This hard fought action by the US Navy would prove their mettle, and metal as well. For the loss of the destroyer Myrant, with minor damage on the three US battleships and destroyer Jenkins, they had savaged the French DDs, sinking three of the four—then the battleships had finished the job. It would be the only serious challenge at sea to the Allied fleets, and the death knell of the Force de Raid. Once the combined Franco-German fleet had been powerful enough to match and hurt the best the Royal Navy could throw at them, but the heavy losses they sustained off Fuerteventura had seriously reduced their fighting power.
The news of the defeat would fall heavily on Vice Admiral Michelier, the naval commander ashore at Casablanca. It would ripple through the wires to reach Admiral Laborde aboard the Normandie at Algiers, now the last of the once proud line of French battleships. Dark thoughts entered his mind about what was now underway, and the same shadow fell heavily on the thoughts of the German Admiral Raeder.
A battle was coming that now threatened to collapse the entire Axis position in the Atlantic and Western Med, everything Raeder had labored to build. He had seized Gibraltar, driving the Royal Navy before him. He had faced them down in one engagement after another, his ships wreaking havoc and also delivering a glittering prize that he had yet to fully measure. But now, the Allies were striking directly at the two vital naval bases that allowed him to sustain operations, Gibraltar and Casablanca.
Without those ports, he would be driven into the Central Med, and forced to operate out of Toulon. As reports came in on the movements of Force H, he realized that his remaining operational ships, those two precious carriers and his prized Kaiser Wilhelm and Hindenburg, would now be in a fight for their lives against the whole of the combined Anglo-American fleet.
Should I withdraw to Toulon, he asked himself? Should I keep these ships here in the Med, join the Normandie, and anything left in the Italian Navy to make sure we can defend the sea lanes to Rommel? That would be the only course I could set to defend my overall strategy, but that leaves our hard won position in the Canary Islands a lost cause.
He shrugged, a heaviness of heart settling on him now. A storm was coming, he could feel it impending on him like bad weather, and it would be a wall of steel ships, drawing ever nearer with each passing moment. His own battlegroup had sortied from Gibraltar, charging out through the narrow straits like knights emerging from a castle, but soon that castle would be under siege. He had little doubt as to where the invasion was heading—Casablanca. And the French division there wasn’t going to stop it, he realized. There was only one German division close enough to matter, near Marrakesh, just getting off the trains to head south to reinforce Operation Condor.
Yet they will never get there now, he knew. They will have to be sent to Casablanca, and even then, the Americans could land north of the city, cutting those troops off, and we have nothing to really stop them from sweeping up the coast to Tangier. And the British have landed in Portugal!
Damn, he thought, we knew this was coming, but now that the hour is upon us, look how badly positioned we are to defend against this attack. Damn Hitler and his obsession with Russia. He’s left Rommel with five divisions, and Kesselring here with five more to defend all of Spain, and North Africa. How many divisions are they coming with? Is this a raid, or is it a heavy landing with the intention of knocking the French out of this war. Yes… the French. They were already waffling after the heavy losses at Fuerteventura. I asked for the Normandie, and Admiral Laborde delayed just long enough to keep that ship out of play here. Can he be relied on? And what about the remaining French ships at Toulon?
So do I stay here, and fight for my Mediterranean strategy, or do I send the Hindenburg group home… assuming they could even reach a German port safely? That would at least give me a superb naval force in the north to operate out of Nordstern. It would be enough to stop those convoys to Murmansk and strangle Soviet Russia. But if I do that, I leave another orphan in Toulon, the Bismarck. She will be laid up for many more months, and if the French collapse….
Which is the stronger play? Should I use our remaining naval assets to choke the sea lanes feeding the Soviets, or use them instead to make certain we can hold our own sea lanes open for Rommel? Which battle matters more? If I stand a watch here, we might delay the Allied movement into the Western Med, keep the French fighting for Algeria and Tunisia, and protect Rommel’s back, because I know what the British will want next—Malta. Yes, they’ll want Malta and Oran, and Algiers and Bizerte and Tunis. They’ll want to run the table and sweep us right out of the game. If they do that, Rommel is doomed. He will either lose his entire army or be forced to withdraw to Sicily. Then that is where the Allies will come next, to get after Italy. Either that or they will land in Southern France to knock the Vichy Government out of the war. My God, that’s a lot to lose to close those convoy routes in the north.
That decided his mind.
With Jean Bart lost, he thought, and Casablanca under imminent attack, my only strategy would be to fight here in the Med. If we run for home now, it will only undermine the morale of the French further. So we stay, and we fight. I will issue recall orders for the Hindenburg Group immediately. They will return—but not to Gibraltar. I will want them move quickly to Oran, and from there, we may have enough to keep the Allies from thinking about a sortie into the Western Med.
It was then that the telephone rang on his desk. He lifted the receiver, wondering, and heard a dry cold voice that he recognized all too well—Himmler. “Admiral Raeder,” it said.
“Yes, this is Raeder.”
“Anton is coming to dinner. Lila should be there to meet him.”
That was all he said, hanging up the phone before Raeder could speak a single word.
My God, he thought. It is far worse than I imagined.
He knew exactly what Himmler was referring to. Case Anton was the German plan to seize Vichy France in the event of French cooperation with the Allies overseas. Operation Lila was the plan to seize all that was left of the French Navy at Toulon. Himmler was warning him these operations were now to be put in motion. It was all collapsing, everything he had striven for. It was all twisting in the wind now.
It suddenly occurred to him that the subtle movement of the Normandie from Toulon to Algiers might have darker implications. What was Laborde up to? All the eggs had been safe in the nest at Toulon, save one, the pride of the French Navy. He picked up the telephone again.
“Get me Kapitan Adler on the Hindenburg.”
Chapter 21
The British had no difficulties at all in their landings at Lisbon. It was only a question of how fast the dockyards could receive the men and equipment. As this wing of the Torch plan was never tried in the real history, it received a new commander as well, a General very eager to continue writing his name in the record books. After saving Tobruk from Rommel, and saving Singapore from the Japanese, if only for a few crucial weeks, Montgomery had returned to the 8th Army, chafing to get more than the infantry under his command. When he learned that his old 3rd Division had been selected to take part in the Torch operation, he put in a request with Brooke to see about a posting to that action. It would be the order of the day, get him back in the limelight, and out of the considerable shadow that General O’Connor cast in the 8th Army order of battle. So his old post was given to General Alexander, and off he went.