England's Last War Against France

by Colin Smith

  Thanks to the British attempt to emulate the Royal Marines’ success in Madagascar, the Allies’ first public appearance in French North Africa was in the guise of dazed captives, some half-naked survivors covered in oil and blood. A less public humiliation was the total failure of Operation Villain, the war’s first American airborne operation and the longest reach ever attempted by any of the combatants – the record being held by Germany with its 1941 leap from Greece to Crete.

  From the beginning the British had been as vehemently opposed to Operation Villain as the Americans had been to Reservist and Terminal, saying that it was a waste of valuable resources better employed trying to get to Tunisia before the Germans. But Clark, who favoured an all-American act of derring-do, urged Eisenhower to go ahead. And shortly after 9 p.m. on Saturday, 7 November, 556 American paratroopers in thirty-nine twin-engined United States Army Air Force C-47 transports (Dakotas to the British) left RAF airfields near Land’s End and headed due south for a dropping zone over 1,000 miles away.

  They were commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Edson T. Raff whose orders were to secure two Vichy air bases south of Oran: La Sénia and Tafaraoui. Originally they had been going to leave four hours earlier to be in time to drop at first light. But they had been wrongly informed that there would be no resistance and the drop time had been put back four hours to give them a more friendly time of arrival.

  Their night flight would take them over Franco’s neutral Spain but long before they got there strong winds over the Bay of Biscay scattered a formation flown mostly by pilots and navigators not long out of training. This might have been righted if a signal pad error on somebody’s part had not resulted in a British anti-aircraft cruiser, which was 35 miles off Oran, being instructed to transmit a prearranged homing beacon on the wrong frequency. Even worse was the frustration of one of Murphy’s American agents who had succeeded, at considerable risk to himself and his French accomplices, in planting a 9-foot-tall beacon antenna almost on Tafaraoui airfield itself. Unfortunately, he had not been informed about the decision to put back the original zero hour by four hours. When, well after dawn and after a cold and sleepless night spent ensuring that the wireless beacon was working, the paratroopers had still failed to arrive, the mast had been dismantled and its operators returned to Oran.

  By now none of Colonel Raff’s battalion were where they should have been though some had done better than others. Four of the C-47s, lost and running out of fuel, had put down on the first runway they saw which left over 100 men interned in Spanish Morocco for the next three months. Two more landed at Fez which was at least French Morocco. One aircraft, its crew glad to be alive after a bumpy and vomitous night, looked down, saw Gibraltar and stopped for coffee and directions. Most ended up making forced landings somewhere in Algeria and usually quite close to the airfields that were their objective, three having been convincingly shot at while flying over La Sénia. Some crew and soldiers were captured and taken to Oran’s Fort Philippe where they met the survivors, American and British, from the Walney and the Hartland and learned how much worse it could have been. Six Dewoitine fighters caught another three of the defenceless C-47s in the air, followed them down to where they had hastily landed more or less intact then continued to machine-gun them on the ground leaving five dead and fifteen wounded.

  Raff, whose aircraft was flown by the mission’s senior pilot, had rounded up nine of his scattered herd and was looking for more when he spotted a dozen or so parked C-47s huddled by the side of a dry lake. Steadily approaching them were several menacing columns of dust which the Colonel rightly assumed to be made by tanks. Raff informed the other aircraft by radio that a parachute diversion was required. He jumped first, landed hard, cracked a rib and, as some 120 men and their weapon containers floated down beside him, discovered that the tanks were American Stuarts making for the same airfields they were supposed to capture. They followed their tracks. Operation Villain was over.

  Operations Terminal, Reservist and Villain were all costly and unnecessary frills. The spectacular failure of the first two might have given the French so much encouragement it could have been the undoing of Operation Torch or at least brought about the kind of prolonged resistance seen in Syria. It was as well for Murphy that he was unaware of these failures. As it was, isolated at Général Juin’s Villa des Oliviers with his imagination running riot for twelve nerve-racking hours, Torch certainly did not seem the almost sure thing it had done after the Clark-Mast meeting at Cherchell. ‘Giraud is not your man,’ Darlan said to him at one point. ‘Politically he’s a child. He is just a good divisional commander, nothing more.’

