Monday, November 9, 1942

Well before sunrise on Gibraltar, Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower writes "Inconsequential thoughts of a commander during one of the interminable 'waiting periods.'"

He writes a point that later historians and military buffs will ignore: "Usually we pity the soldier of history that had to work with Allies. But we don't now, and through months of work we've rather successfully integrated the forces and the commands and staffs of British and American contingents - now we have to get together with the North African French! Just how the French angle will develop only the future can tell, but I am proud of this British-US command! The final result I don't know - but I do know that every element of my command - all US and British services are working together beautifully and harmoniously! That's something!"

Eisenhower worries in his notes about Giraud, Darlan, Oran, Spain, the Italian air force, and Casablanca. But he also takes time to write: "I have operational command of Gibraltar! The symbol of the solidity of the British Empire - the hallmark of safety and security at home - the jealously guarded rock that has played a tremendous part in the trade development of the English race! An American is in charge and I am he. Hundreds of feet within the bowels of the Rock itself I have my CP. I simply must have a grandchild or I'll never have the fun of telling this when I'm fishing, grey-bearded, on the banks of a quiet bayou in the Deep South."

After Ike writes his thoughts, he turns to the invasion at hand. Giraud, finally in agreement, is ready to fly off from Gibraltar in an RAF Hudson bomber (the military version of the Lockheed Electra) to Algiers to work with Darlan. Giraud tells the American and British officers that Darlan will not lead or even be second-in-command, but "a place might be found" for him if he delivers the French Navy.

Lucky for Giraud that he doesn't know that the admiral has already sneered that "Giraud might be capable of leading a division."

The dawn of D+1 for Operation Torch finds invader and defender alike struggling to organize their forces, hold or seize objectives, and figure out whether or not they should even be fighting one another.

At Oran's Tafaroui Airport, Capt. Carlos "Doc" Alden of the 509th Parachute Battalion wakes up on the floor of his C-47, Shark Bait, which landed there the night before. Alden's wake-up call is fairly dramatic. A French P-36 flies over the airfield and drops a bomb on it, damaging nothing but shaking the C-47. Alden arises to discover that local Arabs - many wandering around the airfield - have stolen his pistol and holster. However, the thieves left behind a can of cold beans, which he eats for breakfast. After that, Alden walks around the immediate area, wondering why his battalion hasn't arrived yet.

The mystery is answered by mid-morning, when Maj. Yarborough and his exhausted men of the 509th come straggling in from their 12-hour, 25-mile march across the gummy dry lake's terrain. The paratroopers are weighted down by their machine-guns, ammunition, bazookas, and other equipment. Yarborough tells Alden that about 40 paratroopers lie on their route of advance, injured and exhausted by the march. Alden assembles several medics and abandoned French trucks and drives down the route, picking up the wounded men. They draw one air attack - from a passing British Spitfire, which strafes the convoy and damages two vehicles, but causes no casualties.

The rest of Raff's paratroopers also arrive at Tafaroui, doing so in a collection of trucks, cars, buses, and other odd vehicles. As soon as they arrive, the French greet Raff's men with a barrage from two 75mm guns deployed in the hills of Valmy, north of the airport.

Meanwhile, Lt. Col. John Waters, commanding the tanks that captured Tafaroui the previous day, are ready for their next mission. Waters turns his haul of 300 captured French POWs over to Raff, and his M3 Stuart tanks clatter off, heading north at first light to take La Senia, five miles south of Oran. As the tanks roll out, Waters gets word from the American Spitfires of 31st Group operating out of Tafaroui that a force of French tanks are counterattacking up the road from Lt. Lucien on the road to Sidi bel Abbes to the southeast. Waters sends a reconnaissance platoon, a tank company, and a platoon of tank destroyers (halftracks with 75mm armor-piercing guns) to face the advancing Frenchmen. The tank destroyers have a nasty habit of flipping over on their sides when the 75mm gun is fired.

The French tanks advance into a deadly crossfire of American guns, tanks, and Spitfires amid a bleak desert. American shells blast open the French R35s and leave 14 of them wrecked. American losses are one man, one tank, and one halftrack. The counterattack is defeated.

Robinett's tanks from Beach X rumble into action at daylight, trying to take the crossroads village of Misserhin, which dominates the narrow strip of passable terrain along the dry lake's edge. Robinett sends a column of light tanks and self-propelled guns under Lt. Col. John Todd on ahead to grab La Senia. Incredibly, Todd's tanks race through the terrain and charge the airport in cavalry style at 10 a.m. The French fight on long enough for most of the De 520s and P-36s to flee the base, but in a short time, Todd's tanks seize the airport and he reports "60 airplanes captured. Over 300 prisoners taken." Later, Todd has to amend his claim downward: 169 POWs with 64 rifles and four machine-guns between them, and "several" aircraft. Todd has suffered no casualties.

La Senia, however, is not usable right away. The French position just south of it at Valmy, with its 75mm guns, starts shelling La Senia. However, Waters' tanks roll up from the south to seize the gun position and silence the artillery.

Meanwhile, the rest of Robinett's force makes no headway at Misserhin. The French defenders, armed with 75mm guns and machine-gun positions, stand off the defenders until noon. Finally an exasperated Robinett sends a detachment through scrubby terrain. French guns stop this move. Robinett tries again, and fails again. Robinett finally orders his tanks to scuttle along the edge of the Sebkra to reach La Senia, figuring that he can just cut off the village.

The 26th Infantry Regiment makes little progress, as well. Heavy surf halts unloading at Baie des Andalouses, and the 26th is short of ammunition. Under heavy fire from both artillery and dug-in 2nd Regiment of Zouaves, the 26th cannot reach Mers el Kebir by dusk. The 26th moves through Algerian villages, which have been given codenames as American cities: Brooklyn, Brockton, and Syracuse. The roads are named Baseball, Golf, and Lacrosse. Heavy surf restricts landing operations to Arzew pier, which is backlogged, so the Americans are short of supplies. Most of the Rangers are mopping up in Arzew.

East of Oran, Col. Frank Greer's 18th Infantry Regimental Combat Team prepares to attack the French defenses at St. Cloud at dawn. An RCT consists of an infantry regiment and a battalion of field artillery: 3,250 infantrymen supported by 12 field pieces.

With a population of 4,000, the town's thick-walled houses block the main road from Arzew to Oran. As the Americans advance, they meet the Algerians and vice versa. Algerian kids shout "Hi yo, Silver!" or give Nazi salutes. Their opinion on whether the invaders are American or German is clearly divided. Transport is varied, too. The Americans use commandeered wood-powered buses to carry POWs back to the beach, while an 18th Infantry cook uses a mule and cart to drag the field kitchen. When the mule bolts, the cook shoots it, and hooting GIs nearby have to haul the field kitchen themselves.

American troops are amazed by Berber women in veils and fezzed men sitting in cafes, giving insincere applause. Some GIs, weary from two nights of invasion, toss aside their empty cartridge belts and field jackets. Some just fall asleep in the bushes. Some just die, like four GIs of 2nd/16th, who dive into an irrigation ditch under French fire. A shell fragment severs a power line that hits the Americans, killing them.

