September 1942: Overture to Operation Torch

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OPERATION "TORCH": THE SETTING

I - STRATEGICAL DECISIONS

The landing in Sicily had been a long waited for operation on both British and French sides. The idea was floated first by December 1941, only to be abandoned for "Crusader" (the landing in Peloponnesus) as without any significant US input it was painfully clear that an operation of such a magnitude was beyond the combined French/British capabilities. British and French authorities began to raise the topic with Washington as early as February 1942. However, American strategists, led by Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall were typically unsupportive at first. Marshall argued that the Allies should focus their energies upon a direct thrust at Nazi Germany- that is a cross-Channel landing. From this point of view, every man, tank, ship and airplane sent to the Mediterranean reduced forces available for an invasion of northern Europe.

British and French strategists had understandingly different approaches. Winston Churchill pushed for a landing in Sicily on two different grounds. First, invasion of Sicily would definitively clear the Mediterranean for convoys going to the Far East. Second, the loss of Sicily would probably induce a major political crisis in Italy and either push Rome out of the war or open the way for a landing on the Italian mainland. Such a landing, combined with an offensive from Peloponnesus and Southern Greece would enable Allied forces to grasp at Germany’s ‘soft belly’. This argument took an even greater weight after the German attack on the USSR (Barbarossa) in May 1942. It was by then clear that most German forces were involved in a protracted and painful fight on the East. The best Italian units had been destroyed during "Crusader". All of this opened a strategic window of opportunity.

The French government, albeit for different reasons than the British, had the same strategic goal: focusing on Sicily. For Algiers, invasion of Sicily was just the first step on the ladder including Sardinia and Corsica and ultimately leading to a major landing either in northern Italy or in France. Once the three islands were under Allied control, it would become possible to extend air cover over the whole Tyrrhenian Sea and the Gulf of Genoa. The Allies could then chose either to land in northern Italy on the Tuscany coast (and then isolate most of enemy forces situated in the southern peninsula) or in southern France.
Allied bombers could strike not just Italian industrial cities, but ones in southern Germany including Augsburg where Messerschmitt's plant was situated. The French Army staff was adamant that trying to invade Italy from Calabria was ill advised. Breaking into Italy's northern plain in a Napoleonic way appealed much more to French staff officers than a slow and difficult march through southern and central Italy.

Whatever divergences existed between British and French planners, strategic integration had progressed a lot during 1941 and early 1942. This was a fact American planners had discovered early 1942. At any meeting US representatives were faced by a coherent common British-French position, usually supported by previous in-depth planning.

Joint British-French planning departments had studied various possible operations in MTO in addition to invading Sicily (called ‘Polyphemus’) including ‘Achilles’ (a landing in Salonika), ‘Castor and Pollux’ (a coordinated twin-landing in Sardinia and Corsica) and ‘Ulysses’ (a landing around Tarento). At first ‘Achilles’ attracted much attention. However the French Army staff killed the idea showing that the landscape was too favourable for the defender and that Allied bases in the Aegean could not support so large an operation. Operation ‘Castor’ was seen as a revenge of the defeat suffered early 1941. It also had a strong incentive for the French side, that of freeing parts of French land (Corsica). However, the RN was not too enthusiastic about the project with Sicily till in enemy hands. ‘Ulysses’ looked promising and could result in the fall of Sicily once the island was isolated. However, landing around Tarento would imply a very strong aerial support, which could not be provided from Malta. As the RN was not willing to call back aircraft carriers deployed in the Indian Ocean and USN ones needed in South-Western Pacific, ‘Ulysses’ was transformed into a disinformation operation to support ‘Polyphemus’ and was used with much success as the background for ‘Mincemeat’.
Analysis of ‘Crusader’ told Allied staffs a lot of important lessons about amphibious operations. This was another reason leading to ‘Ulysses’ demise. To succeed such an operation would imply a forward base not too far from landing beaches. This could be achieved for Sicily where the Tunisian coast and Malta could be used as good stepping points. A landing in the Tarento Gulf could not benefit from such support. On the other hand it was clear to all American planners that ‘Polyphemus’ was the only opportunity to participate to a major operation in 1942. Even under the best estimates forces concentration in Great Britain would not be enough for attempting a major cross-channel operation before at the very least summer 1943.

By mid-March the British-French proposal had won the day. ‘Polyphemus’ was renamed ‘Torch’ and detailed planning began in the earnest. However, both France and Great Britain had agreed on the US position that this operation was to be the last of Allies’ big Mediterranean adventures. Marshall on his side had agreed on Torch on the condition that:
(a) this operation could be combined with Rutter, which was seen as an important test for a cross-channel major landing and
(b) that after Torch all US forces and most of British ones would concentrate on the cross-channel operation he hoped to launch by fall 1943. The position of French forces was left undefined, but there was a common understanding that France was to participate to the cross-channel operation.

This was the result of a major staff conference held by late March 1942. To some extent American planners had been quite impressed by the success of ‘Crusader’. They were still harbouring some doubts about British and French fighting abilities, the more so after the Rommel counter-offensive in Peloponnesus. This somewhat changed after ‘Periclès’ and the successful French mountain troops counter-offensive. However until summer 1942 part of the US Army staff was prone to dismiss the actual relevance of fighting in Peloponnesus.

At the same time, British and French planners were having their own doubts about the combat-worthiness of ‘green’ US troops. The French government had opened its training grounds in Northern Africa, and US armoured units had the opportunity to train with French and British ones. This considerably improved relations between both armies, but in the same time contributed to open a gap between perceptions harboured by US commanding officers in Algiers and Washington. American commanders stationed in North Africa, and above all US Generals George S. Patton and Terry de la Mesa Allen, were eager to enter the fray as soon as possible. They argued that participation in a major operation would be needed to test US Army doctrine, equipment and organization. Patton went so far to support the deployment of one US armoured division in Peloponnesus. This was not agreed in Washington, but the argument about the necessity of a large-scale test before launching the cross-channel operation had obvious merits of its own and could not be easily discarded.

