In attempting to make an over-all assessment of World War II, many writers assert with considerable reason that the North African landings by the Allies in November, 1942, and the capitulation of von Paulus at Stalingrad in February, 1943, marked the end of Germany’s monopoly of the military initiative and the beginning of Allied supremacy. However, historians thus far have treated the particular phase of the Moroccan landings with caution and a minimum of detail.
On November 8, 1942, the day of the first landings, the author was the American consul at Casablanca, having arrived there the preceding March. This circumstance gave me the privilege of taking part in the preparations leading up to the Allied landing, and then the landing itself. Transfer to Lyon in 1944 and to Bordeaux in 1947 gave me a further opportunity to discuss with the leading French participants, the particulars of what Historian Samuel Elliot Morison has termed “the French side of the fence,” in his Operations in North African Waters.
It is now that this French “side of the fence” should be better known, and I shall attempt to describe certain previously unpublicized occurrences, as well as their interpretation by the French authorities who directed the opposition to the landings—an interpretation made by them on the basis of all the information that was available to them at-that time. The interpretations and opinions given herein, whether favorable or unfavorable to the Allies, are those of the French leaders with whom I have either talked personally or exchanged correspondence. As such they form a contribution to history that deserves both presentation and evaluation.
For very obvious reasons most of the people who either made or obeyed the decision to oppose the Allied landings have been reluctant to discuss, either publicly or privately, the reasons that impelled them to their action in Morocco. One of these obvious reasons was the understandable desire to avoid severe and perhaps unmerited public censure; another and even greater reason was the fear of actual prosecution before the national courts then engaged in a crusading purge of anti-Collaborationist elements throughout France.
“History is fiction,” once said French Academician Paul Valery. “But,” remarked Vice Admiral Frix Michelier, commander of the French naval forces at Casablanca, “there was nothing fictitious about the rain of one-and-one-quarter-ton, sixteen-inch shells of unknown origin which, to my complete surprise, fell out of a clear sky on the city at sunrise—seven A.M.—the morning of November 8, 1942. It was in fact a calling card announcing the arrival of Rear Admiral Henry K. Hewitt’s U. S. Naval Task Force 34.”
Such incidents and statements are worth full consideration, because in their true and complete setting, they eliminate fiction and leave pure history. Langer’s Our Vichy Gamble, Butcher’s My Three Years With Eisenhower, and Morison’s History of Naval Operations in World War II: Operations in North African Waters are all invaluable contributions to our knowledge of what actually occurred prior to and during the Moroccan landings. However, the complete history of the Moroccan operation cannot be written as yet, because new and important material will continue to be discovered and made available—material which, when carefully weighed and evaluated, may either confirm or disprove tentative conclusions previously announced.
Admiral Michelier, in a conversation with the author, expressed regret that Morison, during the latter’s visit to Morocco, had not asked him for assistance which he said he gladly would have given in interpreting certain events difficult to evaluate without reliable information from French sources. “From his abstention,” Michelier remarked, “have arisen inaccuracies in his really meritorious book.”
There is as yet in published French historical literature nothing comparable to the achievements of the three American authors. The official records of 1942 continue secret. The one attempt to describe the North African operation from the French viewpoint is the voluminous work of former Ambassador Albert Kammerer, From the North African Landing to the Murder of Darlan, which has been criticized because of the alleged inability of that author to discard his personal views for complete objectivity.
The much criticized armistice of June 25, 1940, between the Vichy Government and Hitler preserved French North Africa from German occupation and decisively influenced the final issue. Hitler early realized his error in not carrying the war to that territory, something that was feasible in June but that grew daily more difficult thereafter—and on July 15 he sent Vichy a comminatory note demanding the use of ports and air fields from Casablanca to Tunis. This was rejected by Petain as having been made three months after the signing of the Armistice as well as being outside its terms. At the same time Vichy took all possible measures within its limited power to protect the integrity of the French Empire against attack from any source. Actually the situation was so precarious that even a local success by an Allied commando would have compromised the fate of the Empire by causing Axis intervention.
At this period the position of German headquarters was categoric: “If you are incapable of defending your overseas possessions, we will do it for you—but don’t expect us to return them.” And later, “If England had taken Dakar in September, 1940 (the abortive Free French effort to acquire Senegal), we would have occupied North Africa within eight days.” Hitler himself told Darlan in May, 1941, “I am not fanatically interested in getting colonies. If France will defend her own, she may keep them; if not and we must protect them for her, we will keep them.”
Great Britain was fully informed of the position that France was forced to take. It had been clearly set out during the futile secret negotiations between Professor Rougier and Churchill in October, 1940, which had for their objective a revolt of French North Africa under the leadership of Weygand. And France’s position was confirmed in subsequent and ratified negotiations between Jacques Chevalier, Petain’s Minister of Education, and Lord Halifax agreeing to “an artificial tension” between the two countries to deceive the Germans. During their conversations Chevalier said, “In case of a British attack against any of our possessions, we must resist in order to prevent the Germans doing it for us.” Independently of German pressure, international law prohibits the invasion of the territory of sovereign nations without their formal consent, and a country worthy of the name cannot consent to compound this essential protective clause.
German menaces against French North Africa were no bluff. Nazi designs on Morocco in particular were common knowledge and were as virile as at the time of the Agadir incident in 1911. The visit of the German Admiral Wever and the October 24 visits of Generals Vogl and Vacca Maggiolini, presidents of the Armistice Commissions of Wiesbaden and Turin, respectively, after Task Force 34 had actually sailed from Norfolk for Africa, were regarded as extremely significant. It is interesting to observe that Maggiolini did not return to Turin until November 4—additional proof that the Axis knew nothing on that date of Operation Torch. However, the Italians were to prove better psychologists than their allies, for, the Allied convoy once at Gibraltar, they correctly divined its actual destination.
In Morocco the new methods employed by the Wehrmacht in its conquest of Norway and Crete gave military men cause for meditation. Furthermore, the Straits of Gibraltar offered no serious obstacle to German movements if Spain lent its facilities. In 1941 or 1942 German occupation of North Africa would have been disastrous; the war would have been lengthened and the entry of Spain, whose desire to acquire French Morocco was well known, assured.
