“We believe the French will fold very quickly, and don’t forget, we’ll be in the game up north.”
“What about Franco?” Marshall objected. “What about the Spanish Army? What about the Germans?”
“They’ve only a few divisions in Spain at the moment, far fewer than we would have to face in France.”
“But they can reinforce from Southern France.”
Brooke smiled, repeating what Marshall said earlier. “Well, isn’t that the general idea? Let me put it to you this way. The Prime Minister is quite fixated on Gibraltar. We simply must take it back as a prelude to any further operations in the Med.”
“Why operate there at all?” Marshall protested. “Land in France and the whole affair is completely cut off.”
“True, but that simply doesn’t seem possible this year, and SUPER-GYMNAST is possible—quite possible if we take it in stages as I’ve outlined.”
“General, you’ve certainly hoodwinked us on that one. As an alternative, we could simply send several divisions to the Middle East through the Suez. That would satisfy Roosevelt’s desire to get at Hitler this year, if not mine.”
“But to what end? It’s a long slog from Libya to Tangier. Rommel has all that friendly territory to fall back on—unless we take it from him with an operation like the one I’ve just outlined.”
“Yet it’s all a secondary theater. You want to fight Germany, then go for the jugular, right through northern France.”
“Not in our view. This operation gives us a great deal. Taking Casablanca dooms the German position on the Canary Islands, eliminates those enemy airfields and U-boat bases, relieves pressure on the convoy route to Freetown and the Cape, and gives us those bases to further interdict U-boat operations in the Atlantic. That alone is a bucket full. Add to that the return of Gibraltar, elimination of Spain as a hostile adversary, the possibility of knocking the Vichy French right out of the war, along with their formidable navy. We also gain access to the Eastern Med, and that puts us at Rommel’s backside when all is said and done. We can roll on, take French Algeria, and go for Tunis. From there, we’re looking right at Mussolini, and the possibility of mounting operations to knock him out of the war as well.”
“All well and good,” said Marshall, “but it’s the Germans we have to get at in this fight. They’re the ones we have to beat. While we busy ourselves with these operations, what if the Soviets fall?”
“I fully understand, but this year, we’ve only two real alternatives worth mentioning. One is the plan I’ve just outlined, the other is JUPITER, the invasion of Norway. While that would eliminate German bases there and secure the Murmansk convoy route, it’s a very limited operation. We think the southern option holds more promise. If we can knock Spain, France, and Italy out of the war, that would isolate Germans in the West, and while we’re doing that, BOLERO proceeds with the buildup for the main effort against the continent—perhaps next year as you have it in the ROUNDUP plan.”
“A nice bone you’re throwing me,” said Marshall. “But I’m old enough to know there won’t be much meat on it. These operations have a way of pulling in supplies, troops, and shipping. Once we get started down there, we could find it impossible to get to ROUNDUP next year.”
“Well general, not to mix metaphors, but why not play out the first hand before we look at our cards in the second? It comes down to this: you can tell Mister Roosevelt that this is what we want—what we’ll agree to and wholeheartedly support for 1942. At the very least, we must take the Rock, and to do so we will need to control both sides of the Gibraltar Strait. That means we’ll need to also take Casablanca, and make the landings as I described. After that we can revisit this discussion in light of planning for ROUNDUP.”
Chapter 17
“Alright,” said Marshall, “suppose I do tell the President all this. The first question that comes to mind is whether or not the French will fight when we hit the beaches. What is your opinion?”
“Oh, they’ll fight. After Mers el Kebir, Dakar, the big action off Fuerteventura, and that nasty business in Syria and Lebanon, they’ve taken a very hard line against us.”
“Then our landing at Casablanca will be opposed.” Marshall wasn’t happy about that.
“I’m afraid so, and the worst of it will be the French Navy. The Germans have made Casablanca their forward supply base for the Canary Islands. They’re shuttling convoys back and forth, largely protected by the French Navy, and that new German aircraft carrier. So if you do come, your navy will have to command the seas off Casablanca to even contemplate a landing there. In that, our own Royal Navy will be fully committed to support your operation. We hope our own landing at Lisbon will be unopposed, and therefore require a much smaller naval escort.”
“Well I’m an Army man, but it seems to me that we should win the battle at sea before the troops take to their transports. Those ships make good targets, and we can’t afford to lose any of the shipping and landing craft we commit to this operation.”
“We certainly agree with that.”
“Is there any way we can get to someone influential over there and see if we can persuade them to a more enlightened course? What about Darlan?”
“He’s firmly in the enemy camp by now.”
“How can you be so sure? If we could convince him to stand down, it would make those landings at Casablanca a little more palatable.”
“General, you are certainly welcome to try, but I very much doubt that Darlan will change his spots this deep into the game.”
“Well who’s next in line over there?”
“Next in line? You mean in the Navy? I suppose Admiral Laborde, or perhaps Admiral Estéva, or even Admiral Gensoul. You’d have better luck with Darlan than Laborde. He has no love for the British, and despises De Gaulle. As for Gensoul, well, he was the French commander at Mers el Kebir, and wouldn’t think to highly of us after that. ”
“Doesn’t sound very hopeful,” said Marshall. “Well then, can we command the seas off Casablanca, and if so, how soon?”
“That is a question I should best put to our Admiral Tovey. I would expect him to meet with your Admiral King to iron the matter out. We’ve achieved a kind of stalemate in the Canaries, so our good Admiral went north to plan the defense of a big convoy to Murmansk. It’s been tooth and nail up there, particularly because the Germans have establish a big new base near Trondheim—Nordstern.”
“Wouldn’t that be within range of your bombers.”
“Quite so, but it’s the German fighters we need to worry about. It’s 750 air miles from Scotland to Trondheim, and we haven’t a fighter that can make that range. So any support for Bomber Command has to come off the few carriers we have. Your Wildcats have helped out a great deal—we call them Martlets now, but at least they can give us a chance against those Bf-109s. A pity we can’t get our Spitfires up there, but we’re working on better sea based fighters, and should have more soon enough.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have a similar problem if we go for Casablanca,” said Marshall. “You may have heard we lost two of our fleet carriers in the Coral Sea.”
“Nasty business there,” said Brooke.
“Yes, well that means we’re down to just three fleet class carriers in the Pacific, and already tangling with the Japanese in the Fiji Island group. General, we have nothing beyond our old carrier Ranger to send for this Casablanca operation, and even keeping that in the Atlantic might be difficult.”