1942 -- Operation Torch

Operation Torch. 
Despite Operation Torch's role in the war and logistical success, it has been largely overlooked in many popular histories of the war and in general cultural influence.The Economist speculated that to be because French forces were the initial enemies of the landing, making for a difficult fit into the war's overall narrative in general histories.

Operation Torch was the first area of French soil to be liberated. The operation was America's first armed deployment in the Arab world since the Barbary Wars and, according to The Economist, laid the foundations for America's postwar Middle East policy,
The Allies organised three amphibious task forces to simultaneously seize the key ports and airports in Morocco and Algeria, targeting Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. Successful completion of these operations was to be followed by an eastwards advance into Tunisia.

1939 Sept -- Britain and France at war with Germany over invasion of Poland.

1940 Jun -- The Fall of France. Rapid German invasion overwhelms the French Army.

1940 Jun 22 -- Armistice between France and Germany signed. The French national assembly gives full powers to Marshall Pétain on Jul 10. France is occupied by German troops and the government becomes an ally of Germany.

1940 Jul 3 -- The British attack the French fleet harbored in French Algeria.

The attack was part of Operation Catapult, a British plan to neutralise or destroy French ships to prevent them falling into German hands in the aftermath of the Allied defeat in the Battle of France. The British bombardment of the base killed 1,297 French servicemen, sank a battleship and damaged five other ships, for a British loss of five aircraft shot down and two crewmen killed.

The French thought they were acting honourably towards their former ally in terms of their armistices with Germany and Italy. The British attack was almost universally condemned in France and resentment festered for years over what was considered a betrayal by their former ally.  

1940 Sept -- The French bomb British Gibraltar in retaliation, using Morocco-based planes.

1941 Dec 7 -- U.S. at war with Germany.

1942 Jul -- Allies (US,UK,Poland in exile) settle on plan to invade Vichy North Africa.

An Allied occupation of the whole of the North African coast would open the Mediterranean to Allied shipping, releasing the huge capacity required to maintain supplies around the circuitous route via the Cape of Good Hope. 

1942 summer-autumn -- Preparations for Operation Torch. Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa. TransAtlantic transport of American invasion troops begins.

Torch was, for propaganda purposes, a landing by U.S. forces, supported by British warships and aircraft, under the belief that this would be more palatable to French public opinion, than an Anglo-American invasion. For the same reason, Churchill suggested that British soldiers might wear U.S. Army uniforms, although there is no evidence that this tactic was implemented.

They were transported directly from the United States in the first of a new series of UG convoys providing logistic support for the North African campaign

1942 Nov 7 --  Pro-Allied French General Antoine Béthouart attempted a coup d'etat against the French command in Morocco, so that he could surrender to the Allies the next day. 

His forces surrounded the villa of General Charles Noguès, the Vichy-loyal high commissioner. However, Noguès telephoned loyal forces, who stopped the coup. In addition, the coup attempt alerted Noguès to the impending Allied invasion, and he immediately bolstered French coastal defenses.

1942 Nov 8 --

1. Failed coup in Morocco, followed by landing of the Western Task Force at three points in Morocco. 

A Western Task Force (aimed at Casablanca) was composed of American units, with Major General George S. Patton in command and Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt heading the naval operations. 

This Western Task Force consisted of the U.S. 3rd and 9th Infantry Divisions, and two battalions from the U.S. 2nd Armored Division — 35,000 troops in a convoy of over 100 ships. 

 

The Western Task Force encountered unexpected resistance and bad weather, but Casablanca, the principal French Atlantic naval base, was captured after a short siege. 

Because it was hoped that the French would not resist, there were no preliminary bombardments. This proved to be a costly error as French defenses took a toll on American landing forces. 

2. Landing of the Central Task Force near Oran, Algeria. 

The Center Task Force suffered some damage to its ships when trying to land in shallow water but the Vichy French ships were sunk or driven off; Oran surrendered after bombardment by British battleships. 

The U.S. 1st Ranger Battalion landed east of Oran and quickly captured the shore battery at Arzew. An attempt was made to land U.S. infantry at the harbour directly, in order to quickly prevent destruction of the port facilities and scuttling of ships. Operation Reservist failed, as the two Banff-class sloops were destroyed by crossfire from the French vessels there. The Vichy French naval fleet broke from the harbor and attacked the Allied invasion fleet but its ships were all sunk or driven ashore.

3. Resistance coup in Algiers...

As agreed at Cherchell, in the early hours of 8 November, the Géo Gras Group, 400 mainly Jewish French Resistance fighters staged a coup in the city of Algiers. Starting at midnight, the force under the command of Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie and José Aboulker seized key targets, including the telephone exchange, radio station, governor's house and the headquarters of the 19th Corps.

