November 26, 2025 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in the early years of the war, the United States was preparing its soldiers and building an army that was not yet ready for a direct fight in Europe. Britain, still recovering from being pushed off the continent, knew it could not return to France without risking another disaster. Both nations wanted to stop Germany, yet neither could strike at its center. The opening they needed appeared in North Africa, a place that allowed them to enter the conflict on land while learning how to operate as partners.
Years later, the late historian Stephen Ambrose would trace how this moment taught both nations what cooperation in wartime actually looked like.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American Stories. Stephen Ambrose was
one of America's leading biographers and historians. Ambrose passed in
two thousand and two, but his epic storytelling accounts can
now be heard here at our American Stories, thanks to
those who run his estate. Our next story is about
the first Allied Command and history. Here's Stephen Ambrose with
(00:34):
the story.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
The first thing that stands out about nineteen forty two
is that although America was now fully into the war
on two fronts in the Pacific and in the Atlantic,
except in Gualcanal after August of nineteen forty two, no
American ground troops were in contact with the enemy until.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Almost the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The first attack that the Americans made on German forces
was done on the fourth of July, obviously only for
some Bali comportance, using British bombers.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And American crews to bomb French.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Targets, that is to say, ports in France that held
German submarines. Other than that, the United States wasn't was
a war with Germany, was helping to supply Russia in
the United Kingdom was committed to an all out war
against Germany, but wasn't making war against Germany. Where As
(01:32):
I said, we fighting the Japanese on the ground of
the naval forces and the air forces, of course were
very much involved at Carl c In at Midway and
tremendously big battles, but on the ground we weren't doing anything.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
So that's the first thing stands out. In the United
States basically was not a war.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
In nineteen forty two because we just didn't have an
army yet. That army had to be built, and of
course it took time. Took time to get the men
in the army to get him drafted, took time to
build berrigs for him, took time to train him, took
time to equip him, took time to get him over
to Europe, took time to add to their training there,
(02:09):
and so it was a very long time before the
United States was able to make it might felt in
the European theater, but from the beginning the American Joint
chiefs of Staff, led by General George C. Marshall, the
Chief of Staff the United States Army, had no doubt
that Europe was the theater. They expressed his view in
(02:31):
the first wartime meetings with the British which took place
in Canada in late December of nineteen forty one. In
early January of nineteen forty two in the Arcadia Conference,
where the two sides agreed to concentrate on defeating Germany first,
the most basic strategic decision of the war. It seems
(02:53):
to us an obvious choice today, but it wasn't quite
so obvious in late forty one. In the very beginning
of nineteen forty two. In the first place, for the
American people, the enemy they wanted to get at was
the Japanese, one of the Germans that had hit us
at Pearl.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
However, it was the Japanese.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
There was still a lot of Americans who felt, look
was fighting our war, he's fighting Stalin, leave him alone.
People who didn't want to be associated in a war
with the Soviet Union as a partner, And of course
in the Pacific we were unsullied.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
There were people also.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Who didn't want to be part of a war and
where the British Empire was our partner.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Again, in the Pacific it was more or less our
own war.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It was a lot easier to hate the Japanese than
it was to hate the Germans.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
So there were powerful psychological draws.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Toward making Japan the chief enemy, but the military situation
was such that the choice of who to concentrate on
in defeat first was really obvious, at least.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
After you've thought about it for a little while. Some
of the factories.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Roughly, the Pacific is two thousand miles wide, the Atlantic
is one thousand miles wide. That minute took two ships
in the Pacific to do what one could do in
the European theater, and shipping was always in short supply
until the very end of the war. You just couldn't
make your muscle felt in Japan as effectively as you
could in Europe. Also in the Pacific, we were generally
(04:25):
speaking fighting without allies. The Aussis were there, but most
of the Australian troops were in North Africa. The British
were there, but they were humbled and humiliated after the
fall of Malay and the fall of Singapore, and they
didn't have much of any force out of the pacif
It was our show.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
In Europe.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
We had two allies. We had the United Kingdom and
we had the Soviet Union. We had the Soviet Union
of sorbing the bulk of the German army and Britain
as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, and as a magnificent training
base and concentration point, or an offensive against the Germans.
(05:02):
Most of all, however, the argument for Germany first turned
on the simple and obvious fact that Germany was by
far the more dangerous of the two great enemies. If
the Germans were able to win on their eastern front,
if they were able to absorb Ukraine and Belarus into
(05:24):
their system, if they had all those natural resources available
to them, if they had all of Europe under their thumb,
it was quite possible that we could never be able
to enter the continent again. In other words, although we
could bring enough pressure to bear in the Japanese and
enough firepower to defeat Japan, we might well win the
(05:46):
war in the Pacific, but still lose the war in Europe,
and that would mean losing the war. So the basic decision,
we're going to concentrate on Germany first. The British were
nactually delighted at this decision because their life was at
stake and they absolutely had to defeat Hitler before anything
(06:07):
else could be done, and that the Americans were now
committing their potentially very great resources to the task.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Of defeating Hitler was music to britef fears.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
The decision to defeat Germany first brought with it a
question when and how, And at this point the Americans
and the British Churchill and Roosevelt and their respective military leaders,
who had been in complete agreement up til now, began
to split. While the Brits were very happy to have
the Americans coming over to Britain and coming into the
(06:45):
European War, they were not at all happy with the
way the United States wanted to fight the war. The
chief planner for the United States was a recently promoted
to one star General Dwight David Eisham, who is in
command of the Operations Division of the War Department for
General Marshall. Marshall put him to work on coming up
(07:07):
with a plan for the defeat of Germany. So we
got to get involved somewhere in Europe.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Now the problem there became.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
But that ran up against the British, who were by
no means ready to go back onto the continent.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
In November of nineteen forty two.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
They just got and kicked off the continent by the Vermacht.