The 16th Tunisian Infantry Regiment, the 1st Battalion of the Foreign Legion, an armored unit, a battalion of 75mm guns and a battery of 155 mm guns make up the defense of St. Cloud. They are backed by French Fascists of the paramilitary Service d'Order Legionnaire. The town is a brooding collection of wrecked buildings, unburied corpses, and torn vines.

Col. Frank Greer, the 18th Infantry's commander, is determined to take this defiant town. It is holding up the American advance. At 7 a.m., Lt. Gordon Klefman leads a company of Bill Darby's Rangers into the attack on St. Cloud. When the Rangers come within 400 yards of the town, they are hit by artillery, rifle, and machine-gun fire. Klefman leads a platoon in a hell-for-leather charge across the open ground through machine-gun fire, shouting at the tops of their lungs. The other Rangers attack the strongpoint from the flanks. The Rangers hurl grenades and blaze away at the French positions. Klefman hurls a grenade at a machine-gun nest, destroying it, but not before the defenders riddle him with bullets at point-blank range. PFCs Alder L. Lystrom and Elmer Eskola die in the same charge. But the Rangers' ferocity overwhelms the Algerian defenders. Many are killed, and the few survivors surrender.

The 18th Infantry's attack on St. Cloud degenerates into fierce firefights between small groups of Americans and Frenchmen. Signal Corps photographer Ned Modica, shooting the battle for the Army's records, is so busy snapping the fighting he doesn't notice a buddy collapsing on to him, dead.

By noon, 18th Infantry's attack has failed, and Greer stands gloomily on the concrete loading ramp of his winery command post, examining St. Cloud. Greer is dismayed by the French tenacity and his heavy losses. The church steeple is torn off, so the town clock is no longer chiming the hours.

"I'm going to put a creeping artillery barrage through that town, starting at this end and working right over it," he growls to his staff. He orders his artillery to plaster the town at 1 p.m. with 1,500 shells. At 1:30 all three battalions will assault the town, ignoring the fact that hundreds of civilians are huddling in those houses.

Greer passes the word, and minutes later, Maj. Gen. Terry Allen, 1st Division's CO, arrives in his jeep, hatless as usual, bursting with enthusiasm. He tells Greer that the advance is going well, saying, "Boys, I've just sent a signal to the French to put in their first team." He tells a rifle company, "There are a lot of good-looking girls in that town ready to welcome the liberating Americans. Take Oran or you don't eat."

Allen lights up a Camel while Greer tells Allen his plans. The general is stunned. Allen rightly fears that a bombardment will only kill a large number of civilians - a hefty Nazi propaganda bonus - and inflame French anti-American sentiment. A devout Catholic who has prayed that morning, Allen dislikes the idea of bombarding civilian fellow Catholics.

Allen stares own at the map. A World War I veteran, he recalls French villages, with their taverns, waiters, dressmakers, and the destruction caused by German shelling. "There will not be any general artillery concentration," he says. "If we bombard the town and then fail to take it by attack, it would be disastrous. It would make a bad political impression." He notes that it would use too much ammunition. "We don't need the damned place anyway. We can bypass St. Cloud and take Oran by maneuver."

He tells Greer to contain St. Cloud with one battalion and have the rest of the division go around the town. 1st Infantry Division will mass to attack Oran at dawn on December 10th. Then Allen hops into his jeep, and departs in a whirlwind of dust and salutes. Allen's decision - to leave a powerful French force in his rear - is a calculated risk, but typical of his rough-and-ready character. And it works.

The French are determined to fight back, though. Two destroyers, Epervier and Typhon, sail from Oran harbor to attack the vast British fleet offshore. Not a bad idea, as Central Task Force is, relatively speaking, the weakest of the three attack groups. However, they run smack into the British light cruisers HMS Aurora and Jamaica, whose guns set Epervier ablaze and wreck Typhon. Epervier beaches herself, while Typhon struggles home to scuttle herself right across the narrow harbor entrance.

Another counterattack looms on the extreme eastern flank at La Macta, when the 2nd Algerian Infantry Regiment moves across the La Macta River and through swamps to hit the defending 1st Battalion/16th Infantry Regiment from behind. When the French attack rolls in, the Americans find themselves cut off by land and radio from regimental headquarters. However, their naval gunfire radio link still works. They call the Royal Navy, who send in HMS Jamaica and the destroyer HMS Farndale, and pass the SOS on to Terry Allen's CP. He diverts a company of 1st Battalion/19th Engineers and some of 1st Armored Division's tanks to save the day. Three Albacore bombers and four Seafires from HMS Furious swoop down on French artillery, blasting their guns. The Americans hold their ground.

When the American engineers and tanks reach 1st Battalion, they find the infantrymen have held off the French attacks. The engineers dig defenses in the gathering dusk.

As night falls, the American advance on Oran continues, with tanks and infantry struggling forward, short of transport and heavy equipment, against determined opposition. Inexperienced American commanders attack French defenses instead of bypassing them. American troops are tired from long marches and continuous fighting. The French still hold St. Cloud, Valmy, and Misserhin. Coastal batteries have Roosevelt's 26th Regiment pinned down. American invaders, who have been on the go for 48 hours of preparation and invasion, are worn out. Even so, Roosevelt himself goes on patrols, armed with his carbine.

Nonetheless, Allen puts his division in motion for a night march, sending out written orders. His officers are too weary from lack of sleep to comprehend oral orders. The 3rd/16th slips past French troops in the dark, takes a different road form planned, and winds up between 2nd/16th and the French 1st/2nd Zouaves and 68th African Artillery as a night firefight breaks out. 3rd/16th is pinned down for most of the fight, but after six hours, the French surrender, and the 16th Infantry hauls in 308 POWs.

At Safi the Americans continue their build-up. The transports move into the harbor and anchor by the docks to unload their supplies and heavy equipment, which starts building up on the beach instead of inland. The destroyers set up antisubmarine patrols outside of harbor.

The major American air support is the new escort carrier Santee, the converted tanker SeaKay, commissioned on September 13, on her shakedown cruise. Only five of her aviators have any experience, and five of the seven F4F Wildcats she sortied on D-Day are lost. One has crashed in the sea (the pilot is saved), and four land on or near Mazargan airfield, where they are taken prisoner. Another flight tries to land on Safi airfield, which they find too soft and bumpy for Wildcats, and all bog down. By end of November 8th, nine planes lie wrecked on the field.

But November 9th dawns foggy, protecting the harbor from French bombers. One of Santee's aviators, however, bored, drops bombs on Marrakech field without orders. The bombs do not detonate, but the French are irritated anyway. They send in a flight of LeO bombers, and only one is able to find a hole in the overcast. It bombs a warehouse being used as an ammunition dump and starts a spectacular fire, killing three people and wounding 12 more. American AA guns on Lakehurst and other transports shoot down the bomber, which crashes onto Red Beach. The fog lifts at 8 a.m., but the French do not return.

However, with the French air force clearly active, Santee launches a retaliatory strike on Marrakech. Lt. Cdr. Joe Ruddy's VGS-29, consisting of eight TBF Avengers and nine SBD Dauntless dive-bombers, streaks to the airbase. En route, the Army reports a column of trucks carrying soldiers from Marrakech to Safi. Three dive-bombers race over to the trucks and attack. The Americans jubilantly claim 12 of 14 trucks, but Army observers report that the trucks are merely dispersed across the terrain.

