![]() The invasion of North Africa accomplished much for the Allies. Resistance had been overcome by the evening of 10 November, when the city was surrendered to the U.S. Army Rangers were landed to prevent the French from destroying facilities and scuttling ships. The only serious fighting took part in the port, where U.S. Thus, the level of French opposition at the landing beaches was low or non-existent. Operations of the Eastern Task Force (also arriving from Britain) were aided by an anti-Vichy coup that took place in Algiers on 8 November. After an attempt to capture the port facilities failed, heavy British naval gunfire brought about Oran’s surrender on 9 November. ![]() Vichy French warships undertook a sortie from Oran’s port, but were all either sunk or driven ashore. The Center Task Force, composed from assets based in the United Kingdom, also encountered resistance by French shore batteries and ground forces to its 8 November landings. The French surrendered the city before an all-out attack was launched. units were poised to assault Casablanca, whose harbor approaches were the scene of a brief, but fierce, naval engagement. However, by 10 November, all landing objectives had been accomplished and U.S. In fact, the initially stiff French defense caused losses among the landing forces. A preliminary naval bombardment had been deemed unnecessary in the vain hope that French forces would not resist. However, resistance by the nominally neutral or potentially pro-German Vichy French forces needed to be overcome first.Īfter a transatlantic crossing, the Western Task Force effected its landings on 8 November. The primary objective of the Allied landings was to secure bridgeheads for opening a second front to the rear of German and Italian forces battling the British in Libya and Egypt. There was also a battalion-sized airborne landing near Oran with the mission to seize two airfields. landings on Morocco’s Atlantic coast (Western Task Force-Safi, Fedala, Mehdia–Port Lyautey) and Anglo-American landings on Algeria’s Mediterranean coast (Center and Eastern task forces-Oran, Algiers). The operation was planned as a pincer movement, with U.S. and British planners as the latter felt that the American-advocated landing in northern Europe was premature and would lead to disaster at this stage of the war. The operation was a compromise between U.S. The Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942 was intended to draw Axis forces away from the Eastern Front, thus relieving pressure on the hard-pressed Soviet Union. ![]()
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