In June of nineteen forty at Dunkirk, and they knew
that their army was by no means ready to go
fight the Wehrmacht again, and they couldn't believe for an
instant that the Americans were ready.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And they were absolutely right about the Americans.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
We didn't have the forces to go into an all
out battle with the Wehrmacht in France in nineteen forty two.
We didn't have the experienced commanders, we didn't have the
trained troops, and we didn't have the equipment.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
We didn't have the numbers. What we had a lot
of was potential.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So the British were in this position of saying, to
the United States, we welcome your decision to go for
Germany first, but we ain't radi to attack Germany this year,
and neither of you. Well, then what are you willing
to do? Was the obvious question from the Americans to
the British. And here Churchill and Alan Brook, his chief
of staff, had an answer. What we're willing to do
(08:25):
is to go into North Africa to attack French North Africa,
which included Morocco and Algeria. Now these were French colonies
in nineteen forty two, run by the government in Vici,
the collaborationist government of Marshall Peytan that governed the southern
(08:45):
half of France and then also the colonies of the
North African counties of Morocco and Algeria, where a French
army was stationed. What Churchill proposed, and the code name
for this operation was Torte. Churchill proposed an invasion in
Casablanca and Iran and Algiers, Morocco and Algeria in the
(09:06):
fall of nineteen forty two before the congressional elections, which
appealed to Roosevelt, and the idea of getting going with
something appealed to Roosevelt. And the idea was appealing also
because that would mean that in their first encounter in
the Second World War, American troops would not have to
fight against the battle hardened and marvelously equipped Wermont who
(09:31):
would be fighting the French colonial army.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
In Morocco and Algieros.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
And you're listening to the great Stephen Ambrose laid down
the world as it was in nineteen forty two. When
we come back more of Stephen Ambrose's street storytelling here
on our American stories, and we continue with our American
(10:11):
stories and with the great Stephen Ambrose, putting us back
in the time and place when America and Great Britain
were conspiring to at least do something together. And the
choice they made was an easy choice for them, and
the one where there would be the least resistance, and
that would be North Africa. Let's return with more of
Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Eisenhower and Marshall were strongly opposed to Park. They thought
that it made no sense whatsoever. If you've made a
decision we're going to fight Germany first and knock her
out of the war first to invade North Africa. Why
go eight or nine hundred miles from London to fight
(10:56):
in North Africa when the Germans were twenty miles away
in France across the channel. Beyond that, why fight the
French in North Africa when it's the Germans or your enemies.
When Roosevelt finally agreed with Churchill the Torch would be
(11:16):
the operation for nineteen forty two. That agreement was reached
by telegram between the two of them on the twenty
second day of July of nineteen forty two. Eisnaw wrote
in his diary, this could well go down as the
blackest day in history. He felt that a terrible, god
awful mistake was being made, the mistake of historic proportions.
(11:39):
One reason he felt that way was here we were.
We've been at war now for seven months, and we
were under planning our first offensive, and it was going
to be an offensive against the nation that was neutral
in the war and wasn't doing anything in the United States.
VC France was collaborating with the Germans, had no choice.
(12:00):
East Germany occupied Paris in northern France, but DJ France
was not a belligerent Peyton had not declared war in
the United States, and the French and North Africa weren't
threatening anybody. There's another aspect of this Operation Torch that
Americans don't comment on and don't recognize often.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Another is this was a sneak attack.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
The proposal was and in the event it turned out
that way that we attacked French in North Africa without
declaring war.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
And with no.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Cause of war, cause of belli as you say in Latin,
and not any different from what the Japanese did at
Pearl Harbor. Well, these Torch round up sledge hammer arguments
occupied the spring in the summer of nineteen forty two
finally came to an end when Roosevelt agreed on July
twenty second to mount Operation Torch and committed the United
(12:57):
States to its first offensive. Although the British would be
putting the majority of the forces into operation towards Church,
Will recognized it had to be an American commander of
the whole operation At Arcadia, they had agreed that whenever
joint offenses were undertaken there would be a supreme Allied
(13:21):
commander who would command the forces of all the participants Canadian,
British and American and Publish and whoever else was involved
in the operation.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
This was a case in which a valuable lesson from
history had been learned. They never the Allies never did that.