To meet these threats the French Government had a plan for defense extending from Tunisia to Southern Morocco. If the Protectorate were attacked, five-star General Nogues, High Commissioner and Resident General since 1936, would assume supreme command of all armed forces, which, however, with the exception of the Navy, were poorly equipped and of mediocre fighting value. Army and Air morale were as correspondingly low as that of the Navy was high. French Air and ground forces had been completely defeated, their material destroyed or captured; but the Navy had not been beaten; and what was of equal importance, it remembered Mers-el Kebir, Dakar, and Madagascar. Devoted to the Petain government, which in its opinion was the only legal one, the Navy had taken an oath of loyalty and was certain to resist any attack, Allied or Axis, unless otherwise ordered by Vichy. Did not the very pro- American commander of the light cruiser Primauguet, Captain Mercier, tell me a short time before the landing, “If you ever try to invade Morocco, you will have to sink us all”? He died in the naval engagement of November 8.
The French army in Morocco, under General Lascroux, consisted of some 50,000 troops, startlingly underequipped, without modern arms and for the greater part stationed in the interior. Its best elements had been in France in 1940 where they were captured or destroyed by the Germans. Air Force General Lahoulle had approximately 170 old planes, vastly inferior to Grumman Wildcats. Naval forces were commanded by Vice Admiral Frix Michelier, and were concentrated at Casablanca. Since they offered the principal resistance to the landing, their elements are given in detail:
(1) The 35,000-ton battleship Jean Bart, under Captain (now Rear Admiral) Barthe. The Bart had been still under construction at St. Nazaire in June, 1940. Her subsequent escape to Morocco, only minutes in advance of the German arrival at the Loire River port, was an epic in itself. Moored to the dock at Casablanca the ship could operate only as a floating battery, and even then only four of its normal broadside of eight 15-inch guns were mounted. Maneuvering ability was for all practical purposes nil.
(2) The Second Light Cruiser Squadron under Rear Admiral Gervais de Lafond, included the light cruiser Primauguet, eight 6-inch guns; three large destroyer leaders, Milan, Albatross, and Malin; and seven smaller destroyers.
(3) Eleven submarines, the majority of which were undergoing overhaul, and some twenty miscellaneous craft, including four lightly armored despatch boats, made up the remainder of this small force.
The Moroccan coast was divided into four defense sectors in each of which was stationed Army, Air, and Navy personnel, the latter manning coastal batteries, and commanded by a ranking officer who was directly responsible to General Nogues. In the north the River Sebour-Port Lyautey Sector with its strategic air field was entrusted to General Dody; the Central or Casablanca Sector (from slightly north of Fedala, south to Mazagan) to Admiral Michelier, and the Safi-Mogador Sector to General Martin. Martin was one of the two general officers who knew in advance, though very slightly, of Operation Torch. The extreme southern Agadir Sector was not involved in the landing.
Morison is incorrect when he states, “Admiral Michelier was independent of the Resident General in the French line of command.” For the defense of Casablanca he was directly under the orders of Nogues, and only in the event of naval operations in the Atlantic could he act without advising him.
Admiral Michelier, who was soon to be called upon to make a decision he would gladly have avoided, had arrived in Morocco only three weeks before the landing. He had come from Wiesbaden, Germany, where for two years he had served as Vice President of the French delegation to the Armistice Commission. His record while there was one of high personal integrity, intelligence, and patriotism. Of him Admiral Leahy said in his recent book I Was There—“Admiral Michelier, Commander in Chief at Casablanca, may be regarded as favorable to American intervention.” But personal sentiment in the French Navy gave way to loyalty to Petain, consecrated by the oath required of each officer, and led to general naval acceptance that Vichy was the legally constituted government of France.
Moreover throughout the Protectorate, administration, both civil and military, was exercised normally and its authority was not contested. Collective dissidence was absent; the London Gaullist group had no influence in Morocco in 1942. Finally, due largely to the comprehension and guidance of General Nogues, the attitude and attachment of the Arabs and Berbers to France was unquestioned, a fact not widely realized in Allied circles. Brilliant as a soldier, the Resident General was even abler in political and economic spheres and was very highly regirded by the Sultan. Tn this atmosphere inherent American anti-colonial sentiment met little response, and American attempts to create anti-Vichy sentiment among the natives were the cause of a distrust not even today dissipated in France and Morocco, and which resulted in more harm than good.
Few American authors have seen Nogues clearly. Kenneth Pendar, whose widely read book Our French Dilemma abounds in lucid judgments, frequently allows his personal dislike of Nogues to outweigh his objectivity. Evidently influenced by reports reflecting American antipathy towards colonies, the usually moderate and poised Morison terms Nogues “a shifty character at best.” The description does not fit a leader who, during the three days of fighting against Task Force 34, merely obeyed and conformed to orders from his Government; who on November 8 categorically refused German aid offered by von Wulisch, and who, when Algiers ordered cease fire, placed the totality of the means and resources of Morocco at the disposition of General Patton.1
In brief, the dominating sentiments of both French and natives were intense loyalty to Vichy and a real Germanophobia, or perhaps better, an Axisphobia. They held serious reservations, if not distrust and even hatred, towards the British, but placed great hopes in the United States, the only nation in which all classes had confidence.
The Abortive Bethouart Putsch
On November 7, 1942, Casablanca was not even troubled by one of the frequent, hasty British photographic flights from Gibraltar to check on the location of the Jean Bart. Unsuspectingly the city moved languidly in the warm sun towards its greatest role. War seemed distant and unreal. Vichy, which informed the Protectorate of all matters of military interest, had indeed reported heavy concentrations of ships at Gibraltar and the entry of large convoys into the Mediterranean, but made no comment on possible repercussions on Morocco. The Libyan campaign or the reinforcing of Malta seemed sufficient to explain the activity.
This was also the opinion of authorities at Casablanca, for Admiral Romarc’h, commanding the Central Coastal defense sector (Casablanca to Fedala), told the author on November 12, “We were completely deceived regarding the destination of the Mediterranean convoys, believing them headed for Alexandria or Malta. Moreover, their passage through the Straits diverted our attention from the Atlantic front.”
The writer also recalls that on the afternoon of November 7 he heard a member of the German Armistice Commission tell his neighbor in a barbershop that he was leaving for Agadir on vacation the next day.
