Convoy to Oran

General view of convoy en route to Gibraltar. Imperial War Museum photo A 12656.

by David Rame

Published in 1944

There was a battle before Oran, a battle in which no shots were fired, in which no men fell, that was yet one of the great strategic victories of this or of any other war.

It was the battle that began the day the convoys left.

It is not easy always for a layman to grasp the deep intricacies of naval strategy—the oceans are complex, the functions of fleets at times incomprehensible; yet the picture of the seas at the end of October 1942 when the armadas sailed is clear and well defined.

We had to carry down the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean the heaviest convoys that the world has ever known in order to land simultaneously along the coast of Algeria an army sufficient to overcome all possible French resistance and to deal with any counteroffensive that the Axis might launch against it. The size of that army determined the size of the convoys. That was the first essential of the problem.

Less than a fortnight before we left, Admiral Lützow, spokesman of the German Navy, told the world that there would be no Second Front. There could be none, he said, because a Second Front was predominantly a matter of ships. The second part of his proposition was correct: predominantly the Second Front was determined by the ability of the United Nations to carry across water—across the North Sea, the English Channel, the Atlantic—men in sufficient numbers to challenge Germany's defense of the continental coasts, materiel enough for them to face the panzer divisions, stores enough for them to subsist after the initial landing and for them to carry on the fight.

Precise figures are not permissible, but the amount of shipping space needed to carry a man and to supply him even for a month in these days of mechanized warfare is astonishing. Admiral Lützow, with the cold calculating logic of the German, and believing the reports of his U-boat commanders, considered that Britain and America between them could not assemble enough shipping to transport an army and still maintain their commitments in India, Australia, the Near East, and Britain itself.

How wrong he was, we knew before we sailed, lying in that astonishing armada.

I think perhaps the U-boat captains of Admiral Lützow lied.

Getting together the fleets for the movement was the initial step; there remained the problem of defense. Admiral Lützow said in the same speech that, even if the attempt were made, Britain and America had lost so many capital ships, so many cruisers, so many destroyers, that in no circumstances could they defend the convoys of an invasion.

The enemy's naval disposition at the time of the movement are of the first importance in considering this point. They began along the coast of Norway. In the deep fjords of that coast Germany had the battleship Tirpitz, sister ship to the Bismarck. She had one, and probably two pocket battleships, one battle cruiser, and probably two heavy cruisers. These, if they were in seagoing condition, represented an important force, for Germany's navy is the most modern in the world. In Germany itself there was one other battle cruiser, probably out of action, one large aircraft carrier whose condition is among the minor mysteries of the war, and a number of smaller craft.

That was the one end of the line.

The other end reached into Mussolini's Italian Lake. In the Mediterranean there was the Italian Fleet. Battered, kicked about, Mussolini's naval morale was believed to be at a low ebb; yet it is probable that he had at his disposal in Italian waters, three modern battleships—the Vittorio Veneto, the Littorio, and the Impero. He had at least two old battleships of the Cavour class, and possibly three. He was short on heavy cruisers because his heavy cruisers had been left to bear the brunt of the British Navy's ceaseless thrusting at his comfort, but he still had a reasonable strength in light cruisers and in heavy destroyers.

But since the objective of the expedition was French North Africa, there was a third fleet to consider. All that had gone before led us to believe that among our bitterest enemies would be the fleet of France. Pétain had said that France would fight if North Africa were attacked. Darlan had said that the French Navy would fight. And in Toulon or Bizerte there was the Strasbourg, there was probably one old battleship, there were four and possibly six heavy cruisers, a flock of light cruisers and destroyers, and numerous small craft.

In itself the French Navy was a formidable force—though the ships lacked sea time and experienced crews; if it linked up with the Italian Navy it might be more than formidable; and at no time (with the known temper of the French Navy) could that possibly be scouted.

We had therefore to guard against possible attack at the beginning and at the end of the passage—and that passage, as we steamed it, was more than three thousand miles in length.

This was the first possibility: surface attack.

There was a second: attack from the air.

The port has been bombed in this war, ships have been sunk off the coasts of Ireland by the Focke-Wulf. The first sector of the journey, therefore, was through a danger area. Convoys have been attacked and ships sunk approaching the Portuguese and the Spanish coasts from the westward, Gibraltar has been bombed. The central sector of the journey therefore was also a danger area. All the Mediterranean is open to the Axis bombers—Algiers is hardly three hundred miles from the Sardinian aerodromes; every mile, therefore, of the last sector of the passage was under the threat of the air.

These were the first and second possibilities. There was a third, and that third was possibly the greatest of them all, the menace of the submarine.

We fought between Britain and Algiers Bay the greatest fight in all the Battle of the Atlantic. There was not a mile of our journeying that was not under the threat of the enemy of the undersea. We had to thread our convoys through the narrowest of the great straits of the world, the Straits of Gibraltar. We had to bring them across every submarine lane that operates from Europe, across the outward route or the homeward-bound route of every U-boat that sails. We had to do it knowing that this was the greatest sea target of the war, the greatest sea target of all time.

There is in each of the operations rooms of the naval commands about the coast of Britain, and in the great war room of the Admiralty a vast wall map. It stretches from floor to ceiling, and it charts the Atlantic from Labrador to the West Indies, and from the North Cape to the islands of Cape Verde. On it they mark the passage of the convoys. A thread stretches from the port of departure to the point of dispersal—or to the port of arrival. It moves angularly across the sea, according to the route selected for the movement, and it is held in place by pins. On other pins are shapes representing surface vessels, aircraft, and submarines of the enemy—most of the pins are for submarines. As the reports come in, those pins are placed upon the chart, moved, or taken away. And as the reports of the convoy's position come in, an arrow shape is moved along its thread. When one of the pins threatens the convoy the thread is stretched out to avoid it.

