Operation Torch
Operation Torch (or Operation TORCH) was the successful American invasion of French North Africa in November, 1942 during World War II, Europe. With the British pushing eastward from Egypt, and with Allied control of the sea and air, the Germans and Italians were caught in a vice and finally surrendered in May, 1943. Torch was the first American contact with the Germans, and taught many lessons for the green American commanders, headed by General Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Patton.
Plans
Eisenhower commanded "Operation Torch" with the mission to seize North Africa, secure the Mediterranean, cut off Germany's Afrika Corps and associated Italian forces, threaten Italy, and put pressure on Hitler from the south. Torch was not the "second front" that Stalin wanted because it only engaged a small fraction of Hitler's forces. The British 8th Army under General Bernard Montgomery was in Egypt, advancing toward General Erwin Rommel's crack Afrika Korps (and weak Italian forces) in Libya. The Torch plan was to land a second force in the west--in Morocco and Algeria, which were colonies controlled by pro-Nazi Vichy France--and race to Tunis, thereby trapping Rommel.
Eisenhower spent most of his attention on trying to win over the different French political and military cliques, and in coordinating the complex supply lines. The danger that neutral Spain might allow German troops through its territory to cut the Allies off at Gibraltar made Eisenhower highly cautious. The American divisions had no battle experience whatever; at practice landings in Bermuda, three tons of instructions, maps and aerial photographs were consumed in elaborate briefing sessions. The command ship was a French banana boat that had been converted converted in 3 days and lacked adequate communications gear.
Battle
U.S. General George Patton had operational command. His 35,000 soldiers sailed 4,000 miles direct from the East Coast then landed on hostile Moroccan beaches; two other landing forces landed in Algeria after embarking in nearby Gibraltar. Spain stayed neutral and the landings went well. The French put up only a token resistance, and soon most Frenchmen in Africa shifted allegiance away from Vichy to the pro-Allied "Free French" movement led by General Charles DeGaulle.
The Germans were surprised--and outnumbered, outgunned, outsupplied and outmaneuvered. But they moved faster than the Allies and they beat Eisenhower to Tunis. Hitler vetoed any escape because he was fiercely opposed to retreats anywhere--a policy that made all his positions rigid, his armies vulnerable. He sent General Juergen Von Arnim with new forces into Vichy-French Tunisia, while Rommel retreated to a strong defensive position called the Mareth Line in the Tunisian hills. The pincer would not close so easily. However the Allies had a 2-1 advantage in infantry, and 9-1 in tanks. Allied logistics worked well, and a naval/air blockade of the coastline cut off 80% of the enemy supplies. The few remaining panzer tanks ran out of gasoline. Under Eisenhower's general supervision, British General Harold Alexander had operational control of the Allied land forces in the west; Alexander made sure that British soldiers did most of the fighting. When the inexperienced Americans were called upon to hold the Kasserine Pass, they were whipped by Rommel's bold use of a few panzers, and lost 200 tanks. Eisenhower then replaced the unaggressive corps commander with Patton, his most flamboyant and pugnacious fighter. By May the inexorable pincers had closed; without a great fight Von Arnim surrendered 160,000 Germans and 14 90,000 Italians. Rommel escaped to fight another day.
Hitler, however, was not especially upset. At the cost of only 5% of his army, he had tied down two of his three enemies for six months in a peripheral campaign that allowed his main forces to fight the Soviets. In North Africa, 3,300 Yanks were killed and 10,000 wounded, about a fourth of all Allied casualties. DeGaulle's Free French established their headquarters in North Africa, received tanks, planes and equipment from the U.S., and provided several hundred thousand troops who fought in Italy and France.
Results
North Africa helped shake down the American command system, made combat veterans out of recent civilians, taught the knack of complex amphibious landings, and reaffirmed the vital importance of logistics. Laymen speak of strategy; generals speak of logistics. The Americans in Tunisia needed 300 tons of supplies a day --a point brought home when the first train to arrive at Beja with vitally needed food brought 18 tons of peanut butter and two cases of pineapple juice. The spirit of Allied cooperation was fairly good. Eisenhower said his staffers could call each other bastards, but if they cursed a "British bastard" they would be sent home immediately. Even so one of his top generals, Omar Bradley, thought the British were amateur strategists (because they lacked the sort of staff schools that Bradley himself had commanded at Fort Benning.) Alexander and Montgomery, on the other hand, decided that their Brits were better fighters than the inept GIs, and they themselves were superior practical strategists.
Bibliography
- Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy (2003), Pulitzer Prize; unusually well written narrative excerpt and text search
- Blumenson, Martin, "Kasserine Pass," in Charles Heller and William A. Stofft, eds. America's First Battles, 1776-1965 (1986) pp 226-265
- Breuer, William B. Operation Torch: The Allied Gamble to Invade North Africa. (1988).
- Calhoun, Mark T. Defeat at Kasserine: American Armor Doctrine, Training, and Battle Command in Northwest Africa, World War II. (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Army Command and General Staff College, 2003).
- Center for Military History. Egypt-Libya online edition
- Craven, Wesley F., and James L. Cate. The Army Air Forces in World War II. (1983). v. 2, pp. 3-206, the official Air Force history
- Funk, Arthur L. The Politics of TORCH: The Allied Landings and the Algiers Putsch, 1942. (1974) diplomatic history.
- Harding, Duncan. Operation Torch (2005)
- Howe, George F. Northwest Africa: Seizing the initiative in the West (1957), highly detailed official Army history online edition
- Levine, Alan J. The War Against Rommel’s Supply Lines, 1942-1943. (1999).
- Kelly, Orr. Meeting the Fox: The Allied Invasion of Africa, from Operation Torch to Kasserine Pass to Victory in Tunisia (2002) excerpt and text search; also online edition
- Meyer, Leo J. "The Decision to Invade North Africa (TORCH)," in Kent R. Greenfield, ed. Command Decisions. (1984) pp. 173-189)
- Mitcham, Samuel W. Rommel's Desert War: The Life and Death of the Afrika Korps (2007) excerpt and text search
- Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Two Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War. (1963). pp. 215-239
- Walker, Ian. Iron Hulls Iron Hearts: Mussolini's Elite Armoured Divisions in North Africa (2006) excerpt and text search
- Zaloga, Steven, and Michael Welply. Kasserine Pass 1943: Rommel's last victory (2005) excerpt and text search