. Summarizing the sentiments of many among continental government leaders in exile in London, American journalist Edward R. Murrow asks, what the hell is this all about? Are we fighting Nazis or sleeping with them? Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt feel a sense of embarrassment, though both support Ike's strategic play, calling the move justified by the stress of battle. But the Nazi collaborator doesn't get to enjoy his position as High Commissioner for long. On December 24th, an Algerian-born Frenchman, that is, the Pied Noir, 20-year-old anti-Vichy Ferdinand Boulnier de la Chapelle, puts two bullets in François Dallon, one in the head and one in the chest. I can't say the Allied leaders are too upset. A diplomat bursts into Deputy Commander Mark Clark's office, exclaiming, They shot the little son of a bitch! Mark sees Francois' death, quote, like the lancing of a troublesome oil, close quote. Well then, as for Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower, he simply pivots back to Henri Giraud, making him the new High Commissioner. Ike then returns his energy to the next goal in this North African invasion, defeating Erwin Rommel's Nazi forces. And for that, as 1942 turns into 1943, it's time to head farther east, toward Nazi-held territory in the French protectorate of Tunisia. It's just before 2.45 p.m., February 15, 1943. We're at a brand-new American M4 Sherman tank, approaching the town of Sidi Bouzine in western French Tunisia. 29-year-old Lieutenant Colonel James D. Alger is leading a battalion of wet-behind-the-ears American tank crews on a counterattack, chasing Nazi soldiers back toward town. Even though the M4s are new, Tunisian dust and sand have already worked their way into every crevice, and all five men inside James' tank, steep. Yes, terribly uncomfortable. Nonetheless, the focused battalion commander keeps a vigilant eye out for anything suspicious. So far, he sees little more than local Arabs plowing. All of a sudden, James spies a flare cutting through the sky above Sidi Bouzid. More follow. He radios into command a sighting of dust plumes, indicating enemy tanks approaching on both sides of the column. Almost immediately, brown geysers of soil and smoke rise, the result of enemy artillery slamming into the hard, sun-cooked earth. Then the German panzers draw close. They begin firing their tank-piercing rounds. As this destruction and death plays out, the locals, perhaps long used to living amid European encroachments, including war, go on plowing, seemingly unbothered by the explosive tank and artillery battle happening all around them. Most of James' battalion of tanks is bombed into oblivion in an onion. men are trapped inside the burning vehicles unable to escape cooking and suffocating they die within minutes a colonel watching the plumes of smoke for miles away radios in what does the battalion need james replies still pretty busy situation is hard a moment later his own tank is hit along with two other surviving crewmen james scrambles out of the hatch and runs for his life across the desert. The trio become POWs within the next half hour, and to number among the very few survivors of this otherwise almost entirely obliterated battalion. This brutal burning barrage at Sidi Bouzid marks the beginning of the Battle of Kasserine Pass, where fuzz-cheeked American GIs learn hard lessons fast, lessons the British have long committed to memory. Indeed, even as the advancing allies muster the strength to repel Erwin Rommel's Africa Corps, their British friends take to calling the Americans, our Italians. Yeah, given how badly the Italian army has been doing, I think you get the drift. Ouch. And so, no disrespect to Ike, a tank master, as we know from the last episode, but it's clear that the American Second Corps needs to shape up fast. And who better to whip them into shape than Ike's fellow tank expert and longtime friend, the one and only, George S. Patton. Major General George Patton, the 57-year-old, hot-headed, prone to bellowing tank evangelist, Landed in Casablanca during Operation Torch, but has been handling logistics thus far and is yet to see any real action. Frustrated, George writes home, I wish I could get out and kill someone Okay point taken George You eager to get into the fight which as we know from the last episode is an impatience for action that Dwight Eisenhower can appreciate. Well, George's moment has come in the disastrous aftermath of Castorane. On March 6th, 1943, George Patton gladly takes command of the unseasoned, undisciplined Second Corps. And a week later, he's promoted to the temporary rank of Lieutenant General. But before we go rumbling forward, let's zoom out to get the bigger picture. In mid-March 1943, Axis powers are desperately trying to hold their defensive positions in North Africa, including southeastern Tunisia's Marath Line, which runs 30 miles inland from the coast. Basically, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's getting pushed into a tighter and tighter area around Tunisia's northern and coastal capital of Tunis, as the two separate Allied armies squeeze the Desert Fox's forces in a pincer-like movement. On the eastern side, British General Bernard Monty Montgomery led his 8th Army into Tunisia from Libya last month, intent upon forcing the Nazi Africa Corps to make its last stand in