In the First World War.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
The British fought their own war in the Western Front,
the French fought their own war, the Russians fought their
own war in the Eastern Front. There never was a
coordinated command at the top until the final crisis of
the Ludendorf Offenses of nineteen eighteen, when Marshall Folks was
made Supreme Commander but was not in fact given the
powers to carry it out, and the British continued to
go their own way, realizing that this had been a
(14:00):
big mistake in the First World War. The first conference
between the British Americans in the Second World War started
off by a green we will have a unified command,
and in this case Churchill recognized that the Americans had
been dragged into this North African operation very much against
their wishers. That Marshall wanted to get after the Germans,
(14:22):
not after the French, that Marshall wanted to liberate France,
not Algeria, that Marshall wanted to go for the heart
of German power, not to hit the Germans on the
periphery of their empire, and that the Americans had to
be placated somehow, and one way to do it was
to give them supreme command of the operation, even though
there would be more British air, much more British Sea,
and more British troops involved in this triphibious operation. Roosevelt
(14:45):
then turned to Marshall to select the commander of the operation,
and Marshall picked the man who had impressed him most
in the first six.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Months of the war, and that was Dwight Eisenhower.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
So Eisenhower, who had fought as hard as he could
against Torch, ended up being the supreme Commander four Torns.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
In North Africa.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
As the Torch decision was being made, the.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Germans had another foothold.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
They had come down in nineteen forty and in much
greater strength in nineteen forty one to rescue the Italians,
whose colony in Libya had served as a base for
an attempt on the part of the Italians to invade Egypt,
which had been thrown back by the British. To save
their Italian partners, the Germans had sent the Africa Corps,
(15:32):
two armored divisions to North Africa, under the command of
a man whose name was soon to become synonymous with
German war making ability, General Irwin Rommel, who had moved
up from a reconnaissance Battalian commander in the Polish campaign
to a division commander in the French campaign, and on
to be a Corps commander in the campaign against the
(15:52):
Soviet Union. Italian was called out of the Soviet Union
and sent down to North Africa to take command of
the Africa Carp, which he did, and he formed it
into an outstanding morale, brilliantly led all lead outfit that
(16:13):
swept on into Egypt in nineteen forty two, and by
the time of the Torch decision had reached almost as
far as Caro had gotten to the line of El Alamine,
just short of Alexandria, threatening Egypt and thereby threatening the
Suez Canal and thus threatening to cut the British off
(16:34):
from their supply line to India up through the Suez Canal,
and leading to fears that the successful Germans in North
Africa would be able to then come up through Palestine
meet up with their Arab admirers, not allies, but their
(16:55):
admirers in Syria, which was a French colony that was
rife with discontent on the part of the Arabs who
very much admired Adolf him or because their anti Semitism
almost matched his, and that then these forces under Ramo
could swing on up through Syria and on through Turkey
(17:16):
to meet with Gadarion's forces coming down through the Caucasus,
and then this entire map would be.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
One great vast German empire in North Africa.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
The British had lost battle after battle, their army had
performed consistently poorly, inexcusably bad. A new commander came in
in the summer of forty two, Bernard Law Montgomery, sent
by Turchill to save the situation, if it could be saved.
(17:53):
Mani took up his command and prepared a counter stroke
against Ramo in the afric Corps. The Russians holding on
just barely at Stalingrad. Every day it looked like Stalingrad
would fall. And the fall of Stalingrad, had it happened,
would have cut the Red Army north of Stalingrad off
(18:14):
from the Caucasus oil supply, and to us probably would
have been the decisive blow of the war. So the
war was very much up in the air at the
time of the Torch decision. And when you say that,
you didn't have to go back to Marshalls and Eisenhower's
original objection, my god, everything is at stake here and
(18:36):
we're going to go fight the French in North Africa.
But that was the political decision, and they were good
soldiers and they did as they were ordered, and so
Torch was put on.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Under Eisenhower's leadership, he formed in.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
London then the Allied Forest Headquarters, the first genuinely fully
integrated Allied command in history.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose talking about Operation Torch.
When we come back more of Stephen Ambrose and the
story of World War Two and the first Allied command
in history. Here on our American stories, and we continue
(19:38):
with our American stories and with Stephen Ambrose telling the
story of the first Allied command in world history. Let's
continue with the story.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
A wonderful teamwork was developed at ATHQ. Yeah, there are
a lot of differences, obviously, the inner Service there. It's
very hard to get the army to get along with
the under any circumstance in any country at any point
in history.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Always hard. And now you had a third mix in
with the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
So you had the inner service rivalry to deal with,
and then the national rivalries. For all that Britain is
the mother country and we're the American cousins. The truth
of the matter is that most Brits don't like Americans,
and the other truth is that most Americans don't like Brits.
And there are good reasons on both sides for that feeling,
(20:30):
and these were exacerbated by the conditions of war. American
troops were starting to come into Britain, the twenty ninth
Division coming in first of all, and the American Air
Force coming in building barricks, building airfields, preparing for the
Great Bomber Offensive against Germany it would begin in nineteen
forty three. And all these Americans coming in by the thousands,
(20:54):
by the tens of thousands, ultimately two million of them
on an island about the size of Colorado, caused a
lot of tension. More attension was caused by some of
the differences between the British and the Yanks. I should say,
between the Gis and the Tommies. The Gis were paid
three times as much as the Tommies. They had much
better uniforms, they had better rations. They were billeted, usually
(21:17):
in villages, so they were living in a more or
less ordinary civilian kind of a setting, whereas the British
Army was in barracks. The American Gis could go to
the pub just down the street every night, have a
home cooked meal at a home.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
The British troops never had any of that.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
The American uniforms were a lot better looking, and the
Americans are getting a lot more passes to go to London.
And London in nineteen forty two was the capital of
the world, and all the.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
World was there.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Uniforms from twenty five different nations could be seen on
the streets of London, and there was a wartime atmosphere
of the life in London. If plays were going, the
bars were jammed, there was a blackout. You couldn't find anything,
I couldn't see no absolutely no lights on the street.
But you get through the blackout curtains and into the pub,
or into the theater, or into the dance hall. And
(22:08):
that sense of let's party tonight because tomorrow we don't know,
we could very well be dead just permeated everything in London.
