Off to the south, the real trouble spot was at Safi, and it was getting worse by the hour. The Marrakesh Division had finally reached the scene in force, its commander, Major General Henri Martin eager for a fight. He set up headquarters in a small village southeast of Safi along the rail line, and gathered field reports, eventually determining he was looking at a regimental sized landing force. The Americans had the town, port, and airfield, but the fortified outpost just south of Safi, El Houdi, was still in French hands.
The Germans had moved swiftly to abandon their hard won prize in the Canary Islands. The six transports that Raeder had sent three days earlier were just in time to receive Kubler’s tough mountain regiment. Two others, and several Siebel ferries, called on Fuerteventura and their decks and holds were soon crammed with troops and equipment from the 22nd Air Landing Division. Meindel’s Sturm Regiment would go by air, but not without losses when Allied fighter patrols found some of those planes. The order had come on the first day of the invasion. Three days later, the bulk of the German fighting troops on those islands had successfully evacuated.
Force C had learned of the move too late to intervene that first night when Kubler slipped away. On the second night they were ready to interdict any further withdrawal, but no enemy shipping was found. The German fighter cover was thick, still more than a match for the British in this sector, as the weight of most German air power had been concentrated in the south. Thus the bulk of all those airlifts were successful, and Goring remarked that it could have been much worse if the Allies had concentrated more carrier based fighters here. Instead, they had opted to cover their all important landing operation, believing the small lodgment at Safi was enough of a delaying force to prevent any quick German movement north.
Kubler took his 98th Mountain Regiment into two small ports, Essaouria, about 110 kilometers south of Safi, and Agadair, another 130 kilometers south. The airlifts first shuttled to all the southern airfields the Germans had used, Tan Tan, El Aioun, Tarfaya, Sidi Ifini, and Goulimine. From there they refueled, and took on anything else in the way of men and field equipment that they could cram onto the planes. All trucks and other transport took the rest and started up the long dusty roads of Morocco. In the dark of the night, with confusion, units scattered and mixed, officers sometimes working at cross purposes, it was difficult for the men to have any sense that this was a redeployment, as the order had read. In their hearts, they knew it for what it was, a retreat, and one with an edge of desperation that drove it on through the cold desert tracks.
Their grand adventure was over, but 48 hours later, as the columns and planes snaked and flew north, they would slowly muster south of Safi, where Kesselring had placed a heavy finger on the map, demanding that place be retaken at once.
So it was that the 39th RLT of the 9th Division would soon be in a fight for its life. General Harmon’s Blackstone Force had landed there in the old history, but he was farther north in that bridgehead south of Casablanca. So the 39th came in here, a unit that would have landed at Algiers in the original plan. They were doing exactly what they had been sent there to do, but it soon dawned on the men that they had, in fact, been the one bone the Allies would throw to the wolves in this affair.
Their position was already surrounded on all sides, though the route north of the airfield at Sidi Bou Zid was still only lightly defended. Colonel Caffey got on the radio and reported his situation—objectives taken, but under growing enemy pressure. The Marrakech Division was just the leading edge of that storm. By the 20th of September, D+5 since the Lisbon landings, and D+3 since Caffey and his men had fought their way ashore and into Safi, the first column of German troops were starting to arrive from those two ports to the south.
The lead unit was the 22nd Recon Battalion of the Luftland Division, and Student with the HQ of 7th Flieger Korps. It had two companies of motorcycle troops, and some light vehicles that had come over on a Siebel Ferry forming a third company of armored cars. Behind that came three battalions of Falschirmjaegers, and then Kubler’s regiment, strung out in widely spaced groups, some 60 kilometers to the south. General Martin would be very glad to introduce them to one Major Griggs of the 3rd Battalion Landing Team, 39th Regiment. The American officer had taken to a jeep early on the afternoon of the first day, and slipped south along the course of a small river to scout out the terrain. Now he was a prisoner, and apparently talking freely, though everything he was saying was a load of guff.
“Just you wait,” he told the General. “We’ve come with half a million men up north, and 500 planes—scores of fighting ships as well. You haven’t seen anything yet.” The fact was that they had come with 112,000 men, and about 160 carrier based planes. His brag on the Navy was closer to the truth.
Kurt Student had been on the islands to oversee that last offensive into Tenerife and La Palma. Now he was leading this retreat, and none too happy about it. He came tramping in with Meindel, tired, dirty, his uniform covered with road dust. It was not what he thought he would be doing that day, and the first thing on his mind now was not Major Griggs, but information.
“Mon General,” said Martin, squinting at Student like he was a vagabond or desert tramp. “A long night’s march I see. You will be pleased to know I have an American officer here.”
“Good for you,” said Student in French. “You arrived here by rail?”
“Some units. Others made the march by road.”
“Are those trains still here?”
“For the most part. In fact, one of your battalions apparently air lifted to Marrakech, and it has just brought in another small train, arriving only hours ago.”
“Good. Will you take Safi?”
The General smiled, thinking that a certainty now with all these German troops at hand. “Of course,” he said, “first thing in the morning. You will want dinner, and a little rest, Yes?”
“That I will,” said Student. “And then I will want those trains, all of them. We are going back to Marrakech, and from there north to Fez.”
General Martin raised an eyebrow at that. “You will not fight here, at Safi?”
“You take it. First thing in the morning. What we want here is the rail line to get up north, and thankfully, you’ve already got that. Good job, Mon General. I will see about getting you a medal. Take Safi and you can have another.” Student tipped his dusty cap, and strode out into the night to look for those trains.
General Martin blinked. There were five or six enemy ships off shore, and they had been pounding his positions all that afternoon. Some ally we have here, he thought. At least the British fought side by side with us in France. Well Herr General Student, you will not get to Fez on those trains, because the rail line runs right through Casablanca, from all accounts the Americans have already cut that line at Rabat. If you don’t already know that, you will learn about it soon enough… First thing in the morning.
Chapter 23
General Kurt Student got the news late that night. On the telephone to Kesselring in Fez, he also learned that the Americans had landed yet another division north of Fedala, and it was investing Casablanca from the north, sweeping the French resistance before it. As there was no sign of any direct attack on the port, Major General Lascroux moved several battalions from the city defenses to that flank in an attempt to stem the American tide. But the troops presently there did not look like they could hold out without substantial reinforcements. Now Kesselring had to make a very tough decision.