Enemy resistance: NWAf, 164, 170 (“a brightly colored pageant”); “Western Task Force: Attack on Mehdia,” 96; Semmes, 139; Truscott, Command Missions, 123 (“Our parley”).
The three-day fight: AAR, LKT Jr., Dec. 15, 1942, AFHQ G-3, NARA micro R-24-C; AAR, “Trip of Honduran SS Contessa,” March 22, 1943, in Wheeler, ed., The Road to Victory, 76; Fowler, “Twelve Desperate Miles,” 14.
In a final twist: AAFinWWII, 77; Astor, 282 (“war hysteria”).
“It’s All Over for Now”
Gray with fatigue: Clagett, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, U.S. Navy,” 72, 75.
Hewitt resumed: AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A. G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WW II Action Reports, box 3; “Aircraft Operations during the execution of TORCH,” March 30, 1943, CINCLANT, NARA RG 38, OCNO, box 3 (“No more Jean Bart”); Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 163; HKH, comment on Jan. 1950 Morison volume, HKH, NHC, box 1 (“Come a little closer”).
For Patton, enough was enough: DDE to GSP, Oct. 13, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA Special Staff, AFHQ, box 1383; “Western Task Force: The Attack on Fedala,” n.d., CMH, 2–3.7 WE.
At two A.M., about the time: 3rd ID field artillery officer, OH, n.d., SM, MHI; Codman, 40 (“Unless the French navy”); Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 109 (“Staff wanted me”).
At dawn, the guns: Arthur R. Wilson to GCM, Dec. 12, 1942, NARA RG 165, E 13, OCS, classified general correspondence, box 106 (“Report whether”); Wordell and Seiler, 162 (“Boys, it’s all”).
Franco-American amity: Brooks, “Casablanca—The French Side of the Fence,” 909 (“Chicago, I give up!”); Taggart, ed., 30.
At the Miramar: Geoffrey Keyes, OH, Feb. 15, 1950, SM, MHI.
“They drank $40 worth”: GSP to Henry Stimson, Dec. 7, 1942, Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 112; Morison, Operations in North African Waters, appendix II, 285; HKH, “Reminiscences,” 230.
The conquest of Morocco: NWAf, 173; Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 110 (“We are in”), 114 (“If you adhere”).
Press dispatches: Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 107 (“I realize”), 111, 116, 119.
After leaving: “Report on Material and Logistics, Commander Task Force 34,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, “Special Files,” box 24486; AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A. G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WW II Action Reports, box 3; Wilhm et al., “Armor in the Invasion of North Africa,” 47; HKH, “Reminiscences,” 230.
And yet: AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A.G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII Action Reports, box 3; NWAf, 175; war diary, German naval staff, Nov. 1942, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 645 (“Go after them”).
“Good lads”: letter, E. S. Johnston to SEM, Apr. 1947, SEM, NHC, box 16; Wordell and Seiler, 173; John Ellis, Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War, 528.
Blackout drapes: Davidson, OH, 182; Codman, 47; author visit, April 2000.
At 7:48 P.M., the festivities: Davidson, OH, 182.
The German submarine U-173: “Reminiscences of Vice Admiral Charles Wellborn, Jr.,” 1972, USNI OHD (“you could see”); “Report on Material and Logistics, Commander Task Force 34,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, “Special Files,” box 24486; AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A. G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII Action Reports, box 3; Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 169; Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War, vol. II, 110; uboat.net/ boats/u173.htm.
The “goosing”: U.S.S.
Brooklyn war diary, Nov. 11, 2156 hrs., SEM, NHC, box 15.
Hewitt was furious: HKH, ts, n.d., comments on SEM, Operations in North African Waters, Jan. 1950 edition, HKH, NHC, box 1 (“extreme reluctance”).
For more than an hour: HKH to USN, June 16, 1950, HKH, NHC, box 1; HKH, “Reminiscences” Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 171.
Finally, he could continue: AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A. G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII Action Reports, box 3.
Hewitt slumped: HKH, OH, G. F. Howe, Jan. 23, 1951, NARA RG 319, 2–3.7, box 228; HKH, ts, n.d., comments on SEM, Operations in North African Waters, Jan. 1950 edition, HKH, NHC, box 1.