  At about 3 a.m. his relations with Darlan and the others, which had become quite cordial, had been badly undermined by the unexpected appearance at the villa of about forty of the white arm-banded insurgents commanded by an aspirant, a ranker who had been selected as a potential officer cadet. Since the SOE had failed to deliver they were armed with a variety of weapons, some of possible interest to collectors. Nonetheless, the Senegalese guards were disarmed and the occupants of the house informed that no-one would be allowed to leave apart from the US Consulate General whom they were there to protect.

  So now the two most important men in Vichy French North Africa were prisoners. Murphy thought the insurgents’ leader a ‘courageous youth’ – aspirants were rarely more than 21 – but he was unable to convince Darlan and Juin that he had been no more aware that this was going to happen than they were. Largely ignored by the French officers, the American was left to pace miserably up and down. On both sides the smoking was industrial.

  Then at about 6.30 a.m. there were sounds of commotion and a couple of shots outside and at first the diplomat thought the US cavalry had at last arrived and went out to welcome them. It turned out to be another changing of the guard. About fifty Gardes Mobiles, well-armed paramilitary police, had arrested or chased away the aspirant and his men who, like the rest of French Algeria’s Cinderella underground, had been assured that the Americans would replace them long before the dawn revealed they were not properly dressed for the ball. Murphy and his deputy Keith Pendar, who was hoping they would not find the pistol he was carrying, were roughed up then shoved at gunpoint into a hut the Senegalese, who had magically reappeared, used as their guard post.

  The Gardes had been led by Major Dorange, Juin’s aide, who was incensed that his général had been taken prisoner and arrived brandishing a large old-fashioned revolver and threatening to kill ‘that cochon Jean Rigault’, the former journalist who was the best known of the underground leaders. Rigault may have been a handy whipping boy but it seems that most of Dorange’s immediate anger was aimed at Murphy, the man who had abused his friendship and trust by pledging, ‘We will not come unless you summon us.’ Truth is, of course, often cited as war’s first casualty and this carefully planted piece of disinformation, which had been swallowed whole by Darlan, had been of enormous help to the Allied cause. ‘Dorange and I had been good friends,’ Murphy admitted in his memoirs. ‘But he was understandably aggrieved to be caught unawares by the Allied landings and he told me sternly I was under arrest.’

  Dorange had already had a small measure of revenge. He was responsible for the manhandling the American diplomats had received when his rescue party arrived. Uncertain of the Gardes’ loyalty, Dorange had briefed them that the Axis had invaded Tunisia and that Général Juin was about to be kidnapped by German agents. After a few minutes people began to calm down. Amiral Fenard saw to it that the diplomats were released from their hut in the grounds. Darlan, also newly liberated now that the aspirant and his followers had disappeared, instructed Fenard to keep an eye on them while he and Juin went to army headquarters at Fort L’Empereur to find out what was happening. Darlan’s parting shot to the Americans was that he had ‘grave doubts’ about their story. Murphy, deeply troubled by the continued absence of US troops in his life, did not blame him.

  Then, not all that long after they had left, Fenard rec
eived a telephone call from Juin. It was all true. The Americans were landing in force up and down the Algerian and Moroccan coasts.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Around Algiers alone, on the landing beaches west and and east of it, some 35,000 Allied troops were ashore. True, some had not landed as close to the city as they were supposed to and a few had drowned or been cast up by the surf sans rifles after their landing craft capsized. Six of the flat-bottomed vessels, 2 miles off course and carrying British Commandos, drifted up to Ilot de la Marine, a little Ottoman fort joined to the rest of Algiers harbour by a causeway, and at least three were sunk. Among the dead was a major who had distinguished himself in the raid on Vaagso in Norway in December 1941. Others were taken prisoner.