Atlantic coastal points had reported nothing abnormal, consequently no aerial scouting was undertaken. Yet, while complete security seemed assured, reconnaissance would have been ordered had not gasoline been so limited and suitable planes lacking. These shortages were so great that only when information was confirmed could flights be made.
Night came, a moonless black curtain made even more impenetrable on the ocean front by a light mist. There was no wind, and the familiar drumming of the surf on the tortured coast was gone, a rare occurrence in November when northeasters blow with almost unceasing violence. Peacefully Casablanca put out its lights and went to bed; tomorrow would mean only a resumption of normal daily life.
But a few miles from the western coast 102 American ships groped their way slowly in the darkness seeking their assigned objectives. On shore, dim lights winked through the haze. Nothing predicted the tempest of rapidly succeeding tragic events that from midnight were to break within and on the sea frontier of the Protectorate. Nothing was known by French Loyalist leaders of the Churchill Conference of October 24, of the negotiations of Bob Murphy at Algiers, of the organization of Operation Torch, or of the date set for the landing. Nothing was known and nothing was suspected! The secret was intact.
In this blissful ignorance Michelier was roused shortly before 11 P.M. on November 7 by his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Misoffe, who brought almost incredible news. Brigadier General Bethouart, hero of the Narvik campaign and now commanding the Casablanca garrison, had alerted his troops and ordered the arrest of the Axis armistice delegation! At 4 A.M. on November 8, their quarters in Anfa (a suburb of Casablanca) would be surrounded, and the members taken prisoner and probably liquidated if they resisted!
Michelier, who had had much experience with nocturnal uprisings at Berlin after World War I, unhesitatingly accepted Misoffe’s statements, although Bethouart’s objective escaped him. To Misoffe he said, “If he does it, the Germans will at last be furnished with the opportunity they have been seeking to occupy Morocco. Moreover such an incident will lead to immediate and cruel reprisals against the French delegation at Wiesbaden. What possible influence can the capture of a few Germans and Italians have on the issue of the war? Bethouart must be stopped. But to guarantee his failure, we must take energetic action to protect ourselves.”
Orders were immediately issued directing Bethouart to appear and explain himself, and immediately afterwards Michelier put all naval personnel on a defense footing. He converted the Admiralty into a fortress, prohibited all movement in its vicinity, and notified all ships in Moroccan ports to take the defense measures prescribed against attack from the interior. At this moment there was no thought of an Allied landing, and these steps, put into effect at midnight, were intended solely to meet a local revolt. This fact apparently was not known by Morison, who, not having talked with Michelier, was therefore at a loss to explain the “first warning” given independently of knowledge of the arrival of Task Force 34.
At 3 A.M. Lieutenant (now Brigadier General) Molle, Bethouart’s chief of staff, arrived at the Admiralty, informed Michelier, to the latter’s surprise that Bethouart was absent, and handed him a letter in the latter’s handwriting, together with enclosures. The letter, written in measured and deferential terms said that General Giraud had taken over the command of North Africa, with Algiers as headquarters (this was technically and temporarily inaccurate); that massive American landings would take place during the night on the Moroccan and Algierian coasts; that he (Bethouart) had assumed command in Morocco, and that he would proceed with the immediate arrest of the Axis Armistice Commission. The letter concluded by requesting the Navy to join with him.
To Michelier and his staff the enclosures, often lacking dates, addresses, and signatures, seemed suspect, perhaps the work of an apprentice forger. One letter stated that Tunisia had been attacked by the Axis, which was a flagrant anticipation of future events; another said “the Navy (French) must first be rendered inoffensive”; a third proposed to “neutralize Spanish Morocco”— a flight into the absurd when it is remembered that the Spanish Zone had at least 150,000 well-equipped troops!
A demand for unity of action presented in such astonishing confusion of ideas caused it to be regarded with the utmost suspicion and as of extremely doubtful authenticity. Michelier and his staff consequently gave it no credit, and because of the manifest falsity of much of the data in the enclosures and the fantastic nature of the proposals, the one true fact—that of the American landing —was also regarded as fiction.
Puzzled by Bethouart’s not having presented his case in person and by his refusal to appear, Michelier, considering the interior position as increasingly serious, telephoned the Resident General at 0450 to ask whether he knew anything of Bethouart’s plot. Another shock awaited him. Raging, Nogues told him that he had been arrested and imprisoned in his own office in the Residency by Bethouart. He too had received (from his own nephew, Captain de Verthamon, aide to Bethouart), an identical letter and enclosures, to which he likewise gave no credit. He was in agreement with Michelier that Bethouart’s “Putsch,” for this was by now the interpretation placed on his action, would lead to immediate German intervention. He decided that this probability must be avoided at all costs and therefore he ordered the Admiral, as Supreme Commander at Casablanca, to annul Bethouart’s orders, to prevent the arrest of the Armistice Commission delegates in particular, and to alert all coast defense posts by a danger signal. The latter was the first act of the Protectorate authorities which could have contributed to an unpremeditated and coincidental opposition to the Allied landing.
In two hours the peaceful atmosphere of Morocco had become one of confusion, doubt, and mutual distrust. The wildest rumors were fully believed in armed force circles and led to the area being placed on a war defensive. So far as Bethouart’s acts were concerned, brutal though they seemed in their abrupt surprise, they caused little astonishment, for he had long been known for his pro-Ally sentiments and consequently was suspect from the purely official viewpoint. Admiral Romarc’h once said to the author that he believed that a suggestion made by Bethouart to hold joint Army-Navy maneuvers in the interior was for the purpose of having the principal authorities absent from their posts when the landing occurred. If such was the intention, the fact that Bethouart was informed by the Allies only 32 hours before zero hour made it inoperative.2
However, thus far in the sequence of events an Allied landing appeared to have been a very secondary consideration, not taken seriously, as is indicated by General Nogues asking Admiral Michelier whether he had any reason to think that an American attack was contemplated. It was then shortly after midnight on the morning of November 8. The Admiral replied, “Up to now Vichy had not mentioned any such possibility. Neither do my coastal posts report anything suspect.” This response, for which Michelier has been criticized as indicating that his G-2 was incompetent, was merely a statement of an uncontestable situation based on his actual current knowledge, and not an erroneous interpretation on his part, as has often been suggested.