As dusk sifted: Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War, vol. I, 473, and vol. II, 111; Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 171; uboat.net/boats/u130.htm.
Each hit home: AAR, Hugh L. Scott, Nov. 18, 1942, and “U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Amphibious Force, Action Report,” both in NARA RG 407, E 427, box 24490.
Her two sisters: Landings in North Africa, 78; letter, E. S. Johnston to SEM, Apr. 1947, SEM, NHC, box 16 (“The damned fools”); msg, L. B. Ely to HKH, Nov. 12, 2025 hrs., HKH, NHC, box 1; Codman, 48.
Fifteen hundred survivors: “United States Navy Medical Department at War, 1941–1945,” vol. I, part 3, ts, n.d., USNAd, 673; Albert W. Kenner, “Medical Service in the North African Campaign,” Military Review, Feb. 1944, 5; Harry McK. Roper, “Report on Observations Made as Observer with Task Force Brushwood,” n.d., NARA RG 337, Observer Reports, box 52; Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 168 (“pieces of bacon”); Charles M. Wiltse, Medical Service in the Mediterranean and Minor Theaters, 119, 121.
Friday’s dawn brought: AAR, NARA RG 407, E 427, U.S. Atlantic Fleet Amphibious Force, box 24430.
Soldiers looking seaward: Blair, vol. II, 201; “Comments of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, USN, on Operations in North African Waters (original edition), 26 Feb. 1947” HKH to SEM, March 13, 1947; HKH to J. L. Hall, March 13, 1947, all in HKH, NHC, box 1.
General Clark’s arrest of Darlan: “Record of Events,” Feb. 22, 1943, NARA RG 338, Fifth Army, box 1, 25–28 (“Not once”); Murphy, 142 (“Merde!”).
At noon on November 13: Three Years, 190; DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 11, 1942, Chandler, 693; DDE to Churchill, Nov. 11, 1942, Chandler, 689; DDE to GCM, Nov. 11, 1942, Chandler, 692.
At the St. Georges: Funk, 248 (a coward).
Eisenhower sighed: DDE to GCM, Nov. 9 and 11, 1942, Chandler, 680, 692; DDE to MWC, Nov. 12, 1942, Chandler, 698; DDE to W.B. Smith, Nov. 12, 1942, Chandler, 701; “Record of Events,” Feb. 22, 1943, NARA RG 338, Fifth Army, box 1; letter, Noguès to G. F. Howe, Jan. 1950, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2–3.7 CC1, box 225.
Eisenhower shook hands: DDE to MWC, Nov. 11, 1942, Chandler, 699 (“When you are away”); Clark, 123 (“Now we can”).
Sixty years after torch: NWAf, 173; Destruction, 154.
The number of French killed: De Gaulle, 353; Marcel Vigneras, Rearming the French, 18; DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 16, 1942, Chandler, 718 (eighteen French battalions); Butcher diary, A-4, Nov. 25, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 166 (“remain embittered”). torch had lured: Milton Viorst, Hostile Allies: FDR and Charles de Gaulle, 123 (“It’s not very pretty”); DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 12, 1942, Chandler, 702 (“We are just”).
The war’s momentum: Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, 702–703.
“habits of peace”: W.G.F. Jackson, The Battle for North Africa, 396.
“For God’s sake”: DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 12, 1942, Chandler, 702; Leahy, 137 (the White House).
CHAPTER 4: PUSHING EAST
“We Live in Tragic Hours”
At two A.M. on November 8: Twelve Apostles summary, n.d., NARA RG 226, E 99, OSS files, box 39 (with his Spanish maids); Tompkins, 141–42 (“They had better”); Boatner, 155; Cunningham, 186 (the Monk), 221; Philip Jordan, Jordan’s Tunis Diary, 132 (“fashion plate gone seedy”); Alan Moorehead, The End in Africa, 82 (“Hurry”).
There was no need: Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy, 190 (“panther’s leap”); Kriegstagebuch, 90th Panzer Armee Korps, Nov. 16–30, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225; Volkmar Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 158–61; Paul Carell, The Foxes of the Desert, 311; Loerzer, “Negotiations with…Estéva,” n.d., FMS, #D-040, 2 (low, intimidating pass).