  But this kind of bad luck was rare. Along the beaches the French had been badly outnumbered and had none of the advantages they had enjoyed at Algiers harbour when the Walney and the Hartland tried to bluff their way in. Resistance had been at the most disjointed and often, thanks to Mast’s band of conspirators, nonexistent. ‘Gentlemen, you are late,’ Major Pierre Baril greeted the Iowans of the 168th Regiment when they came ashore at Fort de Sidi Ferruch, in 1830 the same place Amiral Guy-Victor Duperré had chosen to start the French conquest of Algeria. The 168th were the second wave. Two hours earlier Major Baril had handed over the fort to some Commandos only to have them press on to Blida airfield after General Mast had turned up in person to urge them to get there fast. His man at Blida needed some support and the airfield was important. Apart from denying it to L’Armée de L’Air it was where Giraud was supposed to fly in. At this point Mast’s scruples about dealing with les anglais appear to have vanished.

  Infantry battalions from the Northamptonshires, Lancashire Fusiliers and East Sussex had been landed at the village of Castiglione about 6 miles away from Sidi Ferruch where they discovered that another congenial French officer had made certain that his Tirailleurs would do nothing to hinder them. With their artillery and logistical support, most of which had yet to land, they numbered 7,230 men and were part of Major General Vyvyan Evelegh’s 78th Division. Evelegh’s main job was to try to get to Tunisia before the Germans did. Dealing with the French would be left to the Americans who would be providing most of the Allied army of occupation in the rest of French North Africa only they could not, of course, call it that.

  When Darlan returned to Juin’s house at about three o’clock his mood had changed considerably. The first thing he did was to ask Murphy to find Major General Charles Ryder, senior American officer in the Algiers sector, and bring him to Fort L’Empereur to discuss the terms of a local ceasefire with himself and Juin. Presumably, he had learned Ryder’s name from the signed leaflets the Fleet Air Arm were dropping, announcing that the Americans had come as friends. Darlan told Murphy that he believed Ryder could be found on or near a beach about 10 miles west of Algiers and he would provide the diplomat with General Juin’s car and his driver to get there.

  By now the neighbourhood was getting dangerous. There was what Murphy called ‘a volume of brisk small arms fire’ around the house as elements of the 168th, running, taking cover and firing, finally skirmished their way into town half a day overdue. Their casualties were not so much heavy as significant: the 1st Battalion had just lost its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Doyle, shot in the back by a sniper at the entrance of the governor’s summer palace where a po-faced Arab gatekeeper was refusing admission on the grounds that His Excellency was ‘at the beach’. A French Red Cross ambulance was touring the streets, its crew picking up wounded on both sides. And gathered on balconies were groups of colons still in their Sunday best, though the main morning mass was long over and some had not dared go out to it. Certainly, they would never see another Sunday like this one.

  Before they drove off Murphy walked out of the gates of Villa des Oliviers and saw some American soldiers ‘hugging the wall and firing in our direction’. The diplomat went back to the car, which was flying a French Tricolour and a large white flag, and told Juin’s chauffeur to drive slowly towards them. The soldiers stopped firing and waited, some aiming at the car.

  I came up to them, introduced myself, maintained a respectful distance as ordered by the young lieutenant in command and shouted an explanation of the circumstances. The lieutenant asked me to repeat the story slowly. Then, apparently convinced that it was not a ruse, he allowed me to walk up to him. I asked his name and he replied, ‘Lieutenant Gieser.’ I could not help but smile and say, ‘You’re the best looking geezer I’ve seen for a long time.’ That seemed to convince him that I was a bona fide American. He detailed one of his men to accompany me and we went down to the landing beach without further incident.

  At the beach the first person Murphy met, dressed in US Army Ranger uniform, was the brave, intelligent and drunken (though possibly not on this occasion) Captain Randolph Churchill, only son of Britain’s Prime Minister and close friend of the almost equally drunken Evelyn Waugh. It was just over two years since Churchill and the novelist Waugh had made their military debut in the humiliating attempt to replace the Vichy French with de Gaulle in Dakar. During that time Churchill had served with a Commando detachment at Tobruk and, more usefully, as the press officer when Britain followed up its success in Iraq by invading Persia and toppling its pro-German Shah. Now he was the intelligence officer in a Commando brigade that was the most composite Anglo-American unit in Operation Torch in which US Rangers trained by the Commandos were going into action with them. After the Allies had gone to enormous lengths to make Operation Torch as American as possible, nobody seems to have disputed the wisdom of risking a Churchill becoming a captive of the French.