But the remaining planes bomb Marrakech airfield, stitching up 15 grounded planes, putting them out of business. With fuel short, the American planes land at the Safi airfield, where six planes tip over in the boggy ground.

On the beach, supplies are not being unloaded. The Army's attitude, as Samuel Eliot Morison tartly observes, is "Good-bye, Jack, thanks for the trip; rush that stuff ashore, I've got to go fight." On the other hand, the Navy regards unloading Army supplies as the Army's job.

Harmon sends Army details to the docks to work as stevedores, which doesn't help, as neither the officers nor the noncoms have any idea on what to do, and the GIs resent being used as dock workers when they came to fight. The transport Lyon reports at 3 p.m. that Beach Blue is "cluttered up with vehicles. Medical and communications set up anew. Worked past midnight getting ambulance and jeep out of water."

Meanwhile, Harmon's troops struggle to advance inland. Time schedules have completely broken down, and inexperienced commanders and troops have trouble coping with difficulties and shortages. But 1st Armored Landing Team under Lt. Col. W.M. Stokes moves inland anyway, to take on a French force coming in from Marrakech, spotted at 1:50 p.m.

This column consists of a mixed bag of 2nd Foreign Legion, 2nd Moroccan Tirailleurs, 11th Squadron of Chasseurs d'Afrique, and seven 75mm guns of the 1st Battalion Moroccan Colonial Artillery. Col. Paris commands this colorful force, moving up by foot and on horse-drawn vehicles.

They meet around 5 p.m. a half-mile east of a crossroads called Bou Gedra, and exchange artillery fire. Stokes' men eliminate a French machine-gun post, grab the bridge, and keep driving east, away from sunset. At dusk, mines rip up an American tank's tracks. Neither Stokes nor Harmon want to fight until they medium tanks - which are still being unloaded - have come up. The Americans bivouac for the night in the empty desert.

Harmon decides that a drive east to Marrakech is not as important as his primary objective, Casablanca, 140 miles away. The general drives up to Bou Gedra and studies the situation while his M4 Sherman and M3 Lee medium tanks are unloaded at the Safi pier. He orders his tanks to drive north by night, hoping to reach Casablanca.

At dusk, the big tanks clank off into the night, heading north for the coastal town of Mazagan, 90 miles away. There the destroyers Bernadou and Cole will meet them, loaded with six landing craft full of fuel and ammunition to keep the offensive going. The cruiser Philadelphia and two destroyers, Cowie and Knight, will provide gunfire support. It's a gutsy move by Harmon, using untrained and tired troops. If they reach Mazagan and the supplies, they can keep rolling. If they don't get there, or the supplies are sunk, then Harmon's tankers will be trapped in the desert without food or fuel.

The American tanks and jeeps keep slipping off the narrow road into ditches, slowing the advance. At one point, Harmon finds his advance is being stalled because the crew of a leading vehicle has fallen asleep. There are few stragglers, though, as the Americans are afraid not of the French, but the Moroccan Arabs, whom rumor has it, will slice off the testicles of any man they capture.

At Fedala, "the calmest day in 68 years" is followed by six-foot waves before dawn. Maj. Gen. George S. Patton goes ashore before dawn to see what's going on, and is enraged to find Navy and Army personnel standing around, waiting for orders. He bellows at them to unload supplies and get moving. He sends a launch out to intercept boats and send them to the port instead of through the surf. At 8 a.m., a flight of French De 520s swoops in. As the French planes spatter the beaches with machine-gun fire, Patton stands upright in the open to inspire his green troops on to victory. He stays on the beach until noon. With the army ashore, command power shifts, as planned, from Hewitt to Patton.

The Navy and Coast Guard works to sort out the Fedala beach backlog. They have unloaded 39 percent of the invading troops, 16 percent of their vehicles and 10 percent of their supplies. More than half of the 378 landing craft and tank lighters lie breached, sunk, or stranded. Fedala harbor has only one berth for a seagoing ship, so the Americans use the captured French trawler Poitou to move 200 men per trip from the transport Leonard Wood to the beach. Beachmaster Cdr. Jamison orders all boat traffic routed to the harbor of Beach Red to protect them from the rising surf. Two tank lighters disregard the order, come in too fast, hit a wave crest, and are turned completely over.

On the shore, supply officers find ammunition, food, equipment and vehicles to be mixed up, despite the order to combat-load the transports. The Army Shore Party lacks authority and experience, so the Navy Beach Party - not normally concerned with unloading - has to do the job. Trucks are short. So are forklifts, pallets, rope, and acetylene torches. Cardboard boxes disintegrate. Sloppy loading in Norfolk means that guns arrive without sights, ammunition, or gunners. Radio sets lie in the bottoms of holds. Medical supplies stay on ships for 36 hours, which leaves wounded men helpless on the beaches, along with dead bodies.

The problem is caused by Patton's major weakness, which will haunt him later in the war - a disdain for logistics. In fact, he's left his supply chief to sail in on a follow-up convoy, still days from Morocco.

Someone finds the captured French ship Capitaine Paul Lemerle containing 60 French trucks bound for Dakar. Unfortunately, they lack essential parts. The trucks stay on the freighter. Someone else rounds up Moroccans to work as stevedores at one cigarette an hour. They promptly steal whatever they can.

The transport Leonard Wood sends four boats loaded with 113 MPs to the shore before dawn, but the lead coxswain mistakes the burning Primauguet for an oil fire near Fedala's Beach Yellow. The boats sail down into Casablanca harbor, and an MP spots what appears to be a US destroyer in the gloom. He shouts, "We are Americans!" French machine-guns fire back, joined by 20mm shells. A French shell blasts the coxswain of one craft and spews burning gasoline all over the place. American MPs jump over the side. French sailors start fishing the survivors out of the water. 28 Americans die. 45 are taken POW. A few swim through oily waters to the sea wall, where French civilians drag them ashore and provide them with overcoats.

On Fedala Beach, Patton wades through the surf to bring in corpses. Then he works to "flay the idle, rebuke the incompetent, and drive the timid."

"The beach was a mess and the officers were doing nothing," Patton writes. He claims to have spotted a soldier crying on the beach and kicked him in the rear. "Somewhat to boost morale. As a whole the men were poor, the officers worse. No drive. It is very sad."

Patton's personal determination cannot solve six-foot waves and improperly-packed transports. Col. Thomas Monroe's 15th Infantry Regiment's motor pool consists at the moment of a few camels, a few donkeys, and five jeeps. Nevertheless, Patton orders his men to advance.

Force Brushwood sets up its Forward HQ (Tac HQ in British parlance) in the Fedala schoolhouse at 9 a.m. The 239th Signal Operating Company's men take over the civilian switchboard, using the French telephone system to replace the missing radios and field communications gear. 3rd Division's signalmen haven't strung wires and poles for its divisional phone system, either. The wires and phones are still on the transports. American officers have to go into houses and stores and ask the resident or proprietor to use their phone to contact other outfits. Luckily for all concerned the Fedala phone system seems to be still operator-based as opposed to direct-dial.