French troops ringed: Paul Deichmann, “Mission of OB Süd…in North Africa After the Allied L
anding,” n.d., FMS, #D-067, 6; Cunningham, 226; NARA RG 319, OCMH, “Background Papers to NW Africa,” box 222.
Hitler had learned: Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 158; Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–1945, 271; Anthony Martienssen, Hitler and His Admirals, 147; msg, Hitler to Mussolini, Nov. 20, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7, box 225 (“Yours in”).
Already 230: Horst Boog et al., Germany and the Second World War, vol. VI, The Global War, 793–94 (“cornerstone of our conduct”).
On Tuesday, November 10: Walter Nehring, “The First Phase of the Battle in Tunisia,” 1947, FMS, #D-147, 29; Franz Kurowski, The History of the Fallschirm Panzerkorps Hermann Göring, 109; Kühn, 160; Gardiner, memoir, ts, 1970, USMA Arch, 84.
Weak as the German vanguard: Blumenson, Kasserine Pass, 35, 37 (“I count on everyone”); Brooks, “The Unknown Darlan,” 879 (“November 8, we fight everybody”); Auphan and Moral, 251 (“The enemy is the German”).
On November 12: Kriegstagebuch, Nov. 16, 1942, 2130 hrs, 90th Panzer Armee Korps, Nov. 16, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225 (“only nodding”); Robinett, Armor Command, 73 (“After forty years”); NARA RG 319, OCMH, “Background Papers to NW Africa,” box 222; Blumenson, Kasserine Pass, 38 (“I shall be known”).
Sadly, yes: Bennett, 191; Kriegstagebuch, Nov. 16–30, 1942, 90th Panzer Armee Korps, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225 (“cannot read”); Carell, 311 (marched four abreast); Albert Kesselring, “The War in the Mediterranean,” part II, “The Fighting in Tunisia and Tripolitania,” n.d., FMS, #T-3 P1, 7; AAR, Bayerlein, Apr. 19, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7, box 225; Deichmann, 18; “Account of Marjorie Springs,” n.d., NARA RG 226, E 99, OSS, box 39 (newly fashionable goose step); Nigel Nicholson and Patrick Forbes, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. II, 339.
Soon enough, Derrien: Tompkins, 145; Auphan and Moral, 269; Kühn, Rommel in the Desert, 181–84.
A French court: Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 241 (“national unworthiness”); Cunningham, 226 (“it is an honor”); Tompkins, 145; Auphan and Moral, 284–85 (Derrien, too); Clayton, Three Marshals of France, 73.
“We live in tragic hours”: Blumenson, Kasserine Pass, 42.
Conviviality reigned: Kesselring, FMS, T-3 P1, part II, 6; Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, 8–9; Macksey, Kesselring: The Making of the Luftwaffe, 155–56; Boatner, 271.
On November 10: Macksey, 143 (poison gas); Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 172 (“drop of water”).
The Allies had achieved: Siegfried Westphal, The German Army in the West, 121; Lowell Bennett, Assignment to Nowhere: The Battle for Tunisia, 101; H. A. Jacobsen and J. Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 212.
A Cold Country with a Hot Sun
Five hundred and sixty: Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. II, 475; Middleton, Our Share of Night, 169 (“Those squareheads”); Freeland A. Daubin, Jr., “The Battle of Happy Valley,” Apr. 1948, ts, Armored School Advanced Officers Class, 9 (“that all of the Germans”).
Town mayors donned: Gardiner, memoir, ts, 1970, USMA Arch, 79 (version also in PMR, “Tank Commander,” ts, n.d., GCM Lib., box 20); Moorehead, 73; Ralph Bennett, 225; Robert H. Welker, “G.I. Jargon: Its Perils and Pitfalls,” Saturday Review of Literature, Oct. 1944, 7; Harmon, Combat Commander, 107 (reparations).
British troops dominated: Austin, 10 (“Edwardian motoring veil[s]”); Howard and Sparrow, 109; “History, HQ Detachment, 109th Medical Bn, 34th ID,” Feb. 1942–Nov. 1943, NARA RG E 427, box 9618; Moorehead, 91 (fishmongers in striped sweaters); A.A.C.W. Brown, “364 Days Overseas Service,” ts, 1981, IWM, 81/33/1; letter, Dan Rupert, May 22, 1943, MCC, YU; Jordan, 46.
