USS Massachusetts (BB-59) Maneuvering off Casablanca, Morocco, during the North Africa invasion, 8 November 1942. Photographed from USS Mayrant (DD-402). Note that Massachusetts' main battery guns are trained out to port. (U.S. National Archives 80-G-K-2134) The Naval Battle of Casablanca was a series of naval engagements fought between American ships covering the invasion of North Africa and Vichy French ships defending the neutrality of French Morocco in accordance with the Second Armistice at Compiègne during World War II. Allied military planners anticipated an all-American force assigned to seize the Atlantic port city of Casablanca might be greeted as liberators. An invasion task force of 102 American ships carrying 35,000 American soldiers approached the Moroccan coast undetected under cover of darkness. French defenders interpreted the first contacts as a diversionary raid for a major landing in Algeria; and Germany regarded the surrender of six Moroccan divisions to ...