“Do we fight for Casablanca?” Student asked on the phone.
“How soon could you get there?”
“The French left enough rolling stock here to move a couple regiments, but the Luftland Division is strung out on the roads south. They will be days getting up to the rail line. Kubler is arriving here this morning.”
“What can you move by air?”
“One good regiment, perhaps four or five battalions.”
“Then get them to Fez, and go there yourself, by any means possible. I’m afraid that means a long march, and over difficult roads.”
“Then you don’t want Casablanca?”
“Oh, I would love to save it for Raeder, but let’s face facts. Even if you had all your troops there now, the best we could hope for is a stalemate. I sent the 327th there from Marrakech two days ago. They stopped the southern enemy landings, but they cannot push them back. With your troops, perhaps we could defeat that part of their landings, but I am told more armor is starting to come ashore at Rabat and on the beaches north of Fedala. Herr General, we are not going to stop them at Casablanca, and considering that port is of no use to us at all now, I’m ordering the 327th to pull out as well. They will take the trains they came in on. There is a rail spur into the mining region near Ques Zemand Bourjad. From there it’s an overland march to El Borouj, and then a very long way to Fez. Get as many men out by air as you can.”
“You mean to build up at Fez to cover Tangier?”
“Possibly, but more likely we will be covering Algeria.”
“What’s happening in Spain?”
“Fighting all along the frontier. We’ve identified at least three British Divisions there, but we have three of our own, so the situation is stable.”
“The Führer has authorized this withdrawal?”
There was a long pause on the line before Kesselring came back. “Just get your men to Fez, and let me worry about the Führer.”
“Herr General,” said Student. “I will do as you order, but something tells me you will be worrying about the Führer for a good long while after this.”
Not even Smiling Al could crack a grin with that thought.
The stalemate around Casablanca was slowly shifting as more and more US troops landed. Safi had been left to hold out on its own. Everything left was going to Fedala and Rabat. The plan had always been to weight as much of the attack as possible north of the city, and with all of 3rd Division ashore by D+5, the pressure on the Fedala front redoubled. Disengaging in the face of an enemy attack was perhaps the most difficult thing you could ask your troops to do, and for the 327th, Patton’s ever present ardor for battle was making their day a nightmare. He had been on the radio, exhorting that flank to push harder. Some of the German units were able to pull off the line, others fought a stubborn delaying action. About 60% of the division would get safely back to those trains and on their way into the mountains, and it would be a week to ten days before they might reach Fez.
The next train coming up from the Safi area was carrying more of Kubler’s troops. It found the rail line cut and torn to pieces about 20 kilometers south of the vital junction to that rail spur east into the mountains. An enterprising mobile AA unit had broken off from Patton’s extreme right flank, ordered to scout south for any sign of an enemy buildup. The Lieutenant in charge saw that rail line and had the presence of mind to tear it up. So the Germans had to literally backtrack to the rail bridge over the river flowing down from Massira lake, detrain there, and then begin moving by road into the long valley that stretched east in the shadow of those highlands.
As for the Luftland Division, part of one regiment was with Kubler and some were following the valley route, but at least five battalions were still stranded on the coast. They were ordered to concentrate at Agadair, where the Luftwaffe assembled as many air transports as possible under heavy fighter cover. From there they would fly over the Atlas mountains to Ifrane Airfield south of Fez.
At the same time, German air power that had been concentrated in the south began leap-frogging from one airfield to another, always north towards Marrakech and Fez. The fighters concentrated on keeping that vital air corridor open, the Stukas, Do-17s and JU-88s did all they could to harass enemy movement on the ground. While Allied air power was now about 35% stronger than German assets in theater, it was spread out from Lisbon to Safi, and so this concentration of Luftwaffe forces around Marrakech gave them a local superiority to protect the troops flying north.
As Student had feared, Hitler was eventually informed of these moves, and his reaction was a predictable explosion at OKW. In one brief week he was seeing a position his troops had striven to secure for months collapse. To soften the blow, he was told the Canaries were secure, and that Kesselring’s movement of troops north was entirely aimed at cutting off the Allied move toward Tangier. The first was a lie, for the only thing preventing 110 Force on Tenerife from launching an immediate assault on Gran Canaria was the lack of shipping required. The second line might hold true, depending on how many men Kesselring could get north, and how fast they could get there.
It was then that more bad news arrived. The British had pulled off yet another amphibious landing north of Cadiz, directly on Spanish territory. Hube’s 16th Panzer Division had held his line on the Portuguese frontier for the last week near Villa Real. The British 6th Armored division could not move him, for ‘Der Mench’ was implacable on defense when so minded. But Montgomery then brought up two brigades from 3rd Division, and all the tanks he could get from 33rd and 34th Armored Brigades. He concentrated them at Minas Sao Domingos, a mining region about 45 kilometers north of the coast, and pushed hard.
At the same time, the British threw in their last remaining reserve, the 11th Brigade from 78th Infantry Division. It had been destined to reinforce its brothers on Tenerife, but was held in the Azores as a local reserve for TORCH. There were excellent beaches south of the small Spanish port of Huelva, though they had been eliminated from the planning due to their proximity to German air power at Gibraltar and the fact that there were heavy marshes inland to the east. It was thought than any force landing there would be easily bottled up, and could not move east to Sevilla or south to Cadiz. But suddenly, these same liabilities became assets.
“Look here,” said Monty. “We’ve enough air power here to cover a small brigade scale landing operation. And that marshland acts as a shield to protect the right flank of anything we put there. Those troops can land, take Huelva, and cut the 16th Panzer Division off at the roots. At the same time, we’ll make our big push further north.” He illustrated with both arms, forming a pincer movement. “They’ll either have to withdraw from Villa Real, or we’ll have them in a nice little pocket.”
Monty’s plan would work. Hube’s division, facing a full armored division reinforced by three more brigades, could not also cover Huelva and contain that landing. ‘Der Mench’ had no choice but to withdraw, his men hard pressed and weary from almost continuous fighting. Montgomery had tapped that panzer division as the one force in Spain he had to meet and defeat, and he was applying a strategy that would serve him well throughout the war, steady, relentless attrition. He had thinned out his lines to the north along the frontier to achieve this concentration of force, and it worked.
Still wearing his desert beret, he grinned when he got the news that the Germans had pulled out of Villa Real. “Has Patton taken Casablanca yet?” he asked.