Despite snarled communications, Anderson is determined to attack. He lines up four battalions from two regiments on his start-line in textbook fashion: 3rd/7th on the left under Mar. Eugene H. Cloud, 2nd/7th next under Lt. Col. Rafael Salzmann, 2nd/15th under Maj. William H. Billings, and 1st/15th under Maj. Arthur W. Gardner, in order. 1st/7th and 3rd/15th are the reserves for their regiments. Companies A and C of the 756th Tank Battalion support the 7th's thrust down the Fedala-Casablanca road. The 30th Infantry holds the Fedala rear against counterattack from Rabat.

Supported by AA guns of the 443rd Coast Artillery, the Americans attack, and immediately run into trouble. They lack vehicles, supporting guns, and communications gear. The 10th Artillery Battalion's radios are all wrecked from salt water. The 39th Field Artillery Battalion has lost all of its trucks and prime movers. Its entire transportation consists of one jeep.

With the Jean Bart temporarily knocked out, the French fleet stays in port. Both sides watch each other. But the French air force is active - 11 De 520s fly over the fleet and engage six F4F Wildcats from Ranger. The Americans claim five kills and four damaged. After that, Ranger's bombers and fighters have a busy day attacking French tanks and trucks heading towards the battlefield.

By mid-afternoon, the 3rd Division's artillery and vehicles are finally moving in. Ranger launches three spotter planes to support the artillery. The cruiser Brooklyn opens fire on the American planes, and the fleet joins in. The planes race off for land, and take Army anti-aircraft fire. American guns shoot down one American plane and shred the other two, which land on the Fedala racetrack as planned, but unable to fly any more. No word on how the racetrack regulars reacted to two planes landing on the turf.

At 3 p.m., Patton and his staff take over the Hotel Miramar, vacated yesterday by the German Armistice Commission. There he finds a Prussian helmet left behind by the head of that commission, General Erich von Wulisch, along with stacks of secret documents. At his new headquarters, Patton orders his communications clerks of the 829th Signal Service Battalion's C Company to report his situation to Gibraltar. They find their frequencies snarled by a hostile German or French station, sending messages to Patton in the guise of Eisenhower's headquarters. The fakers also send messages to Gibraltar, posing as Patton. The fakery only adds to command confusion.

Nobody thinks to contact the OSS agent in Casablanca, code-named Ajax, who controls a network of 24 clandestine radio stations across French Northwest Africa, for just such a situation. That's because Ajax, before D-day, got into a dispute with Signal Corps officers over what communication procedures to use. Ajax stands by his OSS protocols, the Signal Corps officers follow Army regulations. Neither side can budge, even though communications are a hopeless mess.

The French react to the situation with determination. General Nogues moves his HQ to Fes. He informs the German Armistice Commissioners of the invasion, but won't let them send a representative to his Tac HQ. However, Nogues plans to resist the American drive.

The Americans move west on Casablanca slowly, getting within five miles of the city, before the lack of support weapons, transport, and radio gears stops the advance. General Anderson warns his men to be ready to resume the advance at midnight.

Under the Rock of Gibraltar, Eisenhower continues his long wait. Messages dribble in... Patton reports silencing batteries at Safi, Blondin, and Fedala...Safi captured... Jean Bart badly damaged...Central Task Force requesting B-17 bombers to flatten the Du Santon Battery near Oran. With many of the Spitfires and P-40s jamming Gibraltar flown to Algiers and Oran, there is now room to bring in B-17s from England to accommodate that request.

At Port Lyautey, Brig. Gen. Lucian Truscott, in enameled helmet, silk scarf, red leather jacket, and riding breeches, hikes up and down the beach in the pre-dawn darkness, unhappy. He has already seen amphibious disaster as an observer at Dieppe. He notes that the landing would have been a "disaster against a well-armed enemy intent upon resistance." And many of his young soldiers seem more ready to give up than fight, a failure he attributes to peacetime training. "One of the first lessons that battle impresses upon one," he later writes, "is that no matter how large the force engaged, every battle is made up of small actions by individuals and small units."

This morning, Truscott's jeep has stalled, and landing craft are going to the wrong beaches. He gives the beachmaster some colorful invective, and borrows his halftrack to head into battle, followed by light tanks. As Truscott's vehicle approaches the front, a gunner behind Truscott cuts loose with his machine-gun, narrowly missing Truscott. The general remembers from World War I that generals are expendable in combat. He shoves an abandoned bazooka at a Navy boat crew, ordering them to hold the ground. There will be no Dieppe here. The Sailors dig in, but their thoughts are unrecorded.

Truscott regroups his troops and moves up seven M3 light tanks to support the 2nd Battalion/60th Regiment, which is deployed on the road from the beach to Port Lyautey. The surf is too heavy for Truscott to land reinforcements. He deploys his tanks and infantry to protect Blue Beach. Truscott expects a French counterattack, and he is right. At dawn the French do just that, using infantry and R-35 tanks of the 1st Regiment de Chasseurs d'Afrique, one of the best French Colonial regiments. 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 7th Moroccan Tirailleurs provide infantry and elan. More French troops head for the Kasba.

Lt. Col. Harry H. Semmes and his seven light tanks await the French attack. Their radios don't work (the batteries ran down) and they haven't been able to set the sights on their M3 Stuart tanks. Nonetheless, they stand astride the Rabat-Tangier highway at the junction of the road to Mehdia. At 6:30 a.m., the French attack from the south. Semmes' tanks withdraw behind a slight rise and open fire. The French tanks shoot back. The Americans have trouble sighting their shots, and the French shells bounce off the heavier American armor. American shells jam in the ejectors, and tank commanders claw out the brass from their breeches. Bullets jam turret swivel mechanisms, and tank crews use pliers to extract the shells. However, the Americans destroy four French tanks, and cut up the Tirailleurs.

The Naval Liaison party calls down gunfire from Savannah and aircraft from the escort carrier USS Sangamon, which roar into action, using depth charges, normally dropped on submarines, against tanks and artillery. Savannah's six-inchers blast open four French tanks, and the rest flee into a eucalyptus grove. Lt. R.Y. McElroy, a Sangamon aviator, swoops low and takes 13 hits on the plane.

The French try again at 9 a.m., and run into more light tanks of 70th Tank Battalion. Sangamon sends in another airstrike, which routs the Chasseurs. 2nd Battalion spends the rest of the day fighting off counterattacks.

1st Battalion and 3rd Battalion also struggle to advance. Backed by tanks of 66th Armored Regiment, 60th Infantry hikes across lightly wooded ridges to cut the Kasba from behind. At 3 p.m., it finally reaches its objective, the crest of Mhignat Toama, only to come under heavy French mortar and machine-gun fire.

2nd/60th spends a busy morning unscrambling itself and fighting off French attacks from the Kasbah. The Americans fire from the lighthouse on the Kasbah, so the French bring up 75mm guns, which chase the Americans out of the lighthouse. The day ends in a deadlock, with the French still holding the Kasbah.

At 10 a.m., Truscott is near the front when he learns that a French lieutenant has come to Green Beach with a message from the commander of the Kasbah, offering surrender. A quick capitulation would save lives and speed the advance to the airfield. Truscott tells Col. Frederick de Rohan, the 60th Infantry's CO, to arrange a noon peace parley. The French lieutenant will be sent back to the Kasbah with an American officer to answer the surrender request. Then Truscott races back to his Mehdia HQ, where he summons his staff to prepare plans to meet with the Kasbah's commander. With all that done, Truscott retires to his bathroom to shave and clean mud off his uniform.