Tunis. Meanwhile, Dwight Eisenhower and his American divisions, along with British Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson's 1st Army, are still pushing west from French Algeria, past the mountain passes like Kasserine, and onto the Tunisian plains. As the combined Italian-German army retreats, they give up airfields, extending Allied air reach. Even better for the Anglo-American troops is the fact that surprise attacks are no more. Ultra-intelligence has broken the Nazi enigma cryptography. Amid these developments and disruptions to Axis supply lines, Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower and his fellow Allied officers hope that their grinding advance will soon force Erwin to surrender. But then, Erwin's suddenly out of the picture. Yes, Nazi Germany's famed Desert Fox leaves the fight. On March 9th, illness forces the field marshal to head back to Germany. German General Hans-Jürgen von Arning and Italian General Giovanni Messi have to carry on without him. Back on the American side, George Patton is hard at work. He tightens the ranks, demanding, in his jarringly falsetto voice, that all officers wear their brightly gleaming rank insignia, even though enemy snipers use them as aiming stakes to pick off officers. Crazy, but to his credit, he'll be at the battle lines alongside his men, doing the same, making himself a walking target as well. One first lieutenant, John Patterson, will later say of old blood and guts that he's the kind of son of a bitch who'd get you killed, but he'd be there chewing on your rump when it happened. Yes, George Patton's nickname is Old Blood and Guts, though with risky plays like that insignia bit, the men soon play on it, calling him our blood his guts. It's clever, but don't mistake that for disrespect. On the contrary, soldiers hold George Patton in high regard. As Sergeant Hubert Garbage Edwards puts it, I didn't like him a bit, but I had to respect him because he was a known fighter. Yes, Garbage is Hubert's nickname. He picked it up for being one of the few Americans not disgusted by the English cuisine served on their ships en route to North Africa last year. But as great of an accomplishment as conquering English fare is, Garbage has much bigger worries as the Allies tighten the noose on their cornered Nazi foe. It's just before 3 p.m., March 23, 1943. We're crouching in the muddy Tunisian desert of El Gatar with Sergeant Hubert Garbage Edwards and fellow battering men, all a part of the 2nd Battalion of the 17th Field Artillery in the 2nd Armored Division, a.k.a. the Hell on Wheels Division. German fighters zoom above, their machine guns spitting, providing cover for a dozen U-87 Stuka dive bombers and advancing 50-ton panzers, happy to crush American soldiers in shallow slit trenches if the opportunity arises. Those bullet-spitting fighters are precisely why Garbage and his fellow battery operators are so low to the ground. And as one Messerschmitt BF-109 comes low with strafing fire, Garbage is hitting his limit. It's time to get bold. He shouts to his fellow battery man, Michael Neiman. Come on, Mike. Where are you going? To my Jeep. When that guy comes back, I'm going to take care of him. The sergeant sprints to the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a nearby Jeep. Mike is hot on his heels, ready to help with belts of ammunition. Garbage swings the gun around, toward the sound of the approaching Messerschmitt, as the fighter comes in for another round of strafing fire. Garbage bellows. He's on his way again. Mike answers. Give him hell! Give him hell! And that he does. Garbage fires, armor-piercing rounds directly into the plane's engine. The Nazi aircraft bursts into flames, and Garbage watches as it crashes, blazing into the ground. The Battle of El Gattar is fought less than a month after George Patton takes command of the Second Corps, and it's a jaunty feather in his cap. By the battle's end in April, it's a morale-boosting American victory, one that brings a swift end to those British-made comparisons between Americans and Italians. The final two months of the Tunisia campaign are marked by a series of tank battles and scrappy fights for individual hills, fights that continue to squeeze the Germans into a smaller and smaller space. The writing is on the wall, so much so that George hands command of the Second Corps to General Omar Bradley, which the tank genius needs to do so he can focus on preparations for the now certain invasion of Sicily. And on May 7th, 1943, Omar leads the Second Corps in capturing the bombed-out port city of Buzert, Tunisia. At the same time, British forces are entering Tunis. Ah, that means the pincer has now closed. The Nazis realize that there's nothing to be done now, except hope that the terms of surrender are generous. It's May 12th, 1943. We're riding into the Africa Corps encampment at Saint-Marie-du-Zite, Tunisia, with two British generals, 5th Corps commander Charles Alfre and 4th Indian Division commander Francis Tuker. They're here, of course, to receive this Nazi army's surrender. Francis and Charles exit their vehicle. Feeling the weight of hundreds of Axis eyes following them, the two Brits walk through the ravine-hitting camp and are soon face-to-face with their counterparts, Nazi generals Hans-Hürgen von Arnhem and Hans Kramer. The two parties stand in jarring contrast. The