  Much to Murphy’s delight, the famous son greeted him effusively. ‘He seemed to know about me and said something to the effect that the British diplomatic service could do with a few like me. I considered that quite a compliment.’ These pleasantries over, he led Murphy through the beachhead’s bewildering mass of shouting men and revving vehicles to where Major General Charles Wolcott Ryder, commander of the 34th US Infantry Division, was sitting on a rock trying to dictate a despatch. The general’s words were coming out slowly and in the wrong order and he kept having to start again. Ryder, who was 50, was exhausted. He explained to Murphy that he had not slept properly for a week, a condition with which the diplomat had some empathy, and would need to finish his message for Eisenhower and get into a fresh uniform before he met any French officers. Luckily Murphy was as tall as most generals and had a commanding presence. ‘I took him by the arm, gently but firmly and we were in the car and on our way to Fort L’Empereur.’

  At the fort, solid nineteenth-century symbol of colonial rule, the French had laid on a little military pageant as if they were determined to show these Americans the way real soldiers behaved. Even before Ryder had arrived a French bugler blowing the cessez-le-feu had mounted the running board of the borrowed car he and Murphy were travelling in. And when they halted outside the fort they were greeted by a staff officer whose role was to surrender to Ryder the sword he was wearing for the occasion. It was proffered hilt first. Vice-Consul Pendar, who was also in attendance, was reminded of paintings he had seen of sixteenth-century sea captains surrendering their dismasted ships.

  Once inside, they were ushered into a kind of great hall decorated with trophies of both chase and battlefield: the magnificent curved horns on the severed heads of the Nubian ibex which must be stalked in the high slopes of the Atlas Mountains, Arab and Berber armour and weaponry, the Spahis’ crossed and pennoned lances. Darlan and Juin, the latter in full dress uniform with a red sash about his middle, were standing at the end of a large table that had been covered in green baize. Around them stood about fifty French officers. As the Americans entered the room bombs from another Fleet Air Arm strike seemed to land quite close by in a long, rumbling explosion.

  ‘How wonderful!’ gasped Ryder, rumpled but gun-dog friendly. ‘This is the first time since 1918 that I’ve been under f
ire.’ No doubt the general thought it a good moment to remind the French that they had once all been brothers in arms but his audience looked about as receptive as the heads on the wall.

  ‘A moment of icy silence followed,’ recorded Murphy. Then, in his indomitable way, he proceeded to break this froideur by introducing Ryder to Darlan and Juin just as if nothing untoward had been said before getting on with the business of interpreting terms and conditions.

  Within a remarkably short time it was agreed that Ryder would assume responsibility for law and order in Algiers, providing the local gendarmes came under his control. French troops would return to barracks but be allowed to retain their arms. All prisoners would be released immediately. Most of them were Colonel Svenson’s Singing Third and those British Commandos who had survived the sinking of their landing craft when they strayed too close to Ilot de la Marine. Allied forces would enter the city centre at 8 p.m. A short document was drawn up and there was some delay while it was typed out. Then Juin and Ryder signed as respective commanders of the ground forces and Darlan and Murphy witnessed it.

  It was a local ceasefire. There had been no more than a tentative agreement on the part of Darlan and Juin to try to expand it to the rest of French North Africa. For the moment it did not apply to Oran or Casablanca around where there were soldiers and sailors on both sides who would be looking at their last sunset that evening. Nonetheless, it was a good start.

  Certainly, back in Gibraltar General Giraud thought so, for when he heard the news he stopped demanding Eisenhower’s job, agreed to settle for the American terms and become commander of the French military in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. On the morning of Monday, 9 November General Mast arranged for a French aircraft at Blida airfield to pick him up in Gibraltar and bring him back there. Eisenhower heaved a sigh of relief. ‘It can be expected that his presence there will bring about a cessation of scattered resistance which is tragic among soldiers who have the same enemy,’ the supreme commander announced in a wildly optimistic press statement. Not that anybody could blame him for hoping that the wish might fulfil the deed. Privately he was telling people, ‘these Frogs are driving me mad’.