There was also one set of strong political arguments favouring Torch from the American point of view. By spring 1942 it was clear for Roosevelt and his advisers that so far US participation to the war could not bring positive results before some time. The US retreat in Philippines made a poor comparison with the good show the British Army was giving in Malaya and Singapore. To a large extent it was unfair and even foolish to assess the US war effort at this time on the basis of such kind of comparison. But this was something lost to US newspapers and journalists. Voices were raised at home against the official policy of asking for a general command of the Allied war effort. Some journalists were portraying both Roosevelt and Marshall as leaders not wise enough to follow the ‘right’ World War I example of Pershing accepting Foch’s supremacy in command.

This was obviously a plainly mistaken view of the actual situation. The British and French position was much weaker than in 1917. American journalists coming and going in French North-Africa got the feeling of a powerful and efficient war machine able to inflict serious blows to the enemy. Only the cleverest of them would understand that France was fighting broken-backed and survived only through US industrial support. This obviously was a thing French leaders were not discussing openly with people meeting them. The French government actually spent a significant amount of money developing a public opinion campaign in the United States, ostensibly to silence the isolationist lobby, but actually to portray Fighting France as a major war power. Such a campaign found significant relays in Hollywood (where several movies were produced displaying in a very favourable way the French contribution to the war), attracting well known personalities like John Steinbeck (who wrote ‘The Iron Man’ - a movie about Gen. de Gaulle - scenario) and Ernest Hemingway (who contributed to ‘Foreigners under the tri-colour flag’, a movie about Foreign Legion units, released in March 1942, just before Limnos defence epics). Robert Capa's book of photograph pictures ‘Corsica Burns’", published in September 1941 had also a tremendous popular impact. The US government could not be fooled by such a campaign but neither could it dismiss the support US public opinion was giving to France and Great Britain.

Nobody in the end would and could dispute the fact that US contribution to the war was to be decisive, and this would ultimately gain for Washington the driver's seat. But, by spring 1942 this was not so obvious to press correspondents and congressmen touring North Africa, listening to war stories of Corsica or Greece operations veterans, invited to Gen. Girault headquarters in Heraklion or visiting the Sparti battlefield in Peloponnesus as well as scorched places in Limnos.
The US government was to some extent under pressure to participate in a joint Allied offensive in the only place where the Axis could be fought- that is the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. The US support for Torch was then strictly limited and the result of both strategic assessments and political trade-offs.

But if the US support to Torch was half-hearted at best (at least at the highest level as troops deployed in MTO from privates to generals were eager to jump into the fray), it can be said that both British and French general staffs were not completely sincere in their agreement that Torch was to be the "last of Allies' big adventures in the Mediterranean". Documents in both Imperial Archives and French "Services Historiques des Armées" (Army Historical Department) state clearly that on both sides military and political authorities were expecting Mussolini to fall if Torch was a success. The Imperial General Staff was already planning ‘Outreach’, a possible landing in southern Yugoslavia in the wake of a possible Italian retreat from the war (Yugoslavia was mostly garrisoned by Italian troops). On its side the French general staff was planning ‘Castor-II’, a variant of the initial Castor plan, to land troops in Corsica as soon as Italy would have exited the war.
Field Marshal Alexander, who under Gen. Eisenhower was commanding all land forces allocated to Torch, had asked for a very strong reserve with two British infantry division, one US and one French armoured divisions. If part of these forces was actually ‘floating reserves’ ready to support troops engaged in Sicily, another part was training for another mission. To what extent Eisenhower staff were aware of British and French intents is not known. Surprisingly, it could be that no formal contingency planning to cope with a possible Italian capitulation had been undertaken neither in Washington nor in London where Eisenhower had settled, at least till Torch actually begun.
Some American historians have post-war even accused British and French planners of double-dealing on the issue of further operations in the Mediterranean. If a bit biased, this opinion is partially true. Both Churchill and Reynaud were perfectly aware of the opportunities a quick success in Sicily could open. They both knew that an Italian capitulation would be an event of such magnitude that Washington would have to react and adapt.

Torch was then fought as much in cabinets and staffs as on the field. Certainly one of the most significant consequences of Torch was that it forced Allied Powers to face the issue of a fully integrated command. When things were settled, by end 1942, Washington had had its way - a unified structure had been created under US command - but both Great Britain and France had also succeeded in involving US military power in protracted operations in the MTO.

II. ALLIED FORCES EQUIPMENT AND DOCTRINE BY SUMMER 1942.

        There is no doubt that by late summer and early fall 1942 Allied forces were in a state of flux concerning equipments. The pre-war generation of weapons was giving way to new systems and equipment designed with the experience of a real shooting war in mind.

II.I. Doctrinal and training evolution.