For the Yanks: Oswald Jett, ASEQ, “As I Saw the War,” ts, 1988, 1st AD, 47th Medical Bn, 287; Laurence R. Robertson, ASEQ, ts, n.d., 1st AD, MHI, 164; Powell, In Barbary, 102; Randle, Safi Adventure, 138; Frelinghuysen, 27.
Eastward the caissons: Rame, 81–82 (“hanging like red lamps”); Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 44.
At dusk they bivouacked: Liebling, Mollie & Other Pieces, 31; Robertson, ASEQ, 1st AD, MHI, 164; Bolstad, 105 (“Gas!”); letter, Virginia Samsell, n.d., MCC, YU (burro named Rommel).
Pilfering by the locals: Jensen, 51; Mayo, 120; Ralph G. Martin, The GI War, 1941–1945, 41; Hilary St. George Saunders, The Red Beret, 81; Howe, The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division, 51 (“If they”); McNamara, 30 (“useless, worthless, illiterate”).
At dawn, the promenade: letter, Jack Pardekooper, Jan. 1943, MCC, YU (“Every town over here”); letter, Joseph T. Dawson, Nov. 21, 1942, MRC FDM (“The sky is almost”); Rame, 88 (“She’ll be”).
Thanks to Ultra’s decipherment: Hinsley, vol. II, 466–67, 488–89 (“low category” and “probable scale”).
There was much talk: Frierson, “Preparations for TORCH,” 1945, vol. I, CMH 2-3.7 AD, 46 (primarily to the British); Yarborough, SOOHP, 1975, MHI, 26; Howe, The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division, 51–54.
Proverbially: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 119 (“were not clearly understood”); DDE to E. N. Eisenhower, Nov. 16, 1942, Chandler, 724.
“I get so impatient”: DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 11, 12, and 16, 1942; DDE to E. N. Eisenhower, Nov. 16, 1942, all in Chandler, 693, 703, 724.
Nor was he yet: Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, abridged ed., 256, 263, 267; Jackson, The Battle for North Africa, 399.
Perhaps the biggest: Leighton and Coakley, 438; Beck et al., 63; Meyer, “Strategy and Logistical History: Mediterranean Theater of Operations,” vol. I, II–40; AAR, Henry C. Wolfe, Dec. 12, 1942, NARA RG 407, E 427, “Pre-Invasion Planning,” box 24348; Jordan, 40 (“Inevitably there was chaos”).
Ordnance officers wandered: Mayo, 119; Meyer, “Strategy and Logistical History,” vol. I, IV–7; Lunsford E. Oliver, “In the Mud and Blood of Tunisia,” Collier’s, Apr. 17, 1943, 11; DDE to GCM, Nov. 30, 1942, Chandler, 779; Field Marshal the Viscount Alexander of Tunis, “The African Campaign from El Alamein to Tunis,” London Gazette, Feb. 3, 1948, 865.
Even success: Russell F. Akers, OH, July 27, 1949, SM, MHI.
This muddle greeted: DDE to Anderson, Nov. 12, 1942, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 5 (“I applaud”); Parris and Russell, 155 (“The German”).
Anderson had been born in India: CBH, Apr. 18–22, 1943, MHI (“grinning preoccupation”); Gregory Blaxland, The Plain Cook and the Great Showman, 28–29, 106, 167 (“jutting chin”); Jordan, 44 (“moderately successful surgeon”), 61.
One British general: David Fraser, And We Shall Shock Them, 251 (“plain cook”); “Personal Diary of Lt. Gen. C. W. Allfrey, the Tunisian Campaign,” Feb. 7, 1943, Allfrey Collection, LHC (Sunshine); Chandler, 778n (GROUCH); Boatner, 9; Jordan, 137; DDE to GCM, Oct. 10, 1942, Chandler, vol. I, 628 (“he studies”); K.A.N. Anderson to DDE, Dec. 23, 1948, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 5 (“a queer sort”); Anderson to DDE, Jan. 19, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 5 (“good medicine”).