It is interesting to observe that no one in Casablanca seems to have heard President Roosevelt’s message transmitted by the British Broadcasting Company at 0130 and each half hour thereafter on November 8. Morison comments, “Almost everyone in Morocco appears to have been asleep, and French armed forces apparently kept no radio watch.”
Professor Morison errs. When the Allied broadcasts occurred, French radio services had been alerted and were listening in on wave lengths assigned solely to the armed forces. “In such circumstances,” remarked a French naval officer to the author, “we were not greatly interested in the questionable and controversial BBC broadcasts. They were for the amateurs.”
Morison also incorrectly assumed that communications between Morocco and Algeria were slow and inefficient. Actually they were normal, for at 0315 Casablanca knew of the attack on Algiers, and at 0330 of that on Oran. In contrast with this remarkable rapidity of transmission are Patton’s and Eisenhower’s complaints that their corresponding services were far from offering such regularity and security.
Full details of the organization of the Putsch only became public in France several years later. Bethouart had been directed by General Mast, in command at Algiers, to put into effect decisions reached by the conspirators of Algiers who worked closely with Robert Murphy, President Roosevelt’s personal representative. Informed on November 6 that the date set for the landing was the eighth, Bethouart was expected to aid the Allied operations by paralyzing the high command of the Protectorate, both civil and military. Later he told the author that he attributed the failure of his revolt to the insufficient advance notice of only 32 hours given him to prepare the means and to put his plan into effect, as well as to the complete ignorance in which he was left as to the landing points. Remarkably enough, no attempt had been made to synchronize the disembarkation with Bethouart’s action, and Task Force 34 was without knowledge of the aid he so unselfishly offered. Bethouart knew, in advance, of the likelihood of his failure, with its inevitable consequences to him.
Co-ordinated with Bethouart’s military action was a civilian uprising in Casablanca, which because of its limited effectives, lack of leaders, and defective organization, was immediately suppressed by the civilian authorities. George Poussier, civil governor of the Casablanca Area, said to the author that in 1940 the Residency had given him two sealed envelopes, one containing the names of persons to be arrested in the event of an Allied arrival, the other in case of Axis invasion. Informed by Rabat early on November 8 that a local Pro-Allies uprising was possible, he was instructed to put into effect the prescribed measures. Before the amateur conspirators could take any action they were arrested, most of them in their homes, and jailed. Among them was Rear Admiral Sable, who had resigned his commission when Petain assumed power, and who had retired to Casablanca where he furnished very substantial proof of his interest in an Allied victory. As for Civil Governor Poussier himself, he told me later, “Given my pro- Ally sentiments, I would not have been surprised to have found my own name heading the list of persons whom I was ordered to neutralize.”
Although the melodramatic development of Bethouart’s plot did not inspire confidence, it is only fair to add that his action was not understood. With the aid of a battalion of colonial troops unconscious of its role, he proceeded to Rabat where he arrested the Resident General, as well as General Lascroux, Army, and General Lahoulle, Air. He also seized the telephone exchange, but he either ignored or neglected the residency’s private system, which Nogues, a prisoner in his own office, continued to use. To this material mistake he added the psychological one of disregard of protocol—always of prime importance in colonial territories— by telephoning to General Nogues instead of calling on him in person to deliver the letter already mentioned. In the words of a shocked high official, “This more than surprising conduct of a subordinate made General Nogues rightfully indignant.”
Bethouart’s action thus became a succession of errors in principle and execution. Today it is glaringly apparent that he could not imprison the commander-in-chief one moment and attempt his conversion the next. To arrest three French generals and order the capture of a German general appeared so fantastic that the objective defied logic. Civilian and military officials reacted alike and assured Nogues by telephone of their loyalty, thus leaving Bethouart completely isolated. No one recognized the authority of the person whose deep-rooted, if naive, patriotism had led him to believe that a liberation movement would take precedence over all else—particularly legal technicalities and personal prestige.
By 3 A.M. the Putsch was under control; between five and six it had collapsed. Around seven o’clock General Leyer intervened with tanks at Rabat, arrested Bethouart, and sent him off to prison at Meknes for immediate court martial.
Such was the rapid and sudden fiasco of the Bethouart adventure. Planned in a spirit of devoted self-sacrifice and put into movement in the space of a few hours, it failed, according to Moroccan leaders, “because American representatives in North Africa and the Algiers conspirators had not taken the High Command of the Protectorate into their confidence, and had negotiated with subalterns, not all of whom were happily selected.”
And not only did Bethouart fail, but by a singular paradox his attempt was the cause of Morocco being alerted five hours before the actual landings! From the time an alert was ordered, any attack from the exterior would be automatically repulsed by defense elements. Without his intervention, American forces arriving at daybreak would have benefited from total surprise and probably would have met with only sporadic and feeble opposition, perhaps even without bloodshed.
In results the revolt was a lamentable drama and was the principal cause of the severe fighting marking the landing. “But if the Putsch was poorly organized,” asked Admiral Michelier, “what can be said of a liaison so faulty that both Admiral Hewitt and General Patton ignored the very existence of Bethouart, not to mention the assistance he could have given if the movements had been co-ordinated?”
Morison concludes that the necessity for secrecy prevented General Bethouart from being of any aid, and Langer says: “ . . . added to this was the failure of General Bethouart in the role of conspirator.” This last is a most unfair commentary, unless the impossible conditions under which Bethouart worked are also given.
Task Force 34 Arrives
For over two years, defense elements in Morocco had been trained to meet any attack, particularly night raids. In the event of a hostile act, the commander of the menaced point had full authority to open fire. Thus, when the landings began, a black night, combined with the confusion and tension reigning in the French High Command, made it inevitable that the approach of unidentified landing craft, supported by ships of unknown nationality seen only vaguely in the distant background, would result in fighting that would rapidly become general. The inevitable was not delayed.
At Safi in the south the troop carrier Bernadou landed Rangers at 0520 and port defense batteries promptly opened fire.
At Fedala an armed support boat picked up by shore searchlights opened at 0525 on the Pont Blondin battery, which immediately replied.
Off Port Lyautey an American patrol boat entered the mouth of the Sebou at 0545 in an attempt to cut the net blocking access to the river with its adjacent strategic airfield. Machine gun fire forced its retirement with loss.
Hostilities at Casablanca began at 0701. The Massachusetts turned its live-inch guns on a French fighter, and three minutes later opened up with its main battery on the Jean Bart, whose reaction was prompt.