        This situation could clearly be seen in the land forces equipment domain. Two men here stands as outstanding examples for their energy and achievement in improving both the British and the French Armies and putting them progressively on par with the Werhmacht: Sir Bernard Law Montgomery and Charles Delestraint.
Montgomery aggressively pursued realism in training and efficacy in the field in Great Britain after Dunkirk. He was rewarded by a major command in Torch by summer 1942 and from there would progressively rise as a major star in British Army sky. However, improvements in the British Army were less spectacular than those occurring in the French one at the same time. Part of the reason behind this phenomenon was the fact the British Army was strongly grounded in traditions, being a professional force. Innovations were harder to implement and took longer to disseminate than in conscription armies like the French of the US one. Another reason had been the traumatic shock the French Army suffered in May-July 1940. The once much-lauded "best army of the world" had been neatly defeated and proved to be unable to emulate tactical improvements implemented in the Werhmacht. For French officers evacuated to North Africa, this was a bitter lesson they took by heart. The "never again" mentality, which spread deep and fast among French officers, created a strong incentive to introduce innovations and to speed up modernization. However a third reason could be found in the very personality of the man who took charge of most of this doctrinal and technical catching up process.
General Charles Delestraint was at the very centre of the French Army modernization process but his impact was to be felt outside of the French Army. Before the war, Delestraint had already been very close to Gen. de Gaulle's ideas about tanks and armoured forces. After having been in charge of re-organizing French tank production during winter 1939-1940, he was given command of what was left of French tank forces by late June 1940. He successfully gathered remnants of battered DCRs and DLCs to form an ad-hoc grouping, which fought hard during the bitter retreat to the Mediterranean in July 1940. Delestraint was appointed Lieutenant General by 8 July 1940. Wounded twice (first during fighting around Valence and again during the initial defence of Marseilles) he refused to be evacuated and was one of the very last French generals to leave Metropolitan France in August 1940.
De Gaulle appointed him Inspector of Cavalry and Armoured Forces (Inspecteur Général de l'Arme Blindée-Cavalerie) on September 1st. From then, Delestraint focused his considerable energy and his knowledge of the real war to improve combat doctrine and modernize equipment. He was not a young man (born in 1879) but more than once his enthusiasm and energy would surprise and exhaust much younger officers. During fall 1940 and winter, Delestraint travelled frequently to the United States to supervise the development of the Savannah tank factory, visit US tank factories and meet his rough counterpart, Gen. Adna Chaffee. He then acquired the unofficial nickname of "General delete and strain" as he could put a lot of pressure on subordinates and was eager to delete old equipment that had proved ineffective or unfit for mobile warfare. Delestraint fought hard to impose realistic training rules and procedures and worked well with both Chaffee and Patton, and then with Chaffee's successor, Gen. Jacob Devers.
Delestraint, by 1941 began to warn both the French and the US general staff that there was a trend toward building much too ‘tank-heavy’’ units. On this point he actually was closer to Devers than he had been to Chaffee. He advocated force structures where highly mobile field, anti-tank and AA artillery, mechanized infantry and mobile engineer units could support tanks. On the other hand he opposed the place given to light tanks (which were for him nothing but a stop gap) and advocated using medium tanks as the standard combat vehicles, using light tanks for tactical reconnaissance and infantry close support. Delestraint strongly advocated terminating the SAV-41 production in Savannah once the heavier SAV-42 Belier was ready.

One lesson he derived from "Crusader" was the need to strengthen the Mechanized Infantry arm of French Armoured Division. Under the 1942 TO&E (provisional) adopted by June 1942 another mechanized infantry battalion was added, to be deployed with the armoured brigade deployed on the main attack axis. This was applied first to the 2nd armoured division, earmarked for Torch, giving this large unit 4 armoured regiments (each roughly equivalent to a US tank battalion) and five mechanized infantry battalions. Delestraint would have liked to replace M2 and M3 half-tracked vehicles by a fully tracked and protected armoured infantry combat vehicle. His staff, helped by people who had developed the Lorraine tractor before 1939, had even developed a design using M3(light) tank components, with a front mounted engine making room for an eight soldier combat team in the rear and a one-man turret armed with a 20mm Hispano automatic gun. This vehicle was planned to be built at Savannah using US components. However the Savannah plant was much too busy introducing the SAV-42 "Belier" (French designation for the Canadian "Ram" cruiser tank) and all US factories were already heavily committed to existing designs. This very advanced vehicle was to remain stillborn but was to strongly influence post-war French designs. US generals Patton and Bradley echoed Delestraint concerns about the M3 half-track vehicle and Bradley was extremely pleased when he was showed by June 1942 plans of the armoured infantry combat vehicle in Algiers. Both men lobbied their own chain of command to have this vehicle included in the armoured vehicle production planning but the ‘war mobilization’ iron law (don't introduce new models to avoid disorganizing production) prevailed and any project to introduce this advanced vehicle was dropped. The switch from the M3/M5 family to the new M7 light tank was also reducing to naught the industrial commonality argument and redesigning the French vehicle to use M7 components would have taken time. US design teams where then asked if they could develop a better and more advanced vehicle, which was true (they used the Buick T-49 as a basis) but they took so much time no vehicle was produced before the end of the war in Europe.
By late June 1942 Delestraint was appointed commander of the French 1st Army (including French 3rd and 4th Army Corps) and he began to focus his usual energy training his men for the forthcoming operation Torch. The French 1st Army was seen as the manoeuvre element of the 15th Army group and Delestraint looked an obvious choice to work with both Patton and Montgomery.

II.II. Introducing new equipments.

Re-equipment of Allied forces in MTO affected both ground and air forces. The quality gap with German forces was closing and the edge over Italian ones increasing progressively. The fact was that an overburdened Italian industry was unable to keep pace with both qualitative improvements and quantitative expansion needed at this stage of the war.

