[1] Allied military planners anticipated an all-American force assigned to seize the Atlantic port city of Casablanca might be greeted as liberators.

French defenders interpreted the first contacts as a diversionary raid for a major landing in Algeria; and Germany regarded the surrender of six Moroccan divisions to a small commando raiding force as a clear violation of French obligations to defend Moroccan neutrality under the Armistice of 22 June 1940 at Compiègne.

[2] The last stages of the battle consisted of operations by German U-boats which had reached the area the same day the French troops surrendered.

[note 1] An escalating series of surprised responses in an atmosphere of mistrust and secrecy caused the loss of four U.S. troopships and the deaths of 462 men aboard 24 French ships opposing the invasion.

General Charles de Gaulle led French forces opposed to the surrender and to the Vichy government, continuing the war on the side of the UK and the Allies.

Military planning for Operation Torch in 1942 emphasized American troops in the initial landing forces on the basis of intelligence estimates they would be less vigorously opposed than British soldiers.

[9] The resulting Task Force 34 (TF 34) included 102 ships for the invasion of Morocco under the command of Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt aboard the flagship heavy cruiser USS Augusta.

As TF 34 sailed, the British submarine HMS Seraph landed Major General Mark W. Clark near Algiers to meet with pro-American French military officers stationed in Algeria.

One light cruiser, two flotilla leaders, seven destroyers (two already damaged by collision), eight sloops, 11 minesweepers, and 11 submarines were in port on the morning of 8 November.

Information subsequently conveyed in pre-invasion contact with army personnel stationed in Morocco was interpreted as a request for recommendations.

No pre-invasion contact has been documented with Vice Admiral Michelier, who commanded naval forces responsible for the defense of Casablanca.

Admiral Michelier was not yet in the confidence of North African officers in contact with the Americans, since he had been a member of the Armistice Commission until assuming his Casablanca post less than a month before the invasion.

[19] Center group troopships USS William P. Biddle, Leonard Wood,[note 3] Joseph T. Dickman,[note 3] Tasker H. Bliss, Hugh L. Scott, Joseph Hewes, Edward Rutledge, Charles Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Ancon, Elizabeth C. Stanton, Thurston, Arcturus, Procyon, and Oberon[17] anchored 8 mi (7.0 nmi; 13 km) off Fedala at midnight.

[note 4] Ten civilian freighters and liners were sunk[25] and French submarines Amphitrite, Oréade, and La Psyché were destroyed at their moorings before they could get underway.

[23][31] Surviving French submarines Sidi Ferruch and Le Conquérant sortied without torpedoes to avoid destruction in the harbor.

[34] Dawn found the Fedala landing beaches lashed by 6-foot (1.8 m) waves which greatly impeded unloading the invasion troopships.

The advance toward Casablanca halted because shore parties lacked mechanized equipment to move supplies off the landing beach.

[35] The French sloops Commandant Delage and La Gracieuse sortied at 10:00 to open fire on American troops advancing from Fedala to the outskirts of Casablanca.

[36] The cruiser Augusta and destroyers Edison and Tillman chased the minesweepers back into Casablanca harbor before being forced to retreat by gunfire from Jean Bart.

[38] French submarines Le Tonnant, Meduse and Antiope launched unsuccessful torpedo salvos at Ranger, Massachusetts and Tuscaloosa, respectively.

[43] One of Massachusetts′s 16-inch (406 mm) shells fired at the Jean-Bart, after an unexpected rebound on her berth, caused the partial collapse of the house adjoining the Ettedgui Synagogue.