The requisite initial attack had occurred and the curtain had lifted on the drama that now was to be played to its end. From this time on nothing could halt the tragedy, and shore batteries and invasion forces were at once in vicious duel.
Preliminary hostile acts of Task Force 34 seemed to be classical Commando operations made without provocation, and it was not until the second day of the landings that their vast scale was realized—notably when it was learned that General Harmon’s armored division had disembarked at Safi. Distorted and completely false rumors added to the universal confusion which reached its climax in the headquarters of the Supreme Commander, General Nogues. There were reports of landings at Mazagan, Mogidor, and Agadir, of Arab revolt and of Spanish troops preparing to intervene! No one knew the true situation.
In this highly charged atmosphere of uncertainty, distrust, and misunderstanding, began three days of violent, unnecessary combats on land, and sea and in the air.
Informed of the attacks, the Commander of the Casablanca Sector ordered immediate air reconnaissance, sent all available submarines to stations before Casablanca and Fedala, and at 0700 directed the Second Light Squadron to make ready to oppose the landings at Fedala. Several minutes later 8 and 16-inch shells fell on the port, the Jean Bart, and shore batteries at El Hank and Roches Noires. The Jean Bart's only main battery turret capable of firing was hit by two 16-inch shells, one of which did no damage but the other warped the armor and jammed the turret. Only at nightfall could it again be operated.
In the harbor the three passenger ships Porthos, Lipari, and Savoie, moored to the same mole as the Jean Bart, were sunk or set afire by the initial salvos only five minutes after their passengers had been landed. These vessels had arrived from Dakar the previous evening, bringing over 2,000 women and children evacuated by Senegal authorities, who shared the Axis belief that Dakar was an immediate Allied objective. Conviction was so strong that ammunition from the limited stocks of the Protectorate had been shipped to Senegal, while only two days before the landing all army fighters that could be spared were flown to air fields near Dakar. The evening before taking off, some of their pilots told the author that their planes were obsolete and could offer little resistance to modern fighters, but that they would oppose if necessary, although reluctantly, any United States attempt to take Dakar.
During this period of the fighting, U. S. carrier planes bombed the port, sinking three submarines at their moorings, damaging merchant vessels, and causing serious personnel losses.
The nationality of the ships firing from the horizon could not be determined with certainty, although there was little doubt that the attack was an Allied one, since Oran and Algiers had both reported landings identified variously as Anglo-Saxon, British, or American. However, both Michelier and Nogues have said that if they had known the Moroccan operation was American they might not have resisted—the implication being that against the British there would have been no hesitation, and that they would have resisted to their utmost. It is charitable to presume that Michelier thought he was opposing a British force up to the time when, in his own words, “I sent an officer to examine and measure an unexploded 16-inch shell. It was only after his report that I definitely established the fact that there was an American force facing me, as only the newest American ships had guns of that caliber.”
But Michelier’s uncertainty must have been brief, since at 0800 a French naval officer, who had been assigned to the Consulate for liaison purposes, arrived in a truck filled with armed French sailors, and, white with anger, said to me, “The Admiral says we will fight.” All I could reply was, “I am sorry. You have your duty to do, as I have mine.” Realization had come too late.
At 0730, during the height of this phase of naval and air operations, with shells falling on the port and its defenses, Colonel Wilbur, U.S.A., who had been assigned the role of a trucemaker, arrived by jeep from Fedala. Colonel Wilbur had been selected for the difficult task because of his friendship with the numerous French Army and Navy personnel he had met during the course of his military studies in France.
The moment was singularly unpropitious. If negotiations were to be attempted, they should have preceded the opening of fire. Admiral Michelier, who had just been informed by General Nogues that he had refused to accept a written ultimatum presented by Vice-Consul Ernest Mayer, could only take the same action as his commanding officer and would not see Wilbur, who thereupon returned to Fedala with the certitude that only force would bring the French to reason. During the three days of operations, he was the only American to appear at the Admiralty.
Morison’s version of the incident, undoubtedly given in good faith, is not wholly accurate. To complete the picture, it is only fair to say that, after hostilities ended, Colonel Wilbur was immdeiately re-accorded the warm friendship linking professional soldiers.
The morning of November 8 was marked by the menaces of successful landings at Fedala and Safi, and the naval battle off Casablanca.
Slightly before 0800 the little Light Squadron of Admiral Gervais Lafond, without knowledge of the strength or the nationality of its opponents, steamed through the narrow harbor entrance to meet its destiny. Morale was high, as it always is in navies with tradition. An opportunity to fight their ships that had been denied them since 1940 and to show that the French Navy had not been defeated was now offered the French officers and crews, and it was accepted. If against the British, willingly, if against the Americans, unhappily. However, against either opponent the French Navy would fight in conformity with a naval honor held even higher than the real interest of the country, as would have been the decision, under similar circumstances, of other navies having long and proud histories. And it must never be forgotten that the heads of the French Navy as well as those of the French Army had endeavored to rebuild an esprit de corps that had suffered deeply after the crushing defeat of 1940. An almost psychopathically blind emphasis was placed on the honor of the fighting services, and this sense of honor was particularly prevalent in the Navy.
No one in the tiny French fleet could suspect that after a 4,500 mile crossing without precedent in naval operations, an armada of 102 American ships, among them some of the most modern and best armed afloat, had arrived off the Moroccan coast in support of a large scale disembarkation, and not merely a minor commando operation undertaken purely for propaganda purposes. German propaganda that “there were no Allied ships left on the seas” had been accepted by all Moroccan civilians, and it even influenced military men. Shortly after the landing I accompanied the Moroccan head of the Service d’Ordre de la Legion (Vichy blackshirts) to a meeting with American Intelligence agents, whose headquarters were in a building dominating Casablanca harbor. Vague in the autumn haze the first American convoy was entering port. Knowing of the convoy, I said, “Look.” My companion’s jaws actually sagged and he muttered, “What are those ships?” “American,” I told him. Dazed, he mumbled, “But there are no American ships left afloat; the subs have sunk them all!” Thus influence of reiterated Axis lies still existed in Morocco, even after the Protectorate had been successfully invaded by its liberators.