By summer 1942 French Army equipment was evolving the following way. The Savannah produced SAV-41 was progressively giving way to the SAV-42 "Bélier" (the Canadian Ram-II built in Savannah) in Armoured and Cavalry units. Until enough SAV-42 became available, Infantry units medium tank battalions were to use either SAV-41 or US M3 Grant or is some case even Canadian built Valentine VI. One fourth of Canadian-built Valentine VI allocated to Infantry Units was of the CS variant with the 3-in. howitzer.
Light tanks were now mostly M3F (the US M3 design armed with the French pattern 47mm gun) but the Canadian Valentine VI was also used. Some units were still equipped with older US M3. The much waited for M7F (with its 6 pdr gun) was not to reach the French Army before early November 42.
Tank-hunter and assault-gun units were still equipped with the SAV-AU-41, derived from the SAV-41, but a programme of rearming older vehicles with the US 3-in AA gun M3 was under way. The 12t "fast 6pdr tracked gun-carriage" developed by Buick (and known as the T-49) had been selected to replace AUAC SP vehicles, which mounted either a 47mm or a 57mm/6pdr gun on a half-track vehicle. The first T-49s were expected to be delivered by October 1942. They were to equip reconnaissance and cavalry units as well as mobile AT-units operating in support to Infantry units. The French Army was also expecting the arrival of US M7 105mm SP vehicles and M10 tank hunters. However both vehicles were to be allocated priority to US Army units.

The US Army was to deploy for Torch two infantry and two armoured divisions, these ones being of the "heavy" type with two regiments of each three tank battalions. The 1st and 2nd US Armoured Divisions were units which fielded no less than 390 tanks each (232 medium and 158 light). They had been castigated by Delestraint as "notoriously tank heavy" and the US Armoured Corps head, Gen. Devers was already convinced the standard US Armoured division should be tailored down. This could not be achieved before Torch.
Of the 464 medium tanks deployed in the two US armoured divisions, 270 were new M4 Sherman, the balance being composed of M3. Of the 316 light tanks, 158 were M5 (deployed in the 2nd Armoured Division) and the rest M3 or M3A1 but for 30 M3F swapped at a French Tank Depot in Algeria at Patton's demand and with Delestraint support. In addition, US Armoured divisions fielded 90 M7 105mm SP, the balance of armoured artillery regiments being made of 75mm SP guns on half-track vehicles. US Infantry divisions deployed some M3(light) M3(medium) and two battalions of newly delivered M10 Tank Destroyers. US forces were then deploying nearly one thousand tanks.

Commonwealth units were also in a state of transition. Matilda II infantry tanks were giving way to Valentine and some Churchill tanks (mostly Mk-II and Mk-III, of which 57 had been delivered after the successful combat testing in Greece). The 23rd Armoured Brigade deployed A15 Crusader-III cruiser tanks and US-built M3(medium). Throwing their weight in the balance, Ritchie and Campbell had obtained that 36 of newly built Churchill 3-in Gun Carrier were delivered, these heavy but powerful vehicles being deployed among the 105th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery.

        Improvements through the deployment of new designs were particularly noticeable among Allied air force units. When "Crusader" had been launched Hawker Hurricane and Curtiss P-40E, both outclassed by Bf-109F and Macchi MC-202 were still the two most important Allied fighters.
By late summer 1942, the RAF and USAAF were fielding Spitfire-V (and a bunch of Spitfire-IX). The French "Armée de l'Air" was introducing the Mustang-II (with its Packard-built Merlin series XX engine), an aircraft the USAAF had also belatedly adopted. The twin-engined P-38 was mostly confined to long-range escort missions, but the Mustang-II very clean airframe was promising to make this plane a powerful contender for the escort spectrum. Allison-powered Mustang-Is proved to be very competent low-level interdiction fighters, and were now supplementing P-40 and P-39 more and more used as ground attack fighters. Light to medium bombers were seeing Blenheim and Maryland fading away, these old designs being replaced by A20/DB-73/Boston-III, B25, B26 and Bristol Beaumont.

Doctrine has been too considerably refined even if at high cost. Fighter units had all adopted the "finger-four" formation as the basic combat unit and combination of medium-altitude bombing, low-level strikes and counter-air operations perfected against Axis forces in Greece and Sicily. Operations like "Avenger" (March 42), and then "Hammer" had been the actual air-combat universities from where the Allied air forces graduated as very powerful combat weapons by summer 1942. Operation Blowlamp struck a severe blow to the Axis fuel supply line and provided important and useful lessons for the forthcoming US strategic bombing offensive.
Tactical Air offensive over Greece and Sicily had been backed by a thorough network of support and training bases developed in French North Africa but also in occupied former Italian North Africa. Large depots and maintenance facilities, well outside enemy bombers range provided combat units with a sound and effective logistic support.
These improvements had not been mimicked by either the Luftwaffe or the Regia Aeronautica. Introduction of the Bf-109G had not rebuilt the qualitative superiority the 109F once experienced. Italian "second generation" fighters, if extremely competent designs, were built in far too small amounts to have a real impact. The handful of very experienced Luftwaffe and RA pilots was now eroding fast and disruption of training patterns induced first by ‘Merkur’ in spring 1941, continuing with air-operations over the Balkans and Crete during summer 1941 and lastly by ‘Crusader’ early 1942, had considerably lowered the quality of "green" German or Italian pilots reaching their operational units by summer 1942.
The Luftwaffe could still field some extremely dangerous "experten" among its combat crew, but the proportion of experienced pilots in first line units was now going down quickly, a process losses suffered in the war against Soviet Union was exacerbating.