Truscott and his staff wait...and wait...and wait. The French do not appear. Truscott begins to wonder about the situation - a single French lieutenant has passed through US lines unscathed, without a white flag, offering surrender, but lacking a written document to that effect. And the French are still firing on his men.

Truscott dictates a letter to one of his typists to the Kasbah commander. It regrets the fact that Americans and Frenchmen, friends since the American Revolution, are fighting and killing each other. He says he will be willing to meet at any time during daylight to discuss surrender. Truscott gives the letter to two of his officers, and sends them to deliver it personally to the Kasbah's commander.

When the officers reach the fortress, under a huge white flag, they are greeted with rifle and automatic fire. The couriers beat a fast retreat, the letter undelivered. The Kasbah does not surrender. Truscott later learns that the French lieutenant became separated from his men in some fighting, and was afraid of capture. So he strolled along the shoreline and concocted the cease-fire story as a way to be returned to his own lines. Truscott is annoyed at having been hoaxed by a very junior officer, but impressed with his sang-froid and initiative. He also realizes that American generals are as green as the troops they are leading into battle.

North of the airfield, 60th Field Artillery's guns hurl shells at the airfield, and the French shoot back. Companies K and M start marching down the tongue of river flatlands at 4:30 p.m., to grab the bridge over the Oued Sabou to Port Lyautey, while Company I crosses the Oued Sebou in rubber boats to create a diversion on the airfield. The bridge assault takes the western end, but are repulsed by artillery. The rubber boat team loses its way and digs in on the southern side of the river to wait for daylight.

B nightfall, Truscott's men have a firm beachhead. The night is "not a cheerful one," Truscott writes, "although for me it was less grim and dismal than the night before."

Another night attack, by 1st/60th, kicks off at 11 p.m., under overcast skies. B, C, and D Companies, marching in columns, head into the dark, trying to cut off Port Lyautey. They get lost, too.

At 5:30 a.m., off Algiers, the British force, except for the crippled Leedstown, starts moving into Algiers Bay. However, the Luftwaffe attacks, in the form of a lone Junkers 88, which dive-bombs the transport SS Exceller, with two near-misses. At 12:55, the Luftwaffe attacks the immobile American transport Leedstown, Three near-misses open her seams. The helpless transport can do nothing when two torpedoes whack home at 1:10 p.m. The ship is abandoned, and sinks at 4:15 p.m. A Leedstown doctor, Lt. j.g. Asher Hollander, tells a reporter, "Some of the boys who jumped overboard were washed back into the ship by the suction of water running into the two torpedo holes, and had to jump over again."

The first US Navy men to enter Algiers Harbor are Lt. R.C. Marler's detachment of landing craft crews. Shortly after dawn, they set up a command post on the end of the main pier. With Navy efficiency, Marler writes three watchbills, posts sentries, mounts machine-guns, and finally raises Old Glory on a tower at the pierhead. The local police, seeing the Stars and Stripes, assume the Navy has taken over the port, and bedevil the hapless Marler "with requests of every nature. They wanted permission to join the American armed forces and be given arms to fight."

Other Frenchmen are ready to fight alongside Hitler. Early in the morning, the Vichy government tells the Germans that French air bases in Tunisia are available to the Luftwaffe and German forces only. No Italians. That message is passed on to Field Marshal Albert Kesselring at his headquarters in Frascati, Italy, outside of Rome. He in turn starts the airlift of German troops to Tunisia, scraping up Ju 52 and Me 323 transports from all over Europe.

The first two Germans to arrive in Tunis are Luftwaffe Captains Schurmeyer and Beylau, who meet the white-goateed Resident-General, Vice Adm. Jean-Pierre Esteva. Nobody comments on the oddity of an admiral serving as a general. Aged 62, the bachelor Esteva is known as "The Monk" for his ascetic habits. He rises every day before dawn to attend mass, and eats nothing but dry toast and an orange until noon. Esteva plans to spend his retirement in Rheims helping to maintain and restore the magnificent cathedral.

The two captains inform Esteva and Gen. Georges Barre, Commandant Superieur des Troupes de Tunisie, that the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht are coming, and the French are to cooperate with the Germans. As if they have any choice.

To press home the point, Col. Gen. Bruno Loerzer, commanding Fliegerkorps II in Taormina, Sicily, sends Me 110s and Stukas across to seize the airfield at El Aouina outside Tunis. The first Me 110s arrive at 10:55 a.m. The Ju 52s and Me 323s following haul in the 53rd Fighter Squadron's mechanics, fuel, oil, and light flak guns. They also bring in a detachment of paratroopers from Kesselring's headquarters guard to protect El Aouina. The Ju 52 make a pass over the city to intimidate the residents. When the gliders and transports land, German paratroopers hustle out of the planes, to find French armored cars with machine-guns pointed at them.

As the Luftwaffe approaches El Aouina, the base CO, Col. Geradot, flies off in a light plane to Algiers, to warn the British and Americans that 40 German bombers are landing at Tunis.

Esteva is aware of the situation. He and Barre have a message from Darlan saying, "The Americans having attacked us first, are the aggressors, and we must fight them, alone or unassisted." Luckily for Darlan, the Allies don't know about this message. Barre has sufficient troops and light artillery to destroy the incoming Germans. Instead, the Germans present Barre with a copy of Darlan's order...signed by Laval. Barre obeys orders. He stands down his troops while the Luftwaffe's gigantic Me 323 transports rumble in...25 by 3 p.m., 60 at 4 p.m., 100 by dusk. Soon German troops are digging entrenchments near Carthage's ancient walls, singing "Lili Marlene" and other songs.

The power behind the quick deployment to Tunis is Luftwaffe Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the German C-in-C South, at his headquarters in Frascati. The World War I flying ace is now going to have to be a land general. However, he moves with determination and speed, buoyed by the knowledge that Berlin will, for once in the African campaign, send ample reinforcements.

While the Germans move into Tunisia, German staff officers at La Roche-Guyon in France plan the bigger move into Vichy France. Operation Attila, which dates back to Fuhrer Director 19 of December 10, 1940, is the canned plan for this invasion, and the plan still holds up. German 7th Army under General Dollmann is the leadership force, as his headquarters did the planning. 1st Army provides the troops. 2nd SS Panzer Corps, under Lt. Gen. Paul Hausser is the major armored spearhead. The Italian 4th Army under General Vercellini will occupy the beaches and cabanas of the Riviera, while one Italian division will move from Sardinia to Corsica, in some cases by sailboat, because of the hurried nature of the planning.

The French know the Germans are coming from their attaches, liaison officers, and border guards. The question is whether or not to resist. Vichy has only two or three divisions under arms, all of them hopelessly unequal to the Wehrmacht's panzers. Even symbolic resistance will cause unnecessary casualties and lead to reprisals and massacre. And what should the powerful and modern French fleet do? Another problem: French troops are still fighting American and British forces in North Africa. France cannot fight the entire world.

