A Misunderstanding Ends

Cloaked by the North African darkness, eight men watched breathlessly for the signal light. At the appointed hour no light showed. In grave danger of capture, possibly of execution as spies, the men waited on. Finally, at a second prearranged hour, the light gleamed from a darkened house. Breathing more easily, the eight strode forward into the light and into the house jammed with French Army officers.

Towering, rawboned Major General Mark Wayne Clark, fresh from a submarine, had led his men into the house on a dangerous mission: to extract as much information and win as much support from the French Army as possible. The time was mid-October, three weeks before the U.S. Army planned to invade. All that night and all next day Mark Clark and his men talked and argued with the French officers. All went well until word came that Vichy-controlled police, informed by an Arab servant, were nearing the house.

"I never saw such excitement," said General Clark later. "Maps disappeared like lightning. A French general changed into civilian clothes in one minute flat, and I last saw him going out of a window. They were going in all directions." The Americans hid in a wine cellar, Clark with a revolver in one hand and 15,000 francs in the other, "to shoot them or bribe them." After an hour the police went away. The Americans escaped.

Returning across a nearby body of water their precious rubber boat capsized. Cried one: "Damn the generals, save the boat." Most of their clothing and $18,000 in gold were lost. But they saved all the important papers, and, shivering, half-naked, they crept through woodlands to a secret rendezvous with an Allied ship.

Last week the U.S. learned of Mark Clark's daring expedition* and of the intricate military and diplomatic groundwork that preceded the invasion of French North Africa. The U.S. also heard the much fuller account of how last fortnight the A.E.F., building on that groundwork, had swept to a quick, clean victory. Within four days of the first landing, all official French resistance had ceased on orders of Admiral Jean Francois Darlan, chief of Vichy's armed forces. Algiers, Oran, Rabat, Casablanca and the rest were in American hands. So was Admiral Darlan.

The occupation of French North Africa had been accomplished with Blitzkrieg briefness, utilizing expert coordination of planes, ships, tanks, trucks, guns and courageous men. In spots it was easy. In others resistance was bitter, though brief.

Algiers. Two U.S. Ranger officers and a newspaperman, scrambling ashore with the first assault force near Fort Sidi-Ferruch, 15 miles west of Algiers, were met by a friendly French officer. Twenty minutes later, still dripping with surf, they were inside the fort shaking hands with the garrison commander, who showed them instructions received the previous evening for cooperating with the Americans.

Closer to the capital, advancing troops met resistance in El Biar, a small suburb of Algiers. Fire from 25-lb. mortars slowly drove back the French, potshotting from whitewashed, tile-roofed houses as they went. Ducking behind trees and lampposts, the Americans blasted back with their new Garand rifles. During one lull in the fighting the Americans were called into an El Biar cafe for a glass of vin rouge on the house. Villagers cheered the invaders and unconcernedly went about their tasks, often trudging through the line of fire.

As the afternoon waned, the retreating French sent out a flag of truce and asked for terms. That night in Algiers Major General Charles W. Ryder and Robert Daniel Murphy, U.S. envoy to North Africa, were closeted with Admiral Darlan and General Pierre Alphonse Juin. Algiers' three airports already were in American hands. From east and west troops were at the city's gates. Admiral Darlan, no stranger to the ways of negotiation, ordered the surrender GI Algiers. Next morning U.S. troops, who had billeted outdoors in the chilling wind all night, streamed in.

Oran. Fighting was more bitter for Oran, 130 miles west of Algiers. U.S. pilots flying British Spitfires hammered at the French while armored ground forces moved in on key airdromes. One airdrome was captured along with 800 prisoners. On the second day Brigadier General James H. Doolittle arrived to command the air assault, which dovetailed closely with land and sea action. Planes peppered Oran with leaflets from General Henri Giraud urging Frenchmen to "save your bullets for the Boche." By the time three more airdromes were captured, Major General Lloyd R. Freden-dall had pushed his columns within three miles of Oran and even closer to the Mers el-Kebir naval base. Massing his forces, General Fredendall, with one burst of power, broke Oran's resistance on Nov. 10, the day that Darlan, terming himself commander for all North Africa, signed a general armistice with Lieut. General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Casablanca. In Morocco tough, muscular Major General George S. Patton Jr. ran into just the kind of opposition for which he had prepared. Months ago, on the deserts of southeastern California, he had drilled his men to fight in blazing heat over terrain such as they would meet in North Africa. Patton had insisted that they keep their sleeves rolled down, that they get along on a minimum of water. He had forbidden that vehicles, moving or standing, be within 50 yards of one another, lest they provide a bunched target. Not long after his men reached Africa, their grumbles turned to praise for what the Old Man had taught them.

Two nights before the U.S. struck, Hans Auer, German Consul General in Casablanca, had called a meeting of twelve Nazi armistice commissioners at the Hotel Plaza to warn them that an Allied invasion was imminent. De Gaullists followed the Germans, set up machine guns covering the hotel's exits. When the meeting broke up, a blaze of gunfire silenced the Germans.

Though De Gaullist guns thus disrupted Nazi preparations, Casablanca still managed to put up the stiffest of all resistance to the U.S. invasion. Foresighted George Patton shoved three tank columns ashore east and west of the sprawling city and hit first for an outlying reservoir. With that in his hands, he could cripple Casablanca if necessary. Soon parachutists seized the city's main airdrome and the tank force advanced.

Off Casablanca, U.S. warships commanded by Admiral Henry K. Hewitt knocked out a bitterly resisting French cruiser-destroyer force while Navy flyers bombed the 35,000-ton battleship Jean Bart into a blazing hulk. The U.S. fleet moved inshore and soon was heaving shell after shell into the Moroccan coast.

By the time Patton's three tank columns had pierced through to Casablanca, all coastal French Morocco, from Agadir in the south to the Spanish Moroccan border on the north, was in American hands.

Summary. Said General Eisenhower succinctly: "I do not regard this as any great victory. I regard these people as our friends. We had a misunderstanding, but fortunately it ended in our favor. The job now is to get this thing organized and go after the enemy."

* With the news that he had been promoted to lieutenant general.

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