“No sir, but he has the city cut off and surrounded now. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Good. Then we’ll use that time to get to Gibraltar first!”
On the 22nd of September, V Battalion, 7th Flieger, was the first German unit from the south to reach Fez. Smiling Albert Kesselring came out to shake hands with the Colonel in charge, then told him his journey was not yet over. He wanted him on the next train west through Meknes, then north towards the coast to bolster the French position north of Port Lyautey. It was there that most of Le Division De Fez had concentrated to prevent an Allied breakout towards Tangier. The Americans took the port on D+1, but could go no further.
I/16 and I/65th Luftland would be the next units arriving from Irfane airfield to the south, then III/7th Flieger, a slow but steady stream of German troops finally starting to arrive at Fez. They had made a most remarkable journey, coming all the way from Fuerteventura by sea, road, rail, and plane. Now they seemed like the 300 Spartans, few in number, but among the toughest troops in the Army as Kesselring knew them. The first of Kubler’s mountain regiment, the 98th Recon Battalion, would be another two or three days on the mountain roads getting north, but as the rest of these troops arrived, they would constitute a most capable force to defend Tangier, or to bar the way east through Fez to Algeria.
Another regiment would be air lifted from Agadair on the coast to Ifrane that day, leaving only one more regiment waiting for the transports to return at Agadair. Kesselring was going to pull off one of the most spectacular strategic withdraws of the war, a logistical miracle to get those troops to Fez, and the fate of this campaign, at least in French North Africa, would rest on their shoulders when they arrived.
The Americans were ashore in force, and the fall of Casablanca was inevitable now. When B Company, 105th Flak finally wandered down from the north to scout the road to Safi, General Martin lost his nerve. Had the Americans broke through up there? How many men were in this scouting detachment? He had watched Student withdraw, saw those Allied destroyers pounding his men day after day, and decided he would be much more comfortable in Marrakech than at Safi. His division began withdrawing that same day.
So B Company would be the single unit to eventually answer the pleas of the beleaguered Safi raiding force, relieving that position on September 23rd. A grinning Sergeant rode in on a jeep, then scowled at the first US soldier he came upon. “You fellows were supposed to be at El Jadida up north five days ago!” Then he went back to that grin, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a cigar.
All these withdrawals frustrated Hitler to no end, prompting him to issue the strongest possible order than no further moves of this nature be made without his expressed permission. They also had one other effect, one intended by Allied planners from the very first moment they hatched this plan. Enraged, Hitler was going to pull units out of Russia and send them west.
6th and 7th Panzer Divisions were already rehabilitating, and they would soon get fresh equipment and orders to move to southern France immediately. The 7th, in particular, was part of an impending operation that augured big changes on the near horizon—Case Anton and Operation Lila. When the Führer was told it would take another week to do this, he exploded again.
“I have conquered all of France, Denmark, Norway, occupied Spain, taken Moscow, and even now my troops are pushing for the Volga, and you tell me we cannot move two panzer divisions? Get out! Get out!” He pointed with a stiff arm. “If those divisions are not at Toulon in 72 hours, I will have you shot!”
At that moment, in walked Himmler, his eyes narrowed and seeking to curry favor with the Führer while seeming to be a godsend.
“My Führer, I can send a full heavy armored brigade anywhere you need it in Spain in 24 hours.”
Hitler turned. “An armored brigade?”
Himmler opened his brief, and laid out the diagram chart detailing the order of battle for SS Brigade Charlemagne. “It is already in France, fully assembled, and I have arranged all the rolling stock needed. My Führer, it is only a matter of punching their tickets and sending them on their way.”
Astounded and pleased that Himmler could produce such a unit, seemingly from thin air, Hitler finally smiled. “You see?” he said, his eyes steely hard on all the other OKW officers at the map table. “The Army was stopped after Moscow, but not Steiner’s SS Korps. He will take Volgograd for me. Yes? And now look here, Himmler has out generaled the lot of you!”
It was 3 Company, 67th Armored that finally bulled its way into the heart of Casablanca. They had 44 Shermans and supporting SPGs, backed up by a battalion of engineers as they fought their way past the cement works and old Shell Oil Depot, eventually reaching the Railway Sidings just west of the lighthouse on the coast. Most of the remaining French resistance was in the old city warrens, called Ancienne Medina. Patton had a mind to give them another sound naval bombardment, but he realized that these men might be turned into Allies if given better treatment. So on the morning of the 24th, he contacted the French by telephone, speaking directly to Admiral Michelier, who had holed up in the Palace de France near the main port.
“Admiral,” he said. “Your men have fought bravely, and done all that honor demanded. But the American Army is now ashore in force, and you are outnumbered by more than five to one. The United States has been your friend since the first Doughboys landed in France in the last war. This conflict is regrettable, and I see no reason for further bloodshed here. You and I have enough letters to write home as it stands. Lay down your arms and you, and all your men, will be given fair treatment. Any that wish to fight on for France may do so by joining us! Any who would wish to oppose us further will meet their fate and be interred.”
“Mon General,” said Michelier, “you have offered fair an d generous terms. Let me consider what you have said, and contact my superiors.”
Patton pushed a little more. “Admiral, yours has been the hardest lot in this war, with foes made of friends, and a long road yet ahead before France is free of foreign occupation again. Your superiors are likely German Generals, but now hear this. I give you my word—I’m going to kick what’s left of the German Army out of French North Africa, liberate all of Morocco, and then I’m going to do the same for Algeria and Tunisia. You can either ride with me, or start writing your memoirs in a prison camp, and face trial by your countrymen for betraying France when I liberate Paris. Now, what’s it going to be?”
Admiral Michelier was a proud man, but he knew further resistance would serve nothing but a misplaced loyalty to Hitler and Nazi Germany. Patton’s remark about his superiors being German Generals stung him. He had already learned of General Martin’s withdrawal to Marrakech, and he knew the Fez Division would not hold in the north long either. Discretion was now the better part of valor, and he accepted Patton’s terms at noon on the 24th of September, 1942—eleven weeks before the French had capitulated in the old history.
Upon hearing this, Patton invited the Admiral, and General Nogues to his headquarters, whereupon he produced a bottle of fine champagne. He would one day write: ‘I also gave them a guard of honor—no use kicking a man when he’s down.’ Then he went to visit the Sultan of Morocco. Along the way he noted what excellent tank country Morocco offered, though it was frequently broken by small walled settlements that might make good infantry strongpoints.
Nothing a good 105mm can’t handle, he thought. Yes, we’ll do quite well here in Morocco, and I haven’t even begun to show the French what the American Army can do.