Axis forces had been unable to emulate such a process but for very different reasons. (ED- what process is this referring to?) From May onwards the Luftwaffe was heavily committed to Barbarossa. The very loss level German units suffered during the first two weeks precluded the sending of any reinforcements to the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. The need to reach quickly very high monthly production levels put also a provisional stop to the technological race. Luftwaffe units in MTO, and particularly in Greece and Balkans had to fight with what was at hand at least for some time. Hitler had made clear to everybody that the Mediterranean was a very secondary theatre now that the war with Russia had began. The German high command hoped that Italian forces could contain the Allies at least till Soviet forces were defeated by next fall. Then it would be time to turn Axis guns on the growing threat the Peloponnesus and North Africa seemed to harbour. What was still becoming slowly apparent by July 1942 was that the war in the East would imply not just a production race but also a new kind of technological one, at least for armoured vehicles. Combining both a step rise in production and qualitative improvements was to strain to a considerable extent the German industry.
Italy was in a much worse situation than Germany. Italian industry was not only considerably weaker, but lacked solid grounds to expand quickly. Too many small companies were competing for government orders and the industrial capital structure was, but for one or two large plants, extremely outdated. A pre-war policy of prestige and record breaking had to some extent overshadowed actual industrial weaknesses. To compound what was already a very serious problem, losses suffered by Italian forces from 1940 to 1942 had considerably disorganized training patterns. Italian aircrews, and more generally speaking all Italian soldiers, were discovering that courage alone doesn't win battles or wars. What is more, the lack of high command response to the material degradation of Italian forces (a situation which was partly resulting from an overvaluation of ideological factors but partly too just the result of Italian weaknesses) was now seriously affecting Italian troops morale


 Torch strategic setting part 2

II.III. Allied developments in amphibious warfare.

        There was however no field where such a situation of technical improvement which marked summer 1942 was so obvious than amphibious warfare, with the development and introduction into operational service of new landing ships and craft. They added a new dimension to mobile warfare helping Allied forces to develop a successful doctrine of "envelopment from the Sea". Without these highly specialised surface combatants of all sizes, large landings like ‘Crusader’ or ‘Torch’ could never have been attempted.

It was Winston Churchill himself who, a few days after the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk, called for the development of landing craft that would enable British forces to return to Europe. The first of many minutes he wrote addressing this topic dated the 6 June 1940.
By summer 1940 the French Army was involved in landing operations in Sardinia, and by fall in Rhodes and Dodecanese islands. The extreme difficulty French troops had to unload even relatively light tanks (R35 infantry tanks sent to Syria and Lebanon by late 1939) pointed to the need of specialised crafts and ships able to deliver armoured vehicles to the beach. The fighting in Rhodes would prove that having tanks quickly ashore was vital for the success of landing operations. By early October 1940 both British and French staffs had agreed on such craft characteristics. Actually the British Inter-Services Training and Development Centre had formulated already some specifications by 1938-39. Scarce money had restricted development of such craft by then. The ISTDC had reacted to Churchill's minutes and closely analysed French experience in Sardinia. By October 1940 a prototype of the TLC (Tank Landing Craft, soon to be renamed LCT) was undergoing sea trials. It however was a short-range craft, which entered production by December 1940, but was not solving the more vexing issue of medium to long range amphibious landing vessels. To some extent difficulties encountered during the Rhodes operation were another starter for Churchill. After a joint British Staff conference dedicated to the offensive among Dodecanese islands held in Algiers by mid-October 1940 he directly instructed the Director of Plans (Admiralty) to develop a ship able to carry sixty tanks and landing them on the enemy shore. The problem was passed to the DNC and plans amended to a ship able to carry 20 to 25 medium tanks or 13 heavy Infantry tanks (the future Churchill tank) at a speed of 18 kts. This specification became the RN Boxer class and the three LST(1) were completed from March to August 1942 having had one of the most important priorities of all naval programmes.
However, soon after the DNC had begun designing this class the DCO (Director of Combined Operations) Admiral Sir Roger Keyes suggested hat some shallow draft tankers used on the Maracaibo Lake could be converted into LST. Such conversions were expected to be faster than new construction, which implied 18 months. Three tankers were selected and converted during spring 1941, becoming the Maracaibo-class LST, and they were much used to prepare and execute ‘Crusader’.

The next call was German invasion of Corsica and Italian one of Sardinia in March and April 1941. French forces were significantly constrained in their attempt to deploy armoured units in Corsica by the lack of a medium-range "Tank Landing Ship". The need of relatively fast amphibious ships was also emphasized by the tactical situation where Axis air power would probably interdict naval movements by daylight. The need of specialised support ships (both for AA protection of landings and amphibious convoys and for close-support during landings) was again made clear. Generally speaking, the Axis success in Corsica and Sardinia provided a new boost for the development of amphibious ships. By then British shipyards were clearly unable to deliver new designs in large quantity and, with the passing of the Lend-Lease Act, British and French staffs begun to develop a joint requirement for crafts and ships to be built in US shipyards. By May 1941 "Joint British-French Requirements" were given to US Naval constructors.
The first one was for a "fast raiding naval vessel" able to carry up to 200men and some packaged cargo. This requirement stemmed from French and British experience of operating in support of islands (Corsica) and in the Aegean. It gave birth to the LCI(L), which itself spawned two specific variants, one for fire support and AA defence (LCS(L)) and one for local ASW escort as LCE(L). The need of fire-support vessels was also directly a consequence of operational experience either in the Dodecanese or in Corsica. The second JFBR ship was a tank lighter able to carry 5 medium tanks or up to 160t of cargo and fast enough to operate with the previous design. Here the main driver was the need for ships able to carry and unload significant numbers of troops and vehicles during the night and still be able to move to safety before dawn. Speed was to be, as for the LCI(L) of no less than 15kts. This ship was to become the LSM a specialised vessel 226 ft long (at the water line) able to carry 8 SAV-41 tanks or 5 heavy ones and with a light displacement of 624t, reaching 893t in beaching conditions and 1245t for sea-going. A three-shafts diesel power plant delivered 3480 bhp and allowed the ship to reach 15,6 kts. An armament of 2-40mm and 6-20mm was provided for self-defence. A third amphibious JFBR covered the US copy of the British LCT, for a short-range tank lighter. Production dates and rates were ambitious. Design of both the LCI(L) and LSM were to be frozen by July 1st, 1941, with deliveries to begin before end 1941. These three different types of amphibious vessels were the backbone of the Allied amphibious effort in Greece by March 1942.
The LSM proved to be so successful a design it was further developed as a fire support vessel (LSM(R)) by the US Navy by mid-1943, entering widespread service by summer 1944. Two variants were developed, one focusing on close support and armed with one 5-in single mount, rocket launchers and mortars, and the other more specifically dedicated to AA escort and protection, without rockets and mortars but with two 5-in single mounts and two quadruple 40mm mountings. Both designs, LSM(R) and LSM(F), were to progressively complement and then replace shallow draft monitors used by the Allies.