It made it the most exciting place in the world
to be, especially if you were an eighteen nineteen twenty
year old GI with a smart looking uniform and a
wallet bulging with pounds. And so the Keii's got the
girls and the Tommies didn't, and that was very much resented.
(22:38):
To get at the Germans, we had to go through
the French. We didn't want to fight the French, and
so Eisenhower had to make a deal with one of
the French leaders, which won well. Peyton was obviously out
of the question, and to Gaul, although there were many
things to be said for him, he really didn't command
any forces.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
He had a ragtag of people that he had.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Gathered together in London, but he didn't have any divisions,
much less equipment for trained divisions. Whereas there was an
army in North Africa, a fairly considerable army. The equipment
wasn't the best in the world, but it was better
than the Italians had. They had a good discipline to it,
and it was thought that that army would obey General
(23:22):
ri Guau if he were brought out of France and
put in command of it. So Eisnower struck a deal
with Guau under the terms of which Eisenhower would put
Guau in command in North Africa. Gurou would tell the
French in North Africa to lay down their arms and
then pick them up again and become co belligerents with
the Americans after the Americans had taken control. The Americans
(23:43):
are very operating together, had taken control of Algeria and Morocco.
There were a lot of difficulties with Gureau. There's always
a lot of difficulties of friend generals, but that was
the basic deal that was struck. On eight November, the
attack began with George Patton mounting his assault on Morocco
(24:07):
from Norfolk, Virginia. They combat loaded in Norfolk and closed
and crossed the Atlantic. Guerau did his part. He issued
a proclamation of the French army in North Africa don't
fight the patent issued contradictory orders Peyton's orders coming from Vhi,
where we resist all aggressors. We're going to fight for
(24:29):
our own territory. Resist and the army you bade paytent,
not Heuro. All the supposition about how the army was
going to rally to Heuro failed to take note that
the senior officers in the French colonial army were all
dependent on paytent for their pensions, for their promotions, for
(24:52):
their positions, and they weren't about to buck him. The
enlisted men might have been ready to join up with
the Americans, but the officers sure weren't, and they ordered
their men to fire, and their men did fire, and
there were casualties. This was not one of the bloodier
battles of the Second World War, but nevertheless it was
frenchmen killing Americans and Americans killing Frenchmen, and that ought
(25:12):
not to happen.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
We've been friends since the days of Lafayette, but it was.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Happening, and Americans were not getting east fast enough. Eisenhower
hoped to get into Algiers very quickly and move right
on to Tunisia in order to come up on Ramel's
rear before Rammel would have a cans to build any
defensive positions in Tunisia. He was being held up in
North Africa by the French, by these fogs, as he
(25:43):
called them, who didn't know which way to jump, and
didn't know where their bread was buttered, and who were
more worried about their pensions than they were about the
honor of France. Well, that was his point of view. They,
of course, had their own point of view. In the
midst of this situation, here came Admiral Dahalon into Algiers,
where Eisenhearer came on the third day to set up
his headquarters after most of the city was secured but
(26:05):
the fighting was still going on.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Admiral Darlan, it was a pretty awful character.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
He was an anti Semite, he was a fascist, He
was a brutal man, but he was commander in chief
of the French armed forces. He spoke in the name
of Marshall Peytan, and if he could be persuaded to
double cross Paytan, he could get the French army to
do what Guireau had not been able to get him
(26:33):
to do, lay down their arms, so the Americans and
the British could get on with heading east to fight
the Germans. D'halan made an offer along these lines to Eisenheer.
Make me the governor general in North Africa, and I'll
tell the army to lay down its arms and I'll
tell the Navy to come into the war on your side.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Eisenhearer cut the.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Deal, and he learned his first big plant lesson in
the aftermath, because people screamed about this, how can you
deal with this fascist son of a book.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I mean, the guy's practically a Nazi. What the hell
is going on? Edward R.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Murrow asked in his broadcast from London. We thought we
were in this war to fight for freedom and democracy.
And the first time the Americans going to action in
the war, they cut a deal with the fascist son
of a book and put him in command in North Africa.
And people were saying.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
He's that. Ike must be dumb to make a deal
like this with.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
This man who represents everything where you say we're fighting
against in this war. I'm our's point of view on
all this was, I just want to get the French
army to lay down their arms, and if he's the
man who can do it, I'd kiss the devils as
if I had to to get the French who lay
down their arms so that I can get.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Out and fight the Germans.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And so the liberal newspapers and the liberal politicians, the
ones who had elected Roosevelt were coming after Roosevelt hard
get rid of this general dump them. Roosevelt was very
tempted he could wash his hands of the whole thing.
Eisnewer had no constituency that if it were not up
(28:21):
at because Churchill was very eager to back out of
it too. Churchill's people wanted to know, why didn't we
support the gall Why did they bring this fool as
you roll into it in this situation, Eisenewer felt, Darlan's
the man who can deliver the goods. Let's keep our
eyes on the main thing, and that is getting after
(28:42):
the Germans. You've got to uphold me on the Darlon deal.