Somewhere in a room in England they moved our convoy so. Our lives—the lives of an army—hung upon that thread. This was the target. They knew in Whitehall, as they knew in Washington, that every endeavor that Germany and Italy could use would be bent on its destruction.

There is something almost incredibly fascinating in the vast moves of the chessmen that were ships in this adventure. I believe that almost every naval craft available both in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean was used to protect our valiant thread. Our escort, the ships that sailed with us under the white ensign, was almost pitifully small for our immensity. A dozen or so little ships made a fence about us a mile away from the outer ships of the columns; inside our lines we had a cruiser of the Town class and an aircraft carrier. That was all. To those who knew little of the sea it looked dangerously inadequate.

But away to the north of us, working out of the Scottish bases of Coastal Command were the Sunderlands and the Catalinas scouring the fjords of Norway for the movements of the German Navy. Between them and Scapa Flow the Home Fleet waited in its power for any sortie that might threaten us. Somewhere at hand was a flying force to challenge any raider that might slip through the net; close at hand too was a destroyer reinforcement to deal with any wolf pack that might threaten us.

When we picked up the loom of the light of Cape Spartel—that is, the Atlantic limit of the Strait of Gibraltar—we were untouched. That is the measure of the success of those who moved us, of those who planned our journeying.

Gibraltar was a special problem. The Strait is barely ten miles wide at the little white town of Tarifa. Three miles to the south is neutral water, three miles to the north is neutral also. The central channel is deep, strong tides run through it; it is not possible to mine it. Axis U-boats—Italian and German—have, we know, used the Spanish water to the south to move in and out of the inland sea.

And we were forced to use that channel. In it we were canalized. We had to approach it through the narrowing funnel between Spartel and Cape St. Vincent, we had to go out of it through the long horn from Ceuta to Alborán Island. Along it we had to run the gauntlet.

And we lost no ship there either.

How they swept that water and held it clean for our long passage, I do not know; and I have sailed with the Gibraltar submarine patrols for long months in this war. It was a miracle of organization and a masterpiece of execution. And the miracle and the masterpiece held all the way to the Algerian beaches. One ship alone was hit one hundred and twenty miles from her goal, and she survived. No ship was sunk. Mussolini's navy made no slightest effort to challenge our audacity. The French Navy swung to its doomed anchors in Toulon harbor.

The Algerian Convoy is and will remain for all time high on the list of naval accomplishments.

A map of Allied convoys heading from the British Isles to North Africa.

 

Allied invasion of Northwest Africa, 8 November 1942.

Admiral Ingersoll, Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, watches as the Operation Torch task force stands out from Hampton Roads, Virginia, en route for North Africa, 24 October 1942. Note the light cruiser in the distance.

The chiefs of the four services in conference in the operations room of HMS Bulolo, (L to R) Air Commodore Lawson, Major General C Ryder, Rear Admiral Sir Harold Burrough and Major General V E Evelegh. Imperial War Museum photo A 12776.

A night attack by enemy aircraft is met by a barrage of tracer shells from the guns of the convoy and escorting warships taken from HMS Bulolo off Algiers. Imperial War Museum photo A 12756.

Near Algiers, "Torch" troops hit the beaches behind a large American flag hoping for the French Army not to fire on it.

Packed Landing Craft Mechanized LCM 73 leaving the troop ship for shore. Imperial War Museum photo A 12705A.

Troops and ammunition for light guns being brought ashore from a landing craft assault (ramped) (LCA 428) on Arzew beach, Algeria, North Africa, whilst another LCA (LCA 287) approaches the beach. Imperial War Museum photo A 12671.

American troops landing on the beach at Arzew, near Oran, from a landing craft assault (LCA 26), some of them are carrying boxes of supplies.

Transports unloading troops and stores at Arzew, near Oran. Imperial War Museum photo A 12932.

Some of the inhabitants of Arzew, meet the US soldiers on the beach.

Troops making their way inland after landing at Algiers. Here some men are pulling and pushing a trailer of equipment over the sandy beach, and in the background two soldiers are manhandling a motorbike.

British sailors and British and American soldiers on the beach near Algiers. A 40 mm Bofors gun can be seen further down the beach along with three lorries.

Rangers Capture French Coastal Gun Position. This image shows 1st Battalion Rangers at dawn on November 8, 1942, at a French coastal gun position that they captured during a night of fighting, probably at Arzew, Algeria.

1st Armored Division M7 Being Unloaded at Algerian Docks. The lack of specialized tank landing craft during the Operation TORCH landings necessitated the capture and use of ports and docks to unload heavy vehicles.

American soldiers interrogate a Vichy French soldier captured during fighting near Oran. While most of the Vichy troops did not oppose the Allied landings during Operation Torch, some resisted.

American infantrymen advance warily through a street in Algiers as rifle fire rings in the distance. Operation Terminal, an effort to capture Algiers harbor intact, failed, and a similar attack was launched at Oran.

American soldiers occupy positions near Oran on November 10, 1942, two days after the Operation Torch landings. Soon after Torch, American troops engaged German forces on land for the first time.

American infantry marching through Algiers after landing during Operation Torch in 1942.