Lafond’s sortie directly menaced the transports off Fedala, and Admiral Hewitt ordered the Massachusetts, the heavy cruisers Augusta, Wichita, and Tuscaloosa, a. group of destroyers, and carrier-based planes to break up this attack. It was well he did so for the attack was launched with such daring and impetuosity that during it French destroyers actually engaged and hit the Massachusetts with their five-and-a-half-inch guns!
But the disproportion was too overwhelming. The Primauguet and two of the destroyer leaders were reduced to scrap by gunfire, as well as by bombs and strafing from the carrier planes, and were driven aground near the harbor entrance. Four small 1,500-ton French destroyers were sunk.
The intensity of the fighting can be measured from the fact that before noon the mighty Massachusetts had expended 60 per cent of its 16-inch shells and had withdrawn to conserve its ammunition against possible intervention by the Richelieu from Dakar.
But French naval forces had been practically annihilated. In addition to the losses noted, eight submarines out of eleven, and a despatch boat, were sunk and the remaining vessels damaged. Only the uncompleted Jean Bart still had lighting value, although it was strictly limited to the defensive. Morison, the first writer to give a detailed account of the engagement, concluded, “The French destroyers did indeed put up a fight that commanded the admiration of all.”
In spite of heavy ship and personnel losses, French morale was not broken and it remained as high after the truce as before the landing. On November 12 I was received at the Admiralty by Captain Sticca. Sticca was wearing white tennis shoes in sharp contrast with his blue regulation uniform. Noticing my regard, he said with a smile, “This is the second time since 1939 that I have had a destroyer sunk under me, and my clothing reserves are almost exhausted. What can I do for you?” My request was not simple to grant in a territory deprived of all imported materials since the beginning of the war. What I sought was sufficient cable to establish telephone connections between the shore and an American escort- type carrier in the harbor. “It will be done,” said Sticca—and it was, the same day! If the same co-operative and friendly spirit did not initially exist in the lower echelons it soon became general, largely due to the understanding of Admiral Michelier, who prescribed and carried into effect its total enforcement.
Subsequent Operations
On land, fighting against General Anderson advancing from Fedala was organized and directed by General Desre, who after a crisis of conscience had finally accepted the command left vacant by Bethouart’s arrest. However, Army resistance on the Casablanca front was more mechanical than spontaneous, and the animating spirit of the defense was Navy, a part of whose personnel had been transformed into soldiers.
After 1100 naval operations diminished, and it was not until 0500, November 9, that heavy firing was resumed by French patrol boats stationed before the port to prevent surprise landings. As is often the case in night combats, confusion was prevalent, and it was not until several hours later that the Admiralty was informed that seventy-five Americans of different service arms had been captured near the harbor entrance. This attack on a strongly defended port by a heterogeneous group made up of aviators, military police, infantry, and a few sailors in what seemed, in the darkness, to be a full scale operation to force the entrance, was actually the result of an error in navigation of four personnel landing craft, and was not explained until 1947. Leaving the transport Biddle, the boats mistook Casablanca for Fedala! Later General Patton was the subject of much solicitous inquiry as to his reasons for sending military police to take Navy-held positions!
Meanwhile forces from Fedala had advanced rapidly and by November 10 were in the suburbs of Casablanca. About 1100 two small French despatch boats went to the support of a coastal battery attacked by General Anderson. The Augusta and four destroyers engaged the despatch boats and forced their retirement, but during the maneuvers the U. S. cruiser came within range of the supposedly silenced Jean Bart, which opened fire at noon with two-gun salvos at an initial range of 18,000 yards. It was a near thing for the Augusta; ore of the salvos fell so near its bow that two high spouts of yellow water (the French employed dye in their shells for better spotting) drenched Admiral Hewitt and General Patton on the bridge. Both were suitably impressed and later told Michelier that they would never again bathe without thinking of Fedala. Their personal impressions were communicated to the Augusta, which high- tailed it out of the danger zone at top speed, much to the amusement of the French, who still mention the incident.
The Americans seem to have attributed the luring of the Augusta into the Jean Bart's fire zone to a Machiavellian tactic of Michelier. In reality, “the incident was merely another phase of the combat for Casablanca, taken advantage of,” said the latter.
But it was also the end of the Jean Bart, which had not fired since November 8 and which had been reported as silenced. Shortly before 1500 nine dive bombers from the U.S.S. Ranger attacked the floating battery. Three half-ton bombs hit the ship, causing grave damage, although still not affecting its fire power. Forward of the single operating turret the unarmored sides and decks were peeled up and aft for a distance of 50 feet; aft of the armored belt the ship literally was cut in two. At sea the Jean Bart could have continued action in spite of the heavy drag of its water-filled stern, but in the shallow harbor it touched bottom, threatening its loss which fortunately was averted with American aid.
Cease Fire and Armistice
It was at this moment that Darlan’s order to cease fire was received from Algiers. Both General Nogues and Admiral Michelier received it with understandable reserve. Algiers having been in American possession since the eighth, Admiral Darlan was very evidently a prisoner and consequently unable to issue orders. To the Moroccan leaders it appeared essential to establish the authenticity of an order so completely in contrast with former instructions, and it was not until 0200, November 11, that they were convinced and ordered firing suspended. The problem of communicating their decision to the invaders then arose, and it was only at 0600 that General Patton could take similar action, barely in time to prevent a general Army-Navy-Air assault on Casablanca to overcome the resistance of French naval personnel, stubborn even in defeat.
Further defense was useless. On the anniversary of November 11, 1918, success of the landing was entire. Port Lyautey was in the hands of General Truscott; Casablanca was assured within a few hours at most to Patton; and Harmon’s armored column from Safi had reached Mazagan, only 60 miles south of Casablanca.
In a conversation I had with Admiral Michelier, the Admiial expressed astonishment at Morison’s assertion that Darlan had telephoned Nogues on November 8 to cease resistance. There is no truth in this statement. The only order received from Darlan to cease fire was the one of November 10. It was executed with a minimum of delay. But what seemed to Admiral Michelier even more startling was the fact that the decision reached by General Mark Clark and Admiral Darlan at Algiers on the morning of November 10 was not conveyed to Hewitt and Patton. This failure of coordination barely avoided having the most disastrous consequences; U. S. planes were ready to take off, some even were air-borne, to bombard Casablanca, an act that easily could have ended all possibility of friendly relations and reduced Morocco to the status of conquered territory requiring large occupation forces. Neglect, if neglect there was to advise Patton, may have been due to a false assumption that there was no French “side of the fence,” and that it was up to them to cease fire—or else take the consequences.