And very reluctantly Churchill and Roosevelt were persuaded by Eisenharer's
arguments to give him a little bit more time to
prove that he could get something done in North Africa
and the Darln's collaboration.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
It would be important to this.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
This whole problem of the Darlin Deal so called, was
to have an enormous impact on politics, war politics, and
war policy because it led directly to Franklin Roosevelt's call.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
For an unconditional surrender of the German.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And a great job is always by Greg Hangler on
the storytelling, and a special thanks to the folks who
run the estate of the great Stephen Ambrose, who tells
the story of American history like few others that have
ever written about this country. He's in a league of
his own with a few other legends and greats, and
we're so honored and grateful to be able to share
(29:40):
his stories with all of you. Stephen Ambrose telling the
story of the first Allied command in history. Here on
our American Stories
And we continue with our American Stories. Stephen Ambrose was
one of America's leading biographers and historians. Ambrose passed in
two thousand and two, but his epic storytelling accounts can
now be heard here at our American Stories, thanks to
those who run his estate. Our next story is about
the first Allied Command and history. Here's Stephen Ambrose with
(00:34):
the story.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
The first thing that stands out about nineteen forty two
is that although America was now fully into the war
on two fronts in the Pacific and in the Atlantic,
except in Gualcanal after August of nineteen forty two, no
American ground troops were in contact with the enemy until.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Almost the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The first attack that the Americans made on German forces
was done on the fourth of July, obviously only for
some Bali comportance, using British bombers.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And American crews to bomb French.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Targets, that is to say, ports in France that held
German submarines. Other than that, the United States wasn't was
a war with Germany, was helping to supply Russia in
the United Kingdom was committed to an all out war
against Germany, but wasn't making war against Germany. Where As
(01:32):
I said, we fighting the Japanese on the ground of
the naval forces and the air forces, of course were
very much involved at Carl c In at Midway and
tremendously big battles, but on the ground we weren't doing anything.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
So that's the first thing stands out. In the United
States basically was not a war.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
In nineteen forty two because we just didn't have an
army yet. That army had to be built, and of
course it took time. Took time to get the men
in the army to get him drafted, took time to
build berrigs for him, took time to train him, took
time to equip him, took time to get him over
to Europe, took time to add to their training there,
(02:09):
and so it was a very long time before the
United States was able to make it might felt in
the European theater, but from the beginning the American Joint
chiefs of Staff, led by General George C. Marshall, the
Chief of Staff the United States Army, had no doubt
that Europe was the theater. They expressed his view in
(02:31):
the first wartime meetings with the British which took place
in Canada in late December of nineteen forty one. In
early January of nineteen forty two in the Arcadia Conference,
where the two sides agreed to concentrate on defeating Germany first,
the most basic strategic decision of the war. It seems
(02:53):
to us an obvious choice today, but it wasn't quite
so obvious in late forty one. In the very beginning
of nineteen forty two. In the first place, for the
American people, the enemy they wanted to get at was
the Japanese, one of the Germans that had hit us
at Pearl.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
However, it was the Japanese.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
There was still a lot of Americans who felt, look
was fighting our war, he's fighting Stalin, leave him alone.
People who didn't want to be associated in a war
with the Soviet Union as a partner, And of course
in the Pacific we were unsullied.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
There were people also.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Who didn't want to be part of a war and
where the British Empire was our partner.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Again, in the Pacific it was more or less our
own war.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It was a lot easier to hate the Japanese than
it was to hate the Germans.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
So there were powerful psychological draws.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Toward making Japan the chief enemy, but the military situation
was such that the choice of who to concentrate on
in defeat first was really obvious, at least.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
After you've thought about it for a little while. Some
of the factories.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Roughly, the Pacific is two thousand miles wide, the Atlantic
is one thousand miles wide. That minute took two ships
in the Pacific to do what one could do in
the European theater, and shipping was always in short supply
until the very end of the war. You just couldn't
make your muscle felt in Japan as effectively as you
could in Europe. Also in the Pacific, we were generally
(04:25):
speaking fighting without allies. The Aussis were there, but most
of the Australian troops were in North Africa. The British
were there, but they were humbled and humiliated after the
fall of Malay and the fall of Singapore, and they
didn't have much of any force out of the pacif
It was our show.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
In Europe.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
We had two allies. We had the United Kingdom and
we had the Soviet Union. We had the Soviet Union
of sorbing the bulk of the German army and Britain
as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, and as a magnificent training
base and concentration point, or an offensive against the Germans.
(05:02):
Most of all, however, the argument for Germany first turned
on the simple and obvious fact that Germany was by
far the more dangerous of the two great enemies. If
the Germans were able to win on their eastern front,
if they were able to absorb Ukraine and Belarus into
(05:24):
their system, if they had all those natural resources available
to them, if they had all of Europe under their thumb,
it was quite possible that we could never be able
to enter the continent again. In other words, although we
could bring enough pressure to bear in the Japanese and
enough firepower to defeat Japan, we might well win the
(05:46):
war in the Pacific, but still lose the war in Europe,
and that would mean losing the war. So the basic decision,
we're going to concentrate on Germany first. The British were
nactually delighted at this decision because their life was at
stake and they absolutely had to defeat Hitler before anything
(06:07):
else could be done, and that the Americans were now
committing their potentially very great resources to the task.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Of defeating Hitler was music to britef fears.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
The decision to defeat Germany first brought with it a
question when and how, And at this point the Americans
and the British Churchill and Roosevelt and their respective military leaders,
who had been in complete agreement up til now, began
to split. While the Brits were very happy to have
the Americans coming over to Britain and coming into the
(06:45):
European War, they were not at all happy with the
way the United States wanted to fight the war. The
chief planner for the United States was a recently promoted
to one star General Dwight David Eisham, who is in
command of the Operations Division of the War Department for
General Marshall. Marshall put him to work on coming up
(07:07):
with a plan for the defeat of Germany. So we
got to get involved somewhere in Europe.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Now the problem there became.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
But that ran up against the British, who were by
no means ready to go back onto the continent.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
In November of nineteen forty two.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
They just got and kicked off the continent by the Vermacht.