Crafts and ships ordered through initial JBFR would still not solve the logistic problem. This was quite clear from the outset and some kind of US-built LST variant was needed. Here however, French Army armoured vehicles re-equipment requirements were an important factor. The French Army was expecting to receive at least 250 armoured vehicles a month from summer 1941 onwards, part of them coming from the Savannah plant and others from US builders. Transporting tanks in a common freighter was not effective. The LST as designed by the RN (Boxer-class) was an obvious solution. However these ships promised to be expensive to build and were certainly faster than needed for the logistic transportation role. US naval constructors had pointed to the fact that LST(1) plans were not adapted to mass production.
The French demand then led to a re-design of the LST aiming at simplification even at the cost of reducing sustained speed to 10kts (12.5 kts at max power). The new design was frozen by September 1941, giving birth to what was universally known as "the" LST (or "Large Slow Target"...) and the LST(2) in the RN. This design received considerable a priority by late fall 1941 and the first one was floated in April 1942, with deliveries beginning early July 1942. These ships were to be built in huge numbers and delivered to all Allied navies (some had survived till early 1990's) and were to play a very important role both in their logistic task (carrying tanks from US factories to North Africa) and in amphibious assault. There was to be recurrent concerns about their low speed and the RN developed its own variant of the US design (itself a simplification of a RN one) with a frigate-type steam machinery. These ships were known as LCT(3).

It was the combination of these specialised amphibious ships and crafts with specialised fire-support vessels (either converted LCT/LCI or specially developed shallow draft monitors of the M-100 class), which enabled Allied forces to launch an operation of Torch’s magnitude. As important as the development and the large-scale production of specialised ships and crafts, the development of a coherent doctrine was an important factor of Allied superiority. From the first landings in Sardinia during summer 1940 to operation Ajax in June 1942 (the landing on Zanthe) British and French forces had accumulated a considerable experience in amphibious operations, from relative small sized raids to very large Army Corps level landings (including ‘Pavie’, the summer 1940 landing in Sardinia; ‘Cervantes’ the September-October 1940 invasion of Rhodes; ‘Soliman’ or a string of landings in Italian held Dodecanese islands in October-November 1940, evacuation of Corsica and Sardinia in April 1941; various commando raids during the campaign of Greece in 1941: Crusader, the main landing in Peloponnesus and related operations like the landing in Limnos in March 1942; landings in the Pelagies - Pantelleria and Lampedusa - in April 1942, and Ajax, the landing in Zanthe in June 1942).
Multi-services cooperation had been tested time and again. Specialized procedures had been developed to achieve successful integration of air and naval support. US troops could be seen here as relative newcomers. However it is not to be forgotten that the USMC had developed pre-war a very sound amphibious doctrine, which was used as a benchmark in US Army training, and that US troops deployed in North Africa were in constant contact with British and French troops with some amphibious operation experience. The US Navy had been associated, through R.Adm Hewitt Task-Force to operations in MTO and has had the opportunity to test procedures during operation Ajax.







III. SITUATION OF AXIS POWERS

The strategic situation of Axis powers had been briefly alluded before. By late-August 1942 for both Berlin and Rome the war was turning sour. This was not so evident for Germany it was for Italy. German forces were still on the offensive in Soviet Union, even if at a tremendous price. But Italy's will had been broken. Not only was the military situation difficult, but also the political one was spiralling down from week to week.

III.-A. GERMANY

For sure Hitler or the German high command still had faith in victory. They still hopped to "finish Russia for all and ever" even if the date was constantly postponed. It has to be said however that they didn't have another option. A protracted war with Soviet Union with Allied forces building up strength quickly in MTO and England was clearly the worst possible situation. The Blowlamp string of air raids against Ploesti had confirmed that oil was Third Reich Achilles Heel. Ukraine had to be conquered not just because its agricultural and industrial resources but as a stepping point before moving toward North-Caucasus and Baku oilfields. This implied concentrating as much forces possible against USSR. Actually 70% of the German Army was deployed against the Red Army. Still, France and Norway had to be garrisoned, not to mention Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark.
France was a sore point for Hitler's strategy. The pro-German government of the "Three-Ds" (Darnand, Deat, Doriot) was a weak copy of a true fascist dictatorship what ever its brutality and was lacking support in the population or the administration. Without the presence of 14 German divisions scattered all over the country the Three-Ds would collapse quickly. But French economy was now providing up to 8% of Third Reich GDP (as Allan Millward's post-war book would show) and was now vital for the German war effort.
Norway was another Hitler's obsession. He constantly feared a British landing either in the north (old memories of the Narvik operation) or in Southern Norway (Bergen and Stavenger) from where northern Germany would become vulnerable. Norway too was then asking for its part in the German forces cake.

