![]() ![]() French officers shared information about defensive arrangements but the Americans did not share critical invasion details of timing, strength and distribution of forces. Clark near Algiers to meet with pro-American French military officers stationed in Algeria. As TF 34 sailed, the British submarine HMS Seraph landed Major General Mark W. The resulting Task Force 34 (TF 34) included 102 ships for the invasion of Morocco under the command of Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt aboard the flagship heavy cruiser USS Augusta. These ships were screened by 38 American destroyers. Troopship convoy UGF 1 left Chesapeake Bay on 23 October 1942 and was joined on 26 October by a covering force of battleships and cruisers sailing from Casco Bay and on 28 October by the aircraft carrier USS Ranger, and the escort carriers Sangamon, Suwannee, Chenango, and Santee sailing from Bermuda. Military planning for Operation Torch in 1942 emphasized American troops in the initial landing forces on the basis of intelligence estimates they would be less vigorously opposed than British soldiers. The United States government had previously recognized the Vichy regime as legitimate. British forces had bombarded the French at Mers-el-Kébir to prevent the French fleet from falling into German hands after the French rejected demands to join the Allies or sail to a neutral port, leading to much ill-will between France and Britain. The Vichy regime-which controlled Morocco-was thus officially neutral, but in practical terms the Armistice obliged Vichy to resist any attempt to seize French territory or equipment for use against Germany. General Charles de Gaulle led French forces opposed to the surrender and to the Vichy government, continuing the war on the side of the UK and the Allies. The French government at Vichy had surrendered to Germany after the Battle of France, signing an Armistice with Nazi Germany. Morocco was a protectorate of France at the time of World War II. troopships and the deaths of 462 men aboard 24 French ships opposing the invasion. An escalating series of surprised responses in an atmosphere of mistrust and secrecy caused the loss of four U.S. French defenders interpreted the first contacts as a diversionary raid for a major landing in Algeria and Germany regarded the surrender of six Moroccan divisions to a small commando raiding force as a clear violation of French obligations to defend Moroccan neutrality under the Armistice of 22 June 1940 at Compiègne. An invasion task force of 102 American ships carrying 35,000 American soldiers approached the Moroccan coast undetected under cover of darkness. Īllied military planners anticipated an all-American force assigned to seize the Atlantic port city of Casablanca might be greeted as liberators. The last stages of the battle consisted of operations by German U-boats which had reached the area the same day the French troops surrendered. ![]() The Naval Battle of Casablanca was a series of naval engagements fought between American ships covering the invasion of North Africa and Vichy French ships defending the neutrality of French Morocco in accordance with the Second Armistice at Compiègne during World War II. ![]()
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