In June of nineteen forty at Dunkirk, and they knew
that their army was by no means ready to go
fight the Wehrmacht again, and they couldn't believe for an
instant that the Americans were ready.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And they were absolutely right about the Americans.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
We didn't have the forces to go into an all
out battle with the Wehrmacht in France in nineteen forty two.
We didn't have the experienced commanders, we didn't have the
trained troops, and we didn't have the equipment.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
We didn't have the numbers. What we had a lot
of was potential.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So the British were in this position of saying, to
the United States, we welcome your decision to go for
Germany first, but we ain't radi to attack Germany this year,
and neither of you. Well, then what are you willing
to do? Was the obvious question from the Americans to
the British. And here Churchill and Alan Brook, his chief
of staff, had an answer. What we're willing to do
(08:25):
is to go into North Africa to attack French North Africa,
which included Morocco and Algeria. Now these were French colonies
in nineteen forty two, run by the government in Vici,
the collaborationist government of Marshall Peytan that governed the southern
(08:45):
half of France and then also the colonies of the
North African counties of Morocco and Algeria, where a French
army was stationed. What Churchill proposed, and the code name
for this operation was Torte. Churchill proposed an invasion in
Casablanca and Iran and Algiers, Morocco and Algeria in the
(09:06):
fall of nineteen forty two before the congressional elections, which
appealed to Roosevelt, and the idea of getting going with
something appealed to Roosevelt. And the idea was appealing also
because that would mean that in their first encounter in
the Second World War, American troops would not have to
fight against the battle hardened and marvelously equipped Wermont who
(09:31):
would be fighting the French colonial army.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
In Morocco and Algieros.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
And you're listening to the great Stephen Ambrose laid down
the world as it was in nineteen forty two. When
we come back more of Stephen Ambrose's street storytelling here
on our American stories, and we continue with our American
(10:11):
stories and with the great Stephen Ambrose, putting us back
in the time and place when America and Great Britain
were conspiring to at least do something together. And the
choice they made was an easy choice for them, and
the one where there would be the least resistance, and
that would be North Africa. Let's return with more of
Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Eisenhower and Marshall were strongly opposed to Park. They thought
that it made no sense whatsoever. If you've made a
decision we're going to fight Germany first and knock her
out of the war first to invade North Africa. Why
go eight or nine hundred miles from London to fight
(10:56):
in North Africa when the Germans were twenty miles away
in France across the channel. Beyond that, why fight the
French in North Africa when it's the Germans or your enemies.
When Roosevelt finally agreed with Churchill the Torch would be
(11:16):
the operation for nineteen forty two. That agreement was reached
by telegram between the two of them on the twenty
second day of July of nineteen forty two. Eisnaw wrote
in his diary, this could well go down as the
blackest day in history. He felt that a terrible, god
awful mistake was being made, the mistake of historic proportions.
(11:39):
One reason he felt that way was here we were.
We've been at war now for seven months, and we
were under planning our first offensive, and it was going
to be an offensive against the nation that was neutral
in the war and wasn't doing anything in the United States.
VC France was collaborating with the Germans, had no choice.
(12:00):
East Germany occupied Paris in northern France, but DJ France
was not a belligerent Peyton had not declared war in
the United States, and the French and North Africa weren't
threatening anybody. There's another aspect of this Operation Torch that
Americans don't comment on and don't recognize often.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Another is this was a sneak attack.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
The proposal was and in the event it turned out
that way that we attacked French in North Africa without
declaring war.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
And with no.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Cause of war, cause of belli as you say in Latin,
and not any different from what the Japanese did at
Pearl Harbor. Well, these Torch round up sledge hammer arguments
occupied the spring in the summer of nineteen forty two
finally came to an end when Roosevelt agreed on July
twenty second to mount Operation Torch and committed the United
(12:57):
States to its first offensive. Although the British would be
putting the majority of the forces into operation towards Church,
Will recognized it had to be an American commander of
the whole operation At Arcadia, they had agreed that whenever
joint offenses were undertaken there would be a supreme Allied
(13:21):
commander who would command the forces of all the participants Canadian,
British and American and Publish and whoever else was involved
in the operation.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
This was a case in which a valuable lesson from
history had been learned. They never the Allies never did that.