Germany's move into Tunisia does not go unnoticed. Luftwaffe units in the area send relevant messages on an Enigma key British codebreakers call "Locust." Bletchley also breaks two other new German Army keys, "Bullfinch," for messages between Rome and Tunis, and "Mallard," an administrative key. Bletchley Park also reads all the Vichy naval traffic, as well as German SS traffic. Bletchley reports that the Germans are not going to enter Spain, but the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht are rushing into Tunisia. Unfortunately, there is a huge delay between codebreaking in Bletchley and reporting the decrypts to Allied Forces Headquarters in Gibraltar.

At 9 a.m., Giraud's RAF Lockheed Hudson wings off from Gibraltar, heading for Blida airfield south of Algiers, still surrounded by Col. Trevor and his Anglo-American commandos, who are still not allowed onto the facility. Giraud is joined by his aide, Capt. Andre Beaufre, and his son. The general also has a bag of fresh underwear and shoes, bought the day before in Gibraltar.

The political situation is far messier than Giraud's boxers. Darlan won't negotiate with Murphy. Darlan wants to negotiate with someone more senior, like Eisenhower. Ike can't leave Gibraltar. Darlan won't have anything to do with Giraud, either. Giraud's immense ego has infuriated Eisenhower.

Ike writes to Gen. Walter Bedell Smith in London, "I've promised Giraud to make him the big shot, while I've got to use every kind of cajolery, bribe, threat and all else to get Darlan's active cooperation. All of these Frogs have a single thought - 'ME.' It isn't this operation that's wearing me down - it's the petty intrigue and the necessity of dealing with little, selfish, conceited worms that call themselves men. Oh well - by the time this thing is over I'll probably be as crooked as any of them."

Giraud's Hudson flops down on Blida airfield, and the proud general debarks, expecting a grand reception. Instead, General de Monsabert insultingly tells Giraud, "I've never heard of you." To make things worse, nobody can find the luggage containing Giraud's uniform. Luckily for Giraud, Murphy turns up, expecting to meet Clark. The diplomat provides a limousine to take the general to the home of a friend, Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil. Giraud's drives through alleys and past garbage cans to Dar Mamieddine, Lemaigre's mansion. The only person there to greet the general is Lemaigre's private secretary. The American diplomat cautiously mentions that Darlan is in town. Giraud calmly suggests that the admiral is working behind the scenes, like himself, to aid the Allies.

At noon, delayed by fog, Col. Paul Tibbets throttles back his B-17 Red Gremlin, and takes off from Gibraltar, carrying Maj. Gen. Mark W. Clark back to Algiers, escorted by 13 Spitfires in tight formation. The rest of his party flies behind in Boomerang. Clark is joined by British Maj. Gen. Kenneth Anderson, a dour, unsmiling Scot, who will command British 1st Army. To poke fun at his grim nature, Anderson's code-name is "Sunray." The plane stops off in Oran so that Clark can check on the situation there, then flies on to Algiers.

In Algiers, Ryder, lacking plenipotentiary powers, stalls Darlan's request for new meetings. Meanwhile, French civilian authority resumes in the capital city, while British troops of the 78th Infantry Division unload in the harbor. Crowds gather to watch the Tommies unload. The French troops have gone back to their barracks, with their arms, and American troops occupy key points in the city, relying on French gendarmes to maintain order.

A living legend arrives at Tafaroui at 4 p.m., Maj. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, commander of the US 12th Air Force, in his B-17, along with 12 Spitfires of 52nd Fighter Group. Soon the whole 12th Air Force headquarters team is in Oran.

Flying at 500 to 700 feet over the sea, Red Gremlin reaches Maison Blanche airport outside Algiers at 5 p.m. So does the Luftwaffe. Just as Red Gremlin rolls to a halt, Bofors AA guns of the British 84th Light Anti-aircraft Battery - just arrived at the airfield - open fire on 12 Ju 88 bombers, who have come to paste the city from an altitude of 6,000 feet. Clark describes "the orange balls of fire looking like Christmas-tree lights I the sky."

While the air raid continues, Ryder is out of touch and out of time. He meets with Darlan at the ritzy Hotel St. George at 5:30. The French admiral is joined by the usual suspects: Moreau, Fenard, Juin, Koeltz, and Mendigal. Ryder whips out from his briefcase two armistice conventions, both prepared in Washington. One is lenient, one harsh, depending on the French attitude. Under the harsh terms, the French must be disarmed and confined to barracks.

Juin is angered: it would be insulting to deny French troops their arms when they may have to use them in combat against the Germans. Koeltz, commanding 19th Corps, suggests the French keep their weapons as long as they stay in their barracks. Darlan modifies that to say that munitions not needed "for the maintenance of order" can be placed under American guard. Fine. Ryder then offers to allow French ships to fly the Tricolour and the regular French administration to continue to work. Also fine.

Then Darlan asks if this means negotiations are being carried out in the name of Marshal Petain. He's got Ryder there. Ryder can't answer until Clark arrives. Nobody knows that he's enduring the air raid at Maison Blanche.

Clark and the Anglo-American occupiers of Maison Blanche watch the impressive fireworks from ground level, and start cheering when American and British Spitfires roar in to intercept. As Clark climbs into a Bren carrier, he sees two Spitfires attack a Ju 88 from below. British bullets rip open the Ju 88's engines and it crashes. Another Ju 88 drops three bombs 100 feet from Red Gremlin, scaring everybody. A last Ju 88 takes a flak hit directly over the airport and dramatically plunges toward the tarmac. Generals and privates dive for cover. The Ju 88 explodes at 1,000 feet, scattering pieces all over the place. Clark climbs out of a foxhole, knees shaky, back into the Bren carrier. He and his party - which includes Col. Darryl F. Zanuck, acting as videographer and courier - rocket off to the Hotel St. George, through narrow, winding streets. Anderson heads over to the headquarters ship Bulolo in harbor, to set up 1st Army's HQ.

At the hotel Clark, an hour late to the conference, finds an exhausted General Ryder. "I'm glad you're here," he tells Clark. "I've stalled them (the French military and political big shots) as long as I could." Ryder and Clark head into the conference room to meet the Frenchmen. After a round of handshakes and introductions, Clark gets down to business, playing bluff poker. He tells Darlan that the Americans have landed 150,000 men, and requests all French resistance in Northwest Africa to cease immediately. Col. Julius Holmes, the diplomat-turned-colonel in Clark's party, manages to keep his composure, knowing well that only 3,400 GIs are ashore in the Algiers area.

Darlan and Juin are not convinced. Probably Clark is not much of an actor, or the French leaders have figured out that the Americans are thin on the ground. Since the French are unimpressed, Clark decides to stall for time himself. He postpones further conferences until the morning, and stumps up to one of the finer suites to unload his gear and talk with Ryder and Murphy, who hasn't come in yet. Ryder has some bad news for Clark: All the French leaders in French Northwest Africa want nothing to do with the vain and egotistical Giraud. They won't even meet him. So much for the grandiose Allied plans.

Left behind in the conference room are the French leaders and the large manila envelope containing the terms of the harsher of the two armistices. Whether by accident or design, this inflammatory document has been left for the French to read. They do so. After digesting the torrent of typewritten terms, Darlan asks everyone present, from the most junior officer to the senior person, as to what they should do. The consensus is that the French are in no position to continue resistance to the Americans. They should accept the lenient terms. Darlan decides to pass the buck to Petain. At 8:30 p.m., he cables the Marshal a resume of the milder armistice, and notes that Ryder wants an answer by 10 p.m. on the 10th.