At noon on Armistice Day, General Patton and Admiral Michelier met at Fedala in the Hotel Miramar, which had been occupied by the German Armistice Commission and where its members had been trapped by the first landing parties. Colonel John Ratey, later Brigadier General, took a prominent part in this curtain raiser. Ratey, with his handle-bar moustache, was known first as a soldier and second as a diplomat. In the former role he looked and acted the part of a tough fightingman, which he was, and in combat uniform, unshaven, equipped with an arsenal of Colts and a sub-machine gun, he could have stepped right out of a gangster film. It was in this role that he called at the Admiralty on November 11, where his appearance in the office of Admiral Romarc’h was so unexpected that the stout sailor threw up his hands and in semi-mock alarm cried, “Chicago! I give up.”
The relative friendliness and course of future relations between the French commander of the Casablanca sector and Genera! Patton depended to a large degree upon this first meeting. Would it be friendly, or suspicious and uncooperative? The question was immediately answered: Patton’s reception of his late adversary was sympathetic and courteous. With clear and lucid psychology befitting a meeting of courageous opponents he accorded Michelier full military honors, and his first words showed his understanding of the reasons for resistance. Michelier was won over and replied in equally cordial terms. A lunch with Admiral Hewitt as a guest made this first contact a long forward step toward the sincere friendship which from that moment marked all their relations. Under the direction of Admiral Michelier, French naval personnel, licking their wounds and resentful for their dead, were at once brought into line with a policy of full cooperation necessary to bring about unity of action against the Axis.
At 1400 Patton opened a meeting in which among those present were Nogues, Michelier, Lescroux, and Lahoulle for the French, and Hewitt and General Keyes for the American. General Patton had already realized that French assistance in its totality was available provided the rigid terms of a capitulation drafted in advance at Washington, and to be put into effect if there was resistance, were not enforced. Without a word in writing, agreement was reached by which French sovereignty was unimpaired; the French flag continued to fly over ships and government buildings; the administrative and military frameworks were left intact; prisoners were exchanged, and French troops retained their arms and returned freely to their barracks. In return, Morocco would put all its means and resources at the disposition of the Allied war effort.
In retrospect there can be no doubt that the liberal and comprehensive conception of the consequences of cease fire was the major reason for the early re-entry of French forces into the struggle, the value of which was proved in later operations in Tunisia.
Admiral Michelier was particularly impressed with the sound judgment and the large understanding of the Americans, and later told me that “traditional Franco- American friendship was happily and successfully renewed the eleventh of November at Fedala.”
There is something very personal in bis admiration for the American leaders. In Hewitt he saw the complete sailor, both physically and morally, inspiring unlimited and never misplaced confidence.
Patton was in riotous contrast. His height, his soldierly appearance, his often spectacular tendencies, his love of action, and his ivory handled revolvers had already made him a legendary figure. During Patton’s four months at Casablanca a warm friendship developed between the French admiral and the American general. Admiral Michelier once told me, “History willingly cultivates legends and fables. It will make of Patton an absurd idol of a warrior, a kind of giant called Blood and Guts, a mercenary of the type of Wallenstein, violent, strutting, swearing, blaspheming, brandishing his pistols, impetuous in hand-to-hand fighting, without fear of God or man, for all of which Eisenhower in his official reports and his Crusade in Europe will be partially responsible. I know how untrue is this popular picture. Patton was a very noble character whose alert mind instantly grasped the finest of distinctions. He was cultivated and refined, a model and agreeable companion who spoke French with a pleasant accent. A great military leader, he was as generous as Hewitt and had in common with him enormous tact. The innumerable problems concerning American forces in Morocco were solved with him and his staff on the basis of mutual and never misplaced confidence easily and without argument. My grief over his premature death was that of a longtime friend.”
This relationship was reciprocated by Patton, whose speeches and correspondence while in Casablanca showed his admiration for Michelier.
The Fate or General Bethouart
After the failure of his Putsch, General Bethouart was imprisoned at Meknes. Court-martial proceedings had begun on November 10, and it seemed likely that he would be found guilty of treason and shot before Allied intervention could take place. At least such was the belief of his loyal staff.
Immediately following the return of the staff of the consulate to Casablanca from what was termed protective custody, two of Bethouart’s aides called to tell me that their chief was in grave danger; that, in fact, actual orders had been issued to speed-up the trial and execute him before the Americans could protest.
Although I had been without sleep for almost seventy-two hours, the matter appeared so serious that I went at once to Fedala and informed General Patton. The situation was delicate, involving, apart from gratitude to Bethouart, substantial interference in a wholly French military affair. Consequently, American conferees, without demanding the immediate release of Bethouart, insisted that nothing endangering his life be done, and suggested that proceedings drag along until face-saving requirements were fulfilled. This course was finally adopted, the trial was halted, and on November 17 Bethouart was released. However, feeling was still too partisan to permit of his reintegration in command, and in December he was named by General Giraud as head of a military mission to the United States. After several months in Washington he returned to Africa, was promoted to Lieutenant General, and until his retirement a short time ago commanded French troops in Austria. To me General Bethouart will always remain the devoted patriot who unhesitatingly sacrificed his own personal interests for the good of his country.
If———————?
Against the total success of the Moroccan landings, conjectures as to what might have happened are naturally gratuitous. A little less luck might easily have transformed the victorious attack into an overwhelming disaster. From its conception Operation Torch was characterized by great daring and was a gamble. Langer, Butcher, Morison, and even Admiral Leahy have said that all those who planned it regarded the operation as a dangerous venture. General Marshall was near to abandoning it. A night landing on the inhospitable Moroccan coast where the ocean is entirely calm only 20 days each year and almost never in November definitely was hazardous in the extreme
Operation Torch had extraordinary good fortune, or, what is better, Divine Protection. During the three days of November 8 to 11 the sea was a lake of oil in contrast to the normal heavy surf that beats almost continually on the rugged shore.
Unhoped for luck also came to Admiral Hewitt who, greatly concerned that he would be unable to locate his mooring points and small landing beaches at Fedala because of the blackout of coastal lights, found to his amazement all beacons in operation. For this invaluable assistance he was still congratulating himself in 1949 when, as a delegate to the U.N.O., he met Moroccan naval friends in Paris.