That left the OKW with very few assets to be allocated to MTO. In April and May, Hitler and the OKW had hoped that Rommel’s bright counter-offensive would push the Allies back to the sea in the Peloponnesus. But this hope had been destroyed by the Allied operation ‘Pericles’. The bloody failure of the Limnos air landing had also demonstrated German weaknesses in the particular theatre and Hitler was genuinely concerned it could push Turkey to side with the Allies. This operation had also cost the Fuhrer one of its last effective reserve for fast deployment. There was then no other solution for Hitler and the OKW than to hope that the Italian Army could contain another Allied offensive in MTO for long enough so that German troops could be re-allocated from Russia after the "final victory" in the East. General Halder was now hoping for a decision in September-October, and that would imply at best that German troops could begin to re-deploy toward MTO by early 1943. Mussolini was given as much verbal support as Nazi leaders could but very few tangible assets, as there were none to spare.

III.-B. ITALY

Italy's situation was much more critical both in political and military terms by summer 1942. Mussolini's decision to enter the war in June 1940 had surprised not just the population but the Army staff too. Ciano had noted in February 1940 that just 10 divisions were ready and that artillery equipment and ammunition stockpiles were at 8% of their regular level. Italian generals begged the "Duce" to delay his decision by at least two weeks, as Italian forces were completely unprepared for war. Serviceability of aircrafts and tanks was very low by 10 June 1940 and part of military stockpiles had been moved back to Italy from North Africa in preparation to invasion of Albania in 1939. But Mussolini was so sure France was to collapse he sternly refused any delay. When he gave to Marshal Badoglio his war orders the old General just said: "this is Italy's suicide". To that Mussolini answered that with just some thousands of dead Italy would have gained a front seat at the new Europe’s table.

The French mid-June decision to fight against all odds had the result of calling the Italian’s bluff. On the Alps front the Italian Army made little progress against French fortifications and heavy artillery. By early August, only Menton had fallen and the Italian Army had suffered 17,000 killed and wounded. Mussolini had come to Turin for a "giant" meeting where he shouted, "Nice will be ours". But where some fascist militants were screaming "Nice, Nice" a large part of the attendance shouted "pace, pace" (peace, peace). But worse came fast. Late June 1940 French forces were hitting back with a vengeance in North Africa. The French Army had few assets but was still in a better position that the Italian one, completely cut from its base by British-French successful exercise of Sea Control. The British Army attacked from Egypt in a combined movement and French aviation quickly destroyed Benghazi and Tripoli harbour installations. Tobruk fell in just three weeks (20 July 1940) and Benghazi by August 10th. Tripoli was to stay in Italian hands till September 25th but this was more due to British and French over-extension and weaknesses than through other reasons. The last Italian position, Misurata, fell on October 2nd, ending the Italian presence in Northern Africa. Italian forces had lost more than 200,000 men, all tanks and tankettes and guns they had. As Dino Grandi, one of Mussolini closest and oldest friend would then add "at least Benito has kept the Promise he made in 1911: we have left Northern Africa".
But other bad news were streaming to Rome. Late August, French forces made a twin landing in Sardinia, with forces from Corsica attacking from North. Olbia fell in just two days and Cagliari in three. Italian forces put a brave but short fight in Central Sardinia for two weeks but, by September 18th surrendered. This blow was a severe one and Badoglio came to the King asking Vittorio-Emanuelle III to dismiss the Duce. But the King just answered that but for a decision of the Fascist "Great Council" he could do nothing. The British French attack on Taranto was also a terrible blow to Mussolini's pride. The much-vaunted Italian Fleet had been incapacitated in just a morning.
By early September 1940, British and French forces landed at Rhodes (operation Cervantes). The Italian garrison put a good show. The landing was difficult and costly. However, by October 9th Rhodes had surrendered. Italian Dodecanese Islands fell one after another in October and early November (Operation Soliman).
In Eastern Africa, a combination of Commonwealth and French colonial troops soon dismantled the "Italian Empire". Adis-Adeba fell late January 1941. The last Italian troops would fight till May 1941 but of the old Italian and now Fascist colonial dream in Africa nothing was left.

But for the successful "Operation Merkur" (air landings in Corsica and Sardinia) of February and March 1941, the fascist regime would probably have collapsed by spring 1941. Marshal Badoglio on his own had begun planning for Mussolini arrest in February 1941. Still, when Greece attacked Italian forces in Albania, Mussolini again had to call Hitler to help. Italian fascism was just a shadow of its former self. The cost of living was rising fast in Italy and the situation of most of the population was becoming more and more difficult. After years of sterile internal conflicts the anti-fascist movement was gaining strength.
German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece gave another boost to an already doomed political regime but even for the closest of Mussolini's cronies it was clear that Germany was at the helm. What's more, the Italian Navy was to any extent destroyed in the string of ferocious battles fought during spring 1941.
Mussolini himself was ill. He was more and more isolated and talked with a very limited circle of people, most of them coming from the ‘Petacci clan’, that is people linked to his young mistress Clara Petacci. Still, he hoped for a miracle. When Allied forces landed back in Peloponnesus in March 1942 he proclaimed that Italian forces would show the world their value. For sure Italian units fought well at Gythion and Sparti. But they were destroyed and the Italian Army deployed in Greece was the very cutting edge of Italian forces. By late March, morale went to an unseen before low level. Rommel's counter-offensive seemed at first to be the much waited for miracle, but soon petered out. By June, Allied forces were again on the offensive, pushing German and Italian troops toward the Corynth Canal.
Operation ‘Pericles’ and its sequel ‘Ajax’ (the Zanthe landing) spelled the end of Italian hopes that Allied forces could be pushed out from Peloponnesus. The Italian elite had then to face the probability, whose shadow had been looming from fall 1940, of a major enemy landing on the national territory.