In the First World War.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
The British fought their own war in the Western Front,
the French fought their own war, the Russians fought their
own war in the Eastern Front. There never was a
coordinated command at the top until the final crisis of
the Ludendorf Offenses of nineteen eighteen, when Marshall Folks was
made Supreme Commander but was not in fact given the
powers to carry it out, and the British continued to
go their own way, realizing that this had been a
(14:00):
big mistake in the First World War. The first conference
between the British Americans in the Second World War started
off by a green we will have a unified command,
and in this case Churchill recognized that the Americans had
been dragged into this North African operation very much against
their wishers. That Marshall wanted to get after the Germans,
(14:22):
not after the French, that Marshall wanted to liberate France,
not Algeria, that Marshall wanted to go for the heart
of German power, not to hit the Germans on the
periphery of their empire, and that the Americans had to
be placated somehow, and one way to do it was
to give them supreme command of the operation, even though
there would be more British air, much more British Sea,
and more British troops involved in this triphibious operation. Roosevelt
(14:45):
then turned to Marshall to select the commander of the operation,
and Marshall picked the man who had impressed him most
in the first six.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Months of the war, and that was Dwight Eisenhower.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
So Eisenhower, who had fought as hard as he could
against Torch, ended up being the supreme Commander four Torns.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
In North Africa.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
As the Torch decision was being made, the.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Germans had another foothold.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
They had come down in nineteen forty and in much
greater strength in nineteen forty one to rescue the Italians,
whose colony in Libya had served as a base for
an attempt on the part of the Italians to invade Egypt,
which had been thrown back by the British. To save
their Italian partners, the Germans had sent the Africa Corps,
(15:32):
two armored divisions to North Africa, under the command of
a man whose name was soon to become synonymous with
German war making ability, General Irwin Rommel, who had moved
up from a reconnaissance Battalian commander in the Polish campaign
to a division commander in the French campaign, and on
to be a Corps commander in the campaign against the
(15:52):
Soviet Union. Italian was called out of the Soviet Union
and sent down to North Africa to take command of
the Africa Carp, which he did, and he formed it
into an outstanding morale, brilliantly led all lead outfit that
(16:13):
swept on into Egypt in nineteen forty two, and by
the time of the Torch decision had reached almost as
far as Caro had gotten to the line of El Alamine,
just short of Alexandria, threatening Egypt and thereby threatening the
Suez Canal and thus threatening to cut the British off
(16:34):
from their supply line to India up through the Suez Canal,
and leading to fears that the successful Germans in North
Africa would be able to then come up through Palestine
meet up with their Arab admirers, not allies, but their
(16:55):
admirers in Syria, which was a French colony that was
rife with discontent on the part of the Arabs who
very much admired Adolf him or because their anti Semitism
almost matched his, and that then these forces under Ramo
could swing on up through Syria and on through Turkey
(17:16):
to meet with Gadarion's forces coming down through the Caucasus,
and then this entire map would be.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
One great vast German empire in North Africa.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
The British had lost battle after battle, their army had
performed consistently poorly, inexcusably bad. A new commander came in
in the summer of forty two, Bernard Law Montgomery, sent
by Turchill to save the situation, if it could be saved.
(17:53):
Mani took up his command and prepared a counter stroke
against Ramo in the afric Corps. The Russians holding on
just barely at Stalingrad. Every day it looked like Stalingrad
would fall. And the fall of Stalingrad, had it happened,
would have cut the Red Army north of Stalingrad off
(18:14):
from the Caucasus oil supply, and to us probably would
have been the decisive blow of the war. So the
war was very much up in the air at the
time of the Torch decision. And when you say that,
you didn't have to go back to Marshalls and Eisenhower's
original objection, my god, everything is at stake here and
(18:36):
we're going to go fight the French in North Africa.
But that was the political decision, and they were good
soldiers and they did as they were ordered, and so
Torch was put on.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Under Eisenhower's leadership, he formed in.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
London then the Allied Forest Headquarters, the first genuinely fully
integrated Allied command in history.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose talking about Operation Torch.
When we come back more of Stephen Ambrose and the
story of World War Two and the first Allied command
in history. Here on our American stories, and we continue
(19:38):
with our American stories and with Stephen Ambrose telling the
story of the first Allied command in world history. Let's
continue with the story.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
A wonderful teamwork was developed at ATHQ. Yeah, there are
a lot of differences, obviously, the inner Service there. It's
very hard to get the army to get along with
the under any circumstance in any country at any point
in history.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Always hard. And now you had a third mix in
with the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
So you had the inner service rivalry to deal with,
and then the national rivalries. For all that Britain is
the mother country and we're the American cousins. The truth
of the matter is that most Brits don't like Americans,
and the other truth is that most Americans don't like Brits.
And there are good reasons on both sides for that feeling,
(20:30):
and these were exacerbated by the conditions of war. American
troops were starting to come into Britain, the twenty ninth
Division coming in first of all, and the American Air
Force coming in building barricks, building airfields, preparing for the
Great Bomber Offensive against Germany it would begin in nineteen
forty three. And all these Americans coming in by the thousands,
(20:54):
by the tens of thousands, ultimately two million of them
on an island about the size of Colorado, caused a
lot of tension. More attension was caused by some of
the differences between the British and the Yanks. I should say,
between the Gis and the Tommies. The Gis were paid
three times as much as the Tommies. They had much
better uniforms, they had better rations. They were billeted, usually
(21:17):
in villages, so they were living in a more or
less ordinary civilian kind of a setting, whereas the British
Army was in barracks. The American Gis could go to
the pub just down the street every night, have a
home cooked meal at a home.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
The British troops never had any of that.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
The American uniforms were a lot better looking, and the
Americans are getting a lot more passes to go to London.
And London in nineteen forty two was the capital of
the world, and all the.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
World was there.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Uniforms from twenty five different nations could be seen on
the streets of London, and there was a wartime atmosphere
of the life in London. If plays were going, the
bars were jammed, there was a blackout. You couldn't find anything,
I couldn't see no absolutely no lights on the street.
But you get through the blackout curtains and into the pub,
or into the theater, or into the dance hall. And
(22:08):
that sense of let's party tonight because tomorrow we don't know,
we could very well be dead just permeated everything in London.
It made it the most exciting place in the world
to be, especially if you were an eighteen nineteen twenty
year old GI with a smart looking uniform and a
wallet bulging with pounds. And so the Keii's got the
girls and the Tommies didn't, and that was very much resented.
