Ordered by Truscott to keep moving during the night, and without the help of their tanks, McCarley’s three companies trudged forward through the rainy darkness. Intending to link up with Dilley near the Casbah, they lost their way in the dark and ended up in a machine-gun ambush just south of Port Lyautey. The columns split up to avoid the trap, with the hapless McCarley and his staff getting themselves captured by a squad of Foreign Legionnaires. McCarley, however, managed to escape by dawn, reaching his men in time to capture Port Lyautey the next day.

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Meanwhile, another of McCarley’s companies was busy capturing a well-attended cafe near the airport while the last company, with only 60 or so men, retraced its steps and moved on the airport the next day.

Elsewhere on the night of November 9, a small boatload of determined sailors under the command of Lieutenant M.K. Starkweather moved its way silently up the mouth of the Sebou River toward a submerged boom. The boom was preventing the old destroyer Dallas from moving upriver to the airport, where it was to deposit 75 soldiers in an attempt to seize the area before the enemy knew what was happening. The airport was to have been taken on the first night ashore, and now, two days later, the situation had grown more serious. The officer chosen to command the boom-cutting party had not appeared at the scheduled rendezvous point, and so the young lieutenant had decided to proceed without him.

The men held their collective breath as they passed directly beneath the guns of the Casbah and reached the boom. There, they swiftly cut the cable, and a man was sent into the cold water to make sure there were no other obstacles beneath the surface. There were none, but as they hauled the diver aboard they were discovered, and bullets began to crack around them. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’ shouted Starkweather as the little boat turned tail and exited the Sebou. They had suffered numerous minor injuries, but Starkweather reported the mission was successful.

At 5:30 the next morning, Dallas began its miraculous run up the river. Loaded with 75 anxious soldiers, a riverboat pilot familiar with the river, and its skipper, Captain Robert J. Brodie, Dallas, a stripped-down ‘four-piper,’ reached the boom only to find it still moored in place by a set of anchored buoys. It was full daylight by that time, and French gunners had a ringside seat to the small drama unfolding in midriver. They opened up with everything they had, including artillery that flooded the decks with near misses and machine-gun fire that raked the destroyer’s superstructure. The boom had been cut too far to the north, where the water was too shallow for Dallas’ draft. Brodie ordered full steam ahead and rammed the boom at midriver. It parted, and as Dallas reached the first turn of the river she was obliged to