Brits are dressed in dusty boots and worn-out trousers. Francis is in a simple pullover. Exactly the sort of look you'd expect from men engaged in hard desert fighting. But opposite of them, the two Germans are dressed to the nines. Both are in long-waisted tunics and polished riding boots. And the contrast only grows as they start to talk. With a touch of dry British humor and mockery, Francis Tuker introduces himself with a German flair as General von Tuker. Okay, Tuker played this game. Hans-Jürgen von Arnhem answers, but not in English, despite speaking the language quite well. Instead, he uses French, explaining through an interpreter that, I cannot alter Hitler's orders by surrendering all remaining forces in North Africa. Well, if that's the Nazi's final reply, Charles Alfrey has a blunt retort. He tells the Nazi leaders that, if that's the situation, then we'll blow you off the map. He then gives the English-speaking but unwilling German general 15 minutes to prepare to leave as a prisoner After surrendering all prison weapons as well, naturally Well, that does change things a bit Hans Jürgen rages, throwing a small tantrum as he flings his automatic Walther P38 handgun onto the table Francis responds by calmly demanding the Nazis' pocket knife, too The well-dressed German goes beet rag as he throws it on the table And with that, the surrender moves forward. Allied soldiers are over the moon. We get a taste of that joy in 24-year-old enlisted American soldier Wallace Irwin Jr.'s snarky poem, Bidding the Nazis Farewell, which he writes as the surrender goes into effect the next day, May 13, 1943. Jürgen J. von Arnhem wore an iron-plated monocle, but he could not see behind him. Now, wasn't that ironical? He fought a rearguard action, and he did it very bitterly, with booby traps and teller mines and gallant sons of Italy. Three days later, May 16th, General Hans-Jürgen von Arnhem arrives in London. Church bells sound welcoming the Nazi prisoner of war into the British capital. Allied victory in North Africa is sealed. This Axis surrender in North Africa is huge. I really can't overstate this. I mean, after the fall of France, Adolf Hitler had thought his supreme victory was but a matter of time. And that wasn't an unfair take, meaning the world over, like Vichy French collaborators, thought the same. But now, for the first time ever, the Nazis have lost a major campaign and massive stretch of territory to say nothing of the loss of men. A combined 230,000 Germans and Italians are taken as prisoners of war. Some troops and equipment escaped this fate, such as Erwin Rommel, of course, who was already back in the fatherland. But on the whole, this is nothing less than an Allied triumph and an Axis catastrophe. And while it's the British commanders, not the Americans, who accept the official Nazi surrender, Uncle Sam's boys are justifiably proud. Between landing in French North Africa in November 1942 and this sweet victory in May 1943, they've really come into their own. Green as grass American GIs have transformed into seasoned veterans. They've learned to hate Germans with a passion. This is no longer someone else's war. It's theirs just as much. And now, armed with that experience, confidence, and sense of ownership, it's time to take this fight into Europe itself. And the plan for that is already set. See, while American, British, and Free French troops were busy fighting their German, Italian, and Vichy French foes in North Africa, Allied leaders were right behind them. And by Allied leaders, I mean two of the big three, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Soviet Secretary Joseph Stalin got an invite, but declined, citing the East Front offensive against Germany as needing his full attention. The dynamic duo came together in Casablanca, Morocco, for 10 days, from January 14th to the 24th, 1943. Franklin and Winston made two key decisions here. First, following their Atlantic Charter's previously stated post-war desire for disarmament and collective security, they adopted a joint policy of unconditional surrender. This means none of the Allies will try to seek a separate peace with Adolf Hitler's Germany. FDR was clear to note, though, that unconditional surrender means The destruction of the philosophies in those countries which are based on conquest and the subjugation of other people, and not the destruction of the people themselves. Second, since things in North Africa were slowly going into allies' favor, remember this was still months before victory, back in January 1943, it seemed like planning the next step after this campaign's likely success was in order. A continuation of the promises made to Joseph Stalin, you might say. In other words, the next step is breaching the fortress of Europe. Now, ultimately, they want to land in France. But first, they'll take advantage of their control of North Africa to hit what Winston has long called the underbelly of Europe. They'll strike from the Mediterranean, first seizing the island of Sicily, then moving up the Italian peninsula. After all, getting rid of Italy as a Nazi ally would do wonders for slowing the German war machine. And so, with the Axis forces completely vanquished in North Africa in the summer of 1943, the moment has come to put the Casablanca Conference plans into action. 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