Darlan inserts a code word in the message, Xavier, one of Darlan's middle names, to verify that he has actually sent the message, and not under duress.

A short time later, Auphan cables back, saying that Petain agrees with Darlan, but the government has to wait until Laval returns from Munich. Until then, Darlan has plenipotentiary powers to deal with the Americans as he sees fit.

Clark slumps down on his hotel bed to absorb this new mess. Before he can figure it out, Murphy bursts in, and asks, "Congratulations! Glad you're here, but where are all your tanks?"

Clark is baffled by the question. Murphy wants a parade of tanks and infantry to influence French leaders who haven't made up their mind. A display of columns of American tanks, their white stars stamped on their turrets, should impress the French leaders.

"Run your tanks through the main streets," Murphy says. "Show them some force. Give them a big parade."

"Okay," Clark answers. "If you insist, I'll have all three of our available tanks put on a show." Murphy is stunned. Well, where are the rest of the tanks? Out in the field, defending the beachhead, as they should be.

Crestfallen, Murphy settles for an ostentatious display of American troops around the St. George to protect the wine cellar, which impresses the French leaders anyway. Clark also chats briefly with Giraud himself, who has decided to await developments, since nobody wants to deal with him.

Clark, who has not slept in 60 hours, shoos off his hosts, and crawls into bed, but not before telling an aide, "What a mess! Why do soldiers have to get mixed up in things like this when there is a war to be fought?"

Back at Lemaigre's mansion, three French officers, including Lemaigre, point out to Giraud that he still has an agreement with the Americans, in writing, to become Commander-in-Chief of French forces in North Africa. Why not assert that authority? Giraud thinks about it. He's worn out from all the stress and would do anything, as long as he can get back into action against the Germans.

Dorange heads back to his quarters at the Palais d'Hiver, falls into bed, and is awakened at 11 p.m. by a call from Lemaigre's house: will Juin meet with his old friend Giraud? I suppose so, Dorange says, and a new conspiracy is born. Giraud speeds off to Juin's villa.

Another French bigshot is awaiting an interview with a powerful foreign ruler - Pierre Laval is in Munich to meet with Adolf Hitler at the Fuhrerbau. Before the Frenchman can meet with the Fuhrer, Hitler treats Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano to a lengthy monologue on the military-political situation. According to Hitler, things are not as bad as when the British moved into Norway right behind the Wehrmacht in 1940. The Norwegians were pro-British. The French in North Africa are more pro-Axis. Hitler adds: "The French loved neither Germany nor Italy. Some admitted this with brutal openness, others were rather more reserved, and a third category sought slyly to hide it."

However, Hitler has a fair grip on the situation. He believes the Americans will advance on Tunis by land, so the Axis must reinforce Tunisia at once. The French must cooperate or face occupation. If the Americans can move into Vichy France or Corsica, it will be a catastrophe for Italy. The key, Hitler believes, is what demands Laval will make on Hitler in return for an alliance against the Anglo-Americans...delivery of weapons, return of POWs, still held since 1940.

"Laval must take a clear stand tomorrow," Hitler fumes. "The French know anyway that Germany has decided to go to the limit." Hitler is determined: he will occupy Vichy, land troops in Corsica, and form a bridgehead in Tunisia. The Italians are also determined to land troops in Corsica. The island has long been coveted by Mussolini.

Studying his maps at the Fuhrerbau, Hitler realizes that an Allied conquest of North Africa can in turn lead to an invasion of Southern Europe, which could lose him Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, and France. "To give up Africa means to give up the Mediterranean," Hitler says. He later writes Mussolini that retreat "would mean not only the ruin of our revolutions, but also the ruin of our peoples' future." Tunisia will be the "cornerstone of our conduct of the war on the southern flank of Europe." He envisions massive offensives west to hurl the Americans out of French North Africa and east to drive the British across the Suez Canal.

While invasion rages in North Africa, U-boats range the North Atlantic, their efforts crippled by Adm. Karl Donitz's orders to head for the Mediterranean. However, Kaleu Horst Kessler's U-704 catches up with the westbound RMS Queen Elizabeth, and actually fires four torpedoes at her, claiming a hit. Actually, all four miss. Kessler reports by radio to Donitz's headquarters at Saint-Assise that he has damaged the Queen Elizabeth, and Saint-Assise thinks Kessler's damaged the battleship, not the liner. In any case, neither liner nor battleship is hit. However, Kessler's quarry carries one of the most important targets of the war: British mathematician Alan Turing.

The latter, having been eased out of his job as chief of the Enigma naval codebreakers - he's a fine mathematician but a lousy administrator - is headed to America to help develop a secure high-level phone connection between London and Washington. The scrambler line that Churchill and Roosevelt are using is not secure, and the Germans are deciphering it. Turing's other job will be to work with the staff at National Cash Register at their Dayton, Ohio, headquarters, NCR is developing new "bombes" to attack and decipher Germany's toughest code machine: the four-rotored naval Enigma.

The weather turns squally over Vice Adm. Matome Ugaki's cabin on the Japanese battleship Musashi, anchored at Truk. The carrier Junyo and a group of escorts sail to support Adm. Yamamoto's convoy, headed for Guadalcanal, upon which Japan's hopes to retain the island rest.

Ugaki meets with subordinates that day: first Rear Adm. Shintaro Hashimoto of 3rd Destroyer Division. The tincan sailor reports his men's morale is high. "I was glad to hear it," Ugaki writes. "Men with no complaints and without discontent are to be respected."

However, Col. Takushiro Hattori, the chief of the Operations Section of the Army General Staff, on his way back from Rabaul, is gloomier. He reports troop strength on Guadalcanal is down from 33 percent effectiveness to 25 percent.

Late in the day, Ugaki writes, "The Allied forces of the British and Americans entered French Algeria and Morocco. The French are still resisting but the outcome is quite clear. The French also severed diplomatic relations with the United States."

In Stalingrad, the temperature drops to -18 degrees Celsius. The real Soviet winter arrives at last. Soviet writer Vasily Grossman observes the Volga River starting to freeze. "The ice floes collide, crumble and grind against each other, and the swishing sound, like that of shifting sands, can be heard quite a distance from the bank."

While the eerie sound of crunching ice unnerves the troops, the spectacle of the Volga freezing up unnerves General Chuikov. Now he faces two enemies: the German 6th Army in front, and the Volga River behind. A partially frozen Volga is a nightmare for Chuikov's supply ferryboats, which come under increasing German fire. One Volga River steamer jammed with guns and ammunition takes a hit and starts sinking. Another boat comes up, and all hands start transferring men and munitions, amid heavy fire.

"The blunt, broad bows of the barges slowly crush the white beneath them, and behind them the black stretches of water are soon covered with a film of ice," Grossman writes.

Shortly after midnight, German combat groups, based on five 600-man battalions of assault pioneers, assemble in the battered machine shops of the Barrikady (Barricades) Factory to attack. The pioneers have seen city fighting before, at Voronezh and Rostov, and are well-equipped with satchel charges, flamethrowers, and automatic weapons.

The pioneers, loaded down with satchel charges, shovels, grenades, and bandoliers, shuffle off to their starting points, cocky and cheerful, smoking last-minute cigarettes. A group moves into one of the factory's rooms. There is a massive explosion, followed by screams. Sgt. Ernst Wohlfahrt, who has been pinned down in the Barrikady for weeks of stalemate, charges into the room. 18 pioneers lie dead. The rest are subdued and fearful.

At 3:30 a.m., German artillery opens fire, and the pioneers move to attack. The Russians blast back, but the pioneers attack anyway, across the open moonscape, amid gunfire. The pioneers have two objectives: strongpoints known as the Chemist's Shop and the Commissar's House. The latter is a brick building that dominates the rolling terrain. The Chemist's Shop falls quickly. But the Commissar's House is indeed a fortress, its openings sealed by debris. Tiny peepholes enable Russian defenders to shoot back. The Germans attack, and the Soviet defenders cut the Germans down with automatic fire, pinning the elite pioneers.

Further south, the 576th Regiment storms its way to the Volga, backed by pioneers. German troops hurl grenades at the Soviet bunkers, which bounce off their walls and into the Volga River. When the German pioneers in this attack take roll call at the end of the day, only one man is not wounded.

Despite the increasingly intense cold, the Germans continue small-scale attacks, while the Russians counterattack with small parties armed with PpsH M-1941 sub-machine guns, which will later be known to Americans as the "burp gun" for their sound.

German morale is low, and some "landsers." As the Germans call themselves, try to desert. One German soldier crossing the thin No-Man's Land to surrender is shot halfway across by a newly-arrived Russian. The German body lies between the lines for the rest of the day. That evening, a Russian patrol crawls out to find the body, but the Germans have got there first, to take his weapon and paybook.

The Soviet leadership reacts by spewing out Order No. 55, which orders Soviet troops to encourage Germans to desert by promising them good treatment through loudspeakers and pamphlet barrages.

Despite the continuing failures at Stalingrad, the German High Command believes that the Russians are near the end of their reserves. The Germans have some reason for this over-confidence: the Germans occupy land that holds 40 percent of the Soviet Union's population, and the Russians have suffered gigantic casualties.

In the Kremlin, Russian planning for the massive counterattack goes on. Zhukov, however, has bad news for Stalin: the launch of Operation Uranus must be postponed 10 days: to November 19th. The attacking divisions still have not received their full loads of fuel and ammunition. Zhukov won't attack without his supplies. Stalin is nervous. The longer Zhukov delays, the better the chances the Germans will get wind of Uranus and move reserves into position. But for once, Stalin listens to his generals.

The generals have other good news for him: a captured document from the 384th Infantry Division, which gives STAVKA its first peep into the state of 6th Army's morale.

The document is a message by 384th's CO, Gen. Baron Von Gablenz, to all of his commanders. "I am well aware of the state of the division," it says. "I know that it has no strength left. It is not surprise, and I shall make every effort to improve the division's state, but the fighting is cruel and it becomes crueler every day. It is impossible to change the situation. The lethargy of the majority of soldiers must be corrected by more active leadership. Commanders must be more severe. In my order of 3 September 1942, No. 187-42, I stipulated that those who desert their post would be court-martialed...I will act with all the severity that the law requires. Those who fall asleep at their posts in the front line must be punished with death. There should be no doubt about this. In the same category is disobedience...expressed in the following ways: lack of care of weapons, body, clothing, horses, and mechanized equipment." Gablenz tells his officers to warn their men: "they should count on staying in Russia for the whole of the winter." This is bad news for the Germans, but the Soviets are delighted.

Back in Germany, Adolf Hitler is still at the FuhrerBau, his Munich headquarters, buoyed by his lecture to the Alte Kampfer and Laval. However, Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl is there to return the Fuhrer to reality with the latest gloomy reports. Col. Reinhard Gehlen's "Foreign Armies East" intelligence team reports the Soviets are deploying heavy forces on both of 6th Army's flanks. The deployments indicate the Soviets plan a massive pincer operation to cut off the 6th Army.

Hitler glowers at the vast Ostfront maps and their chinagraph pencil markings. He taps at the Rumanian positions. "If only this front were held by German formations, I wouldn't lose a moment's sleep over it. But this is different. The 6th Army really must make an end of this business and take the remaining parts of Stalingrad quickly."

With the East Front done, Hitler moves back to the North African situation. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl bring Hitler the good news first: that the defending French ships at Oran and Casablanca put up an immense fight. The Fuhrer is happy, referring to "our French friends" and his earlier conversations with Laval. Then Keitel and Jodl bring the bad news: that the Anglo-Americans are moving ashore fast, and that General Henri Giraud is making pro-Allied broadcasts and flying to Algiers to command the French forces. Giraud has given a written promise to stay at home in Lyons and not take action against Germany. Hitler, who has violated treaties with regularity, is infuriated by this betrayal.

Hitler gives Jodl an angry denunciation of France and its "born traitors," and then ends the conference to meet with Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, in town to discuss the latest developments. Having berated Keitel and Jodl at length, Hitler uses Ciano as his next target, denouncing the "French traitors." Ciano puts up with the tirade, noting that Hitler is massing the Wehrmacht to invade France's unoccupied zone.

Then, back to the maps. Hitler correctly believes the Americans will attempt to attack Tunisia by land. Therefore, the Axis must move in swiftly. The French will only permit German troops, he says, so he has sent in two squadrons of Stukas and some small ground units. Nonetheless, Mussolini has put his forces on alert for a quick move into Tunisia.

At noon, Admiral Jean-Pierre Esteva, France's resident-general in Tunisia, phones Algiers to say that the Germans are flooding Tunis with airplanes and troops. "I now have a guardian," Esteva says cryptically. That means Esteva is Germany's hostage. However, the Germans haven't scooped up General George Barre, the French ground commander in Tunisia. He orders his troops to withdraw west, into the mountains, toward Algiers and the Allied forces.

The Nazis open up a new extermination camp just outside of Lublin, named Maidanek. The SS hauls in 4,000 Jews from Lublin, the first of several hundred thousand to face massacre. About half of the Lublin deportees go to the barracks. The other half go straight to brand-new gas chambers.

RAF Bomber Command sends 213 aircraft to attack Hamburg. 74 Wellingtons, 72 Lancasters, 48 Halifaxes, and 19 Stirlings make up the force. The split between Wellingtons and Lancasters shows how the new and deadly four-engine Lancaster bomber is beginning to show its strength.

The bombers run into cloud, icing, and winds, which were not in the weather forecast. The clouds prevent the attackers from identifying the port city. 150 crews report hitting Hamburg, 133 report hitting the Hamburg area and 17 claim to attack some part of the Third Reich.

The Germans report that most of the bombs fall in the Elbe or open country, but the bombers do cause 26 fires, three of them large ones. The bombs also kill three and injure 16. The RAF loses five Lancasters, four Stirlings, four Wellingtons, and two Halifaxes, 7 percent of the attack force. One bomber crashes in Hamburg's main cemetery, causing macabre forms of destruction. Ironically, the cemetery the bomber crashes into later gains a Commonwealth War Graves section for bomber crews who die all over Germany.