        With the destruction of the ASI Army by September 1940 and the capture of Sardinia, this possibility had become part of Italian planning. Actually Mussolini ordered "to create a steel wall protecting the Sacred Land of Italy" on October 1st 1940. He made numerous speeches equating Allied forces now accumulating in Northern Africa with the old Rome rival of Carthage, ending inevitably each speech with Caton the Old’s dictum "Cartago delenda est" (Carthage is to be destroyed).
A programme of coastal fortifications was launched, with a priority for Sicily and Calabria, and extended to Sardinia once the Island was back in Italian end in spring 1941. This programme ate up to 50% of Italian concrete production and 20% of steel. By mid-1942 it was far from completed. Implementation had been plagued by the widespread corruption among local Fascist party organs and fortifications were frequently built in places decided more by local enterprises whose owners were Fascist leader cronies than by military necessity. A significant share of construction materials was misallocated and, as a disgusted Dino Grandi would write by summer 1942 "Italy's sacred land had been equated with luxury resorts around Rome and Naples".
The Italian Army staff was well aware that the fortification programme was lagging behind schedule. Before being dismissed General Count Cavallero wrote to Mussolini than less than 45% of fortifications have been completed and less than one-third had received the planned for armament. Actually only Sicily western part, the one facing French Tunisia, had been seriously fortified.

        In such a context, the Italian elite expectations were low. The Italian big business began to part away with the Fascist regime by May 1942 when Cini, a typical representative of this group, left the Italian government. Marshal Badoglio had approached the King many times since early 1942 to discuss the possible removal of Mussolini. Even among fascist leaders, men like Grandi and Ciano were beginning to search for a way allowing Italy to leave the war.
This war never had a popular support. But fighting a British-French Alliance was one thing and fighting against the United States was another. Links between Italy and the United States were important. The Italian emigration had been a very important phenomenon till the end of the XIXth Century and Italians now living in the United States were describing the American society in very favourable terms. When it had become clear that US forces were accumulating in North Africa and that Italy would actually face a real shooting war with the USA, support for the war fell to an unknown low level in all stratums of the Italian society.
This gave anti-fascist movements a new spell of life. Once deeply divided, they began to organize by early 1942. Sporadic protests against the war and the regime erupted from March 1942 onwards. By late August 1942 strikes stopped for days factories in Milan, Bologna and Turin.

        Mussolini, despite his illness (probably psycho-somatically generated gastric disorders) was aware of how the society had become estranged from the Fascist regime. When it became clear that the Allies were grasping the strategic initiative he began to re-assert his political dominance. Soon after Rommel's counter-offensive failure, on April 17th, he appointed a new head of the Police, Chierici, a former "squadrista". Soon after he negotiated with Heinrich Himmler the creation of a new Italian armoured Division on the pattern of Waffen-SS units. What was planned to become the Division "M" (for Mussolini) was still by mid-summer 1942 a Brigade, but a very powerful one. During the second half of August, he dismissed General Count Cavallero as Army Chief of Staff, replacing him by General Ambrosio. Mussolini expected to have an obedient servant as Army head. Ambrosio would quickly prove to be a good professional but also one with little sympathy for Germany or Mussolini either. By the end of August 1942, Ambrosio was busy creating a powerful Army grouping to defend Southern Italy against a possible Allied landing near Tarento or Bari. But, in the same time he ordered General Messe, appointed commander of this Army Group, to keep his forces far from Allied powerful naval gunfire and avoid expending them if victory was not in sight. Ambrosio made clear to Messe that he had received command of the very Italian Army's heart. Now that the Italian Navy was a pale shadow of itself, Messe's Army Group was all what was left to defend Italy's vital interest in the war.

        Ambrosio actually had been in contact with people revolving around King Vittorio-Emmanuele III and Marshal Badoglio even before his nomination. Ambrosio, like a majority of Italian officers, deeply resented how Germans mis-represented Italian forces behaviour and war facts. He knew that the ASI collapse of September 1940 was in no way reflecting bad quality troops but a total lack of ammunitions and modern equipment. He knew that the Italian Navy had been bled white to support German airborne troops. He knew that but for the desperate resistance of Italian troops in Sparti, Allied forces would have reached the Corinth Canal before Rommel would have been able to organize any defence of Peloponnesus. But German officers were prone to put the blame on the Italians for every failure and still keeping for them the glory of every success.
When meeting Mussolini on August 17th, Ambrosio told the Duce that he had to talk tough to the Germans. Mussolini didn't react and Ambrosio hoped for some weeks that the Duce would try to extricate Italy from the war. Ambrosio knew that an Italian unilateral cease-fire with the Allies, with Italian troops strongly inserted into the German forces structure in Yugoslavia and Greece would have dramatic results. To some extent he put his faith on Mussolini's good relations with Hitler to negotiate a possible modus vivendi on Italian posture in the war.

        German leaders became progressively aware of Mussolini political weaknesses by spring 1942. Himmler, at the same time he promised support to Mussolini for setting-up the "M" division, began to organize his own networks in Italy. Both the SD and Abwehr operated in Italy from late-April onwards.
However options were restricted for Berlin. The greatest part of the German Army was deployed against USSR. Significant amount of forces were needed to garrison France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. The situation in Peloponnesus made mandatory a significant deployment of forces in Greece, and some units had to be deployed in Rumania to protect oil fields and in Bulgaria to deter any Turkish venture.
The only troops available were what were left of airborne forces, the AlpenJager instructional division and the French stationed Panzer Lehr. This unit began to move to northern Italy by mid-August 1942 ostensibly to train here and help the Italian Army to reconstitute an Armoured Force pool in addition to units sent to Southern Italy. Two infantry divisions garrisoned in Southern France, near Montpellier and Brives began too a movement toward Toulon.