Anderson’s most ambitious: “General Anderson’s Plan, 19 September 1942,” Kenneth Anderson file, DDE Lib, box 5; “Possible Variations to Plan Y,” First Army, Nov. 7, 1942, PRO, WO 175/50; NWAf, 277.
A battalion of the Royal West Kent: AAR, Inshore Squadron, H.M.S Bulolo, Dec. 8, 1942, NARA, AFHQ micro, RN Operations, R 17-A.
Two bombs hit: David Rolf, The Bloody Road to Tunis, 34 (“swimming frantically”); AAR, Inshore Squadron, H.M.S.
Bulolo, Dec. 8, 1942, NARA, AFHQ micro, RN Operations, R 17-A (lowered boats without orders); Pack, Passage to Africa, 102.
Most soldiers and sailors: Roskill, 337; Macksey, Crucible of Power, 87.
Things went better: Baedeker, 301; Saunders, 80 (“I’ll have”); NWAf, 278.
Unfortunately, Bône: “At the Front in North Africa,” U.S. Army Signal Corps, 16mm; Moorehead, 81; Meyer, IV-13; Cyril Ray, Algiers to Austria, 8; Rame, 280 (“In this force”).
Having chased Napoleon: Shelby Foote, The Civil War, vol. III, 29;
Destruction, 169; Ray, 9, 32; AAR, 26th Armoured Bde, PRO, WO 175/211; Howe, The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division, 54; George Forty, Tank Action, 110.
“had no appeal”: Blaxland, 91.
And then, they were in Tunisia: Parris and Russell, 209; Marshall, Over to Tunis, 45 (“cold country”); R.L.V. ffrench Blake, A History of the 17th/21st Lancers, 1922–1959, 91, 113 (“The most important thing”); Liebling, 38; Gustav A. Mueller, ASEQ, ts, n.d., 13th AR, 1st AD, 249.
To protect Anderson’s: Edson D. Raff, We Jumped to Fight, 74, 79; William A. Carter, “Carter’s War,” ts, n.d., CEOH, IV-6; William F. Powers, OH, Aug. 1985, Herbert Hart, CEOH, 45 (“stamped the hell”).
But most of the Allied force: Ray, 55; Ford, 46 (said to be feuding); Robinett, Armor Command, 77 (Santa Claus); Daniell, The Royal Hampshire Regiment, vol. 3, 89.
With Anderson’s approval: AAR, “Operation of 1st Bn., Parachute Regiment,” E.W.C. Flavell, and S Company report, Jan. 18, 1943, in Lt. Gen. Sir Charles Walter Allfrey Collection, LHC, 3/4; J. Hill, “Operation TORCH,” Army Quarterly and Defence Journal, Jan. 1946, 177 (all 3,000); Macksey, Crucible of Power, 93 (“non-existent preponderance”).
They cheered again: J.R.T. Hopper, “Figures in a Fading Landscape,” ts, 1995, IWM, 97/3/1.
Then Stuka dive-bombers: Hill, “Operation TORCH,” Army Quarterly and Defense Journal, Jan. 1946, 177; AAR, 1st Derbyshire Yeomanry, n.d., PRO 175/293; Saunders, 83–86; Blaxland, 105 (local enthusiasm faded); Lowell Bennett, 123.
Medjez-el-Bab
“Whoever has Medjez-el-Bab”: Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 162 (“master of all Tunisia”); Austin, 31 (tobacco and salt); Baedeker, 329; Homer, The Iliad, trans. Robert Fagles, 160.
Medjez-el-Bab’s strategic value: author visits, Sept. 1996, Apr. 2000; Moorehead, 71.
At this bucolic place: Kriegstagebuch, Division Lederer, Nov. 17 and 20, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225 (“throw the enemy back”); Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 162; “Notes by Major Burckhardt on Tactics in Africa,” NARA RG 407, E 427, “Pre-Invasion Planning,” box 24348; Wilhelm Knoche, “Meine Erlebnisse im Tunesien-Feldzug,” FMS, D-323, 12, 19–20 (“Think what’s at stake”); Kesselring, Memoirs, 142.
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