(22:38):
To get at the Germans, we had to go through
the French. We didn't want to fight the French, and
so Eisenhower had to make a deal with one of
the French leaders, which won well. Peyton was obviously out
of the question, and to Gaul, although there were many
things to be said for him, he really didn't command
any forces.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
He had a ragtag of people that he had.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Gathered together in London, but he didn't have any divisions,
much less equipment for trained divisions. Whereas there was an
army in North Africa, a fairly considerable army. The equipment
wasn't the best in the world, but it was better
than the Italians had. They had a good discipline to it,
and it was thought that that army would obey General
(23:22):
ri Guau if he were brought out of France and
put in command of it. So Eisnower struck a deal
with Guau under the terms of which Eisenhower would put
Guau in command in North Africa. Gurou would tell the
French in North Africa to lay down their arms and
then pick them up again and become co belligerents with
the Americans after the Americans had taken control. The Americans
(23:43):
are very operating together, had taken control of Algeria and Morocco.
There were a lot of difficulties with Gureau. There's always
a lot of difficulties of friend generals, but that was
the basic deal that was struck. On eight November, the
attack began with George Patton mounting his assault on Morocco
(24:07):
from Norfolk, Virginia. They combat loaded in Norfolk and closed
and crossed the Atlantic. Guerau did his part. He issued
a proclamation of the French army in North Africa don't
fight the patent issued contradictory orders Peyton's orders coming from Vhi,
where we resist all aggressors. We're going to fight for
(24:29):
our own territory. Resist and the army you bade paytent,
not Heuro. All the supposition about how the army was
going to rally to Heuro failed to take note that
the senior officers in the French colonial army were all
dependent on paytent for their pensions, for their promotions, for
(24:52):
their positions, and they weren't about to buck him. The
enlisted men might have been ready to join up with
the Americans, but the officers sure weren't, and they ordered
their men to fire, and their men did fire, and
there were casualties. This was not one of the bloodier
battles of the Second World War, but nevertheless it was
frenchmen killing Americans and Americans killing Frenchmen, and that ought
(25:12):
not to happen.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
We've been friends since the days of Lafayette, but it was.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Happening, and Americans were not getting east fast enough. Eisenhower
hoped to get into Algiers very quickly and move right
on to Tunisia in order to come up on Ramel's
rear before Rammel would have a cans to build any
defensive positions in Tunisia. He was being held up in
North Africa by the French, by these fogs, as he
(25:43):
called them, who didn't know which way to jump, and
didn't know where their bread was buttered, and who were
more worried about their pensions than they were about the
honor of France. Well, that was his point of view. They,
of course, had their own point of view. In the
midst of this situation, here came Admiral Dahalon into Algiers,
where Eisenhearer came on the third day to set up
his headquarters after most of the city was secured but
(26:05):
the fighting was still going on.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Admiral Darlan, it was a pretty awful character.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
He was an anti Semite, he was a fascist, He
was a brutal man, but he was commander in chief
of the French armed forces. He spoke in the name
of Marshall Peytan, and if he could be persuaded to
double cross Paytan, he could get the French army to
do what Guireau had not been able to get him
(26:33):
to do, lay down their arms, so the Americans and
the British could get on with heading east to fight
the Germans. D'halan made an offer along these lines to Eisenheer.
Make me the governor general in North Africa, and I'll
tell the army to lay down its arms and I'll
tell the Navy to come into the war on your side.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Eisenhearer cut the.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Deal, and he learned his first big plant lesson in
the aftermath, because people screamed about this, how can you
deal with this fascist son of a book.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I mean, the guy's practically a Nazi. What the hell
is going on? Edward R.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Murrow asked in his broadcast from London. We thought we
were in this war to fight for freedom and democracy.
And the first time the Americans going to action in
the war, they cut a deal with the fascist son
of a book and put him in command in North Africa.
And people were saying.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
He's that. Ike must be dumb to make a deal
like this with.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
This man who represents everything where you say we're fighting
against in this war. I'm our's point of view on
all this was, I just want to get the French
army to lay down their arms, and if he's the
man who can do it, I'd kiss the devils as
if I had to to get the French who lay
down their arms so that I can get.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Out and fight the Germans.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And so the liberal newspapers and the liberal politicians, the
ones who had elected Roosevelt were coming after Roosevelt hard
get rid of this general dump them. Roosevelt was very
tempted he could wash his hands of the whole thing.
Eisnewer had no constituency that if it were not up
(28:21):
at because Churchill was very eager to back out of
it too. Churchill's people wanted to know, why didn't we
support the gall Why did they bring this fool as
you roll into it in this situation, Eisenewer felt, Darlan's
the man who can deliver the goods. Let's keep our
eyes on the main thing, and that is getting after
(28:42):
the Germans. You've got to uphold me on the Darlon deal.
And very reluctantly Churchill and Roosevelt were persuaded by Eisenharer's
arguments to give him a little bit more time to
prove that he could get something done in North Africa
and the Darln's collaboration.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
It would be important to this.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
This whole problem of the Darlin Deal so called, was
to have an enormous impact on politics, war politics, and
war policy because it led directly to Franklin Roosevelt's call.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
For an unconditional surrender of the German.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And a great job is always by Greg Hangler on
the storytelling, and a special thanks to the folks who
run the estate of the great Stephen Ambrose, who tells
the story of American history like few others that have
ever written about this country. He's in a league of
his own with a few other legends and greats, and
we're so honored and grateful to be able to share
(29:40):
his stories with all of you. Stephen Ambrose telling the
story of the first Allied command in history. Here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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