What had happened? Well, it had for some time been the custom for French convoys to sail close inshore for protection against possible British raiders. To facilitate this dangerous point-to-point navigation, lights normally extinguished were lit during their passage. Now, on November 7 two convoys for Casablanca passed Gibraltar and arrived just in the middle of the landings at Port Lyautey and Fedala. No one can say whether the French or the Americans were the more surprised by the meeting which had for the former almost as disastrous results, except in loss of life, as the later resistance of the Navy. In compliance with standing orders prepared for such a possible eventuality, French commanders beached three of the ships at Bousnika, north of Fedala; the others were captured and escorted to the latter port to be held until cease fire was ordered.
But if Operation Torch enjoyed good fortune over natural and routine perils, it was not as favored in the preparation for and in the landings themselves. The secret negotiations, in which Robert Murphy, Colonel Eddy, the U. S. Naval Attaché at Tangiers, and Lieutenant Colonel Solborg, assistant U. S. Military Attaché at Lisbon, participated, seldom went beyond secondary objectives, rarely beyond secondary persons, and at no time offered the slightest certainty that Task Force 34’s reception would be friendly. But this was not the fault of the negotiators. Washington’s irrevocable order of absolute secrecy to assure essential surprise in the event of opposition eliminated all possibility of creating a successful dissident movement, as was proved by the futile Bethouart uprising. Moreover the fanatical fidelity of Protectorate leaders to the Vichy Government prevented a direct approach and the laying of the cards on the table. The spectacle of working at cross purposes when a common end was desired by all had the inevitability of a Greek drama.
In the circumstances, bitter fighting between the Americans, launched audaciously into the hazards of a night combat, and defenders, determined to maintain the integrity of French territory, became inevitable. Either preliminary negotiations on the highest level, i.e. with Vichy, to insure a welcome reception were imperative or, given French military conceptions, conflict was certain. In the absence of such negotiations the total secrecy imposed in the United States may well have been the right as well as the only answer. Fortunately the Combined Chiefs of Staff had accurately estimated and prepared for French resistance in the belief that an energetic and forewarned defense would fight any nocturnal invader arriving unannounced off Morocco.
The result was a paradoxical and deplorable combat between the forces of two nations linked by innumerable historical bonds. Did not General Eisenhower, in tracts launched by plane a few minutes before fighting began, announce that “No nation is more closely united by history and friendship to the French people than the United States”?
History is not conjecture, and hindsight is frequently a confession of regret for faults committed. It has become almost a tradition for French officers who served at Casablanca in 1942 to discuss vehemently what might have been if Hewitt’s orders had permitted him to arrive with his immense command, flags flying, off Casablanca and Rabat in broad daylight. Today the great weight of such opinion is that Task Force 34 would have been enthusiastically welcomed, that no one would have even suggested opening fire. Morison also takes this position, although he would have attributed it to force majeure before which Nogues “would have jointed the Allies promptly and decisively.”
After the passage of eight years, those French who resisted the landing contend that if, while still maintaining secrecy, General Nogues, Admiral Auphan, the Minister of Marine, and Admiral Uarlan, Commander in Chief of French forces, had been informed, there would have been no fighting in North Africa.
Against such quasi-unanimity of opinion must be set the fact that traditions of the French armed forces are non-political, and that they follow a recognized principle of obedience without question if instructed by their hierarchical superiors. The constitutional legality of their government is not for them to debate. Moreover they are accorded freedom from liability known as droit administratif if the order derives from a higher authority. This principle was still in effect in 1942, and there was no hesitation in accepting responsibility so long as the executor was covered by a superior.
Today this may have changed, and unthinking obedience perhaps no longer may be applied blindly. The recent trial of Vice-Admiral Luc, Chief of Staff to Admiral Abrial, Minister of Marine immediately after the landing, charged with having attempted to prevent the sabotage of the French fleet at Toulon on orders of Laval, is significant. The only witness to testify against him, Vice Admiral Sable, then Inspector of the Navy, said in substance that when an officer attains a rank of high responsibility he no longer has the right to obey automatically orders against the interests of the State, even if these orders are given directly by a superior. Admiral Luc was sentenced to two years imprisonment. But this precedent is not yet generally recognized, and some of the higher French military authorities still take the position of not questioning orders received from their chiefs.
Thus it seems probable that even if requisite political preparation for French acquiescence in the landings had been attempted, it would have been unsuccessful. And it follows that it was a grave error to have believed that the isolated and uninformed General Bethouart, a subaltern, could rally Morocco to the Allied cause in the disorder and confusion that prevailed. His action, taken though it was in the highest spirit of patriotism, only made more inevitable the inconceivable duel between the Jean Bart and Massachusetts, with American Curtiss planes which had been turned over to France before the Armistice fighting U.S. Grummans, and Moroccan skirmishers firing on their liberators.
Soldiers and sailors of equal bravery, though unequally armed, with no sense of hatred fought each other blindly, unwillingly in the darkness and confusion of a tragic night—the unnecessary prologue to a brotherhood of arms that was to carry them side by side through Italy, France, and into the heart of Germany.
1. Against these unquestionable facts must be placed in the scales the equally undeniable one that General Nogues had often been invited to throw in his lot and that of Morocco with the Allies.
It is not generally known that in June, 1940, Duff Cooper went to Morocco in an endeavor to convince the Resident General that it was in the interest of France to work with the British. Late in the same year, President Roosevelt’s personal representative, Robert Murphy, made and maintained contact with Nogues almost up to the date of the landing. By that time, however, Nogues, who in June, 1940, wanted to continue the fight in North Africa, was convinced of Axis victory and had reached the conclusion that French possessions must remain out of the war if they were to be saved for France.
As late at October, 1942, Mr. Murphy saw General Nogues and heard his expressed hostility to French participation in the war and his loyalty to Vichy.
It is not inaccurate to say that Nogues’ attitude was due to his conviction that the Germans were masters of the sea, that therefore an Allied landing on a scale sufficient to take and hold Morocco was impossible, and that German victory eventually was certain. Other reasons might also be found in the character of the Resident General, but here one enters the realm of the suppositional.
2. Statement made by Bethouart himself.