...followed by an invasion of the Eastern Task Force

On 8 November 1942, the invasion of Algiers commenced with landings on three beaches—two west of Algiers and one east. Under the command of Major-General Charles W. Ryder, commanding general of the U.S. 34th Infantry Division, the 11th Brigade Group from the British 78th Infantry Division, landed on the right hand beach, the US 168th Regimental Combat Team, from the 34th Infantry Division, supported by 6 Commando and most of 1 Commando on the middle beach while the US 39th Regimental Combat Team, also from the US 34th Infantry Division, supported by the remaining 5 troops from 1 Commando, landed on the left hand beach. The 36th Brigade Group from the British 78th Infantry Division stood by in floating reserve. 

Though some landings went to the wrong beaches, this was immaterial because of the lack of French opposition. All the coastal batteries had been neutralized by the French Resistance and one French commander defected to the Allies. 

The only fighting took place in the port of Algiers, where in Operation Terminal, two British destroyers attempted to land a party of US Army Rangers directly onto the dock, to prevent the French destroying the port facilities and scuttling their ships. Heavy artillery fire prevented one destroyer from landing but the other was able to disembark 250 Rangers before it too was driven back to sea. 

The US troops pushed quickly inland and General Juin surrendered the city to the Allies at 18:00.

...and French surrender of the city.

1942 Nov 9 -- Germans beginning building up forces in French Tunisia.

1942 Nov 10 -- French resistance to Allies ceases in invaded areas. Military vacuum in French Tunisia. French troops suddenly no longer reliable as defenders of Vichy regime.

1942 Nov 10 -- Germany, realizing France cannot be trusted, quickly occupies southern France, seizing the Port Toulon on the Mediterranean coast opposite Algeria.

1942 Nov 17 -- The Allies launch campaign into Vichy Tunisia

1942 Nov 19 -- Germans clash with French troops in Tunisia who refuse them crossing of a bridge.

1942 Nov 22 -- Release of Casablanca by Warner Brothers. Premiere at the Hollywood Theatre.

1943 Feb 19-24. The Battle of Kasserine Pass. First engagement between German and American troops in the war. The Allies fight off a German advance in Tunisia.

The Battle of Kasserine Pass was a series of battles of the Tunisia Campaign of World War II that took place in February 1943. Covering Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia.

The Axis forces, led by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, were primarily from the Afrika Korps Assault Group, elements of the Italian Centauro Armored Division and two Panzer divisions detached from the 5th Panzer Army, 

the Allied forces consisted of the U.S. II Corps (Major General Lloyd Fredendall), the British 6th Armoured Division (Major-General Charles Keightley) and other parts of the First Army (Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson).

The battle was the first major engagement between U.S. and Axis forces in Africa. Inexperienced and poorly led American troops suffered many casualties and were quickly pushed back over 50 miles (80 km) from their positions west of Faïd Pass.^[7] This result confirmed a prediction of Winston Churchill, who had strongly advocated that the invasion of France as laid out in the proposed 1942 plan Operation Roundup be delayed until the Allies could support such an ambitious undertaking, which would give the U.S. troops time to get up to speed with the realities of war against the experienced and well-equipped Germans.

After the early defeat, elements of the U.S. II Corps, with British reinforcements, rallied and held the exits through mountain passes in western Tunisia, defeating the Axis offensive. As a result of the battle, the U.S. Army instituted sweeping changes of unit organization and replaced commanders and some types of equipment.

1943 May 7 -- Fall of Tunis to Anglo-American forces.

On 7 May, British armour entered Tunis and American infantry from II Corps, which had continued its advance in the north, entered Bizerte.

1943 May 13 -- Surrender of last German forces in Tunisia.

In 1966, the British Official Historian I. S. O. Playfair wrote that

Had the Allies been able to get a tighter stranglehold on the Axis communications immediately after the 'Torch' landings, they might have won the gamble of the Tunisian Campaign by the end of 1942 and victory in Africa as a whole might have been close. Conversely, the Axis might have staved off for a long time their defeat in May 1943 had their forces received the supplies they needed.

— Playfair

The decision to reinforce North Africa was one of the worst of Hitler's blunders: admittedly, it kept the Mediterranean closed for six more months, with a negative impact on the Allied shipping situation but it placed some of Germany's best troops in an indefensible position from which, like Stalingrad, there would be no escape. Moreover, Hitler committed the Luftwaffe to fight a battle of attrition under unfavourable conditions and it suffered losses that it could not afford.

— Williamson Murray