The Battle of Casablanca: The Day the US Navy Went to War With France
Bold History
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On 8 November 1942, the United States Navy opened fire on the navy of America's oldest ally. Off Casablanca, the brand-new battleship USS Massachusetts fought the Jean Bart: an unfinished French battleship with a single working turret, smuggled out of Saint-Nazaire in June 1940 just hours ahead of the Germans. For four days French destroyers, cruisers, submarines and coastal batteries fought the Western Naval Task Force. And when the cease-fire finally came, German U-boats arrived off Fedala.
This is the naval battle of Operation Torch: the half-built battleship, the turret that jammed and came back to life, the dash of the French destroyers for the transports, the Primauguet's last sortie, the armistice, and the wolves that came after it.
0:00 The ship with one turret
0:45 Half a Battleship
4:01 The Oldest Ally
6:50 The Night of the Swell
10:12 Play Ball
14:52 The Dash for the Transports
18:05 Primauguet
20:53 A Dead Ship
23:29 Come a Little Closer
27:13 Armistice Day
30:28 The Wolves off Fedala
33:53 The Last Battleship
Sources:
Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. II: Operations in North African Waters (1947)
Office of Naval Intelligence, Combat Narrative: The Landings in North Africa, November 1942 (1944)
H. Kent Hewitt, The Memoirs of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, ed. Evelyn M. Cherpak (Naval War College Press, 2004)
George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West (US Army in World War II, 1957)
Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn (2002)
John Jordan and Robert Dumas, French Battleships 1922-1956 (2009)
uboat.net (U-173, U-130); NavWeaps
Photographs: US Navy / Naval History and Heritage Command, US National Archives, Wikimedia Commons
Film: Tunisian Victory (1944), United News newsreels, US Navy film
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The Battle of Casablanca: The Day the US Navy Went to War With France
Bold History
5,799 views
On 8 November 1942, the United States Navy opened fire on the navy of America's oldest ally. Off Casablanca, the brand-new battleship USS Massachusetts fought the Jean Bart: an unfinished French battleship with a single working turret, smuggled out of Saint-Nazaire in June 1940 just hours ahead of the Germans. For four days French destroyers, cruisers, submarines and coastal batteries fought the Western Naval Task Force. And when the cease-fire finally came, German U-boats arrived off Fedala.
This is the naval battle of Operation Torch: the half-built battleship, the turret that jammed and came back to life, the dash of the French destroyers for the transports, the Primauguet's last sortie, the armistice, and the wolves that came after it.
0:00 The ship with one turret
0:45 Half a Battleship
4:01 The Oldest Ally
6:50 The Night of the Swell
10:12 Play Ball
14:52 The Dash for the Transports
18:05 Primauguet
20:53 A Dead Ship
23:29 Come a Little Closer
27:13 Armistice Day
30:28 The Wolves off Fedala
33:53 The Last Battleship
Sources:
Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. II: Operations in North African Waters (1947)
Office of Naval Intelligence, Combat Narrative: The Landings in North Africa, November 1942 (1944)
H. Kent Hewitt, The Memoirs of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, ed. Evelyn M. Cherpak (Naval War College Press, 2004)
George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West (US Army in World War II, 1957)
Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn (2002)
John Jordan and Robert Dumas, French Battleships 1922-1956 (2009)
uboat.net (U-173, U-130); NavWeaps
Photographs: US Navy / Naval History and Heritage Command, US National Archives, Wikimedia Commons
Film: Tunisian Victory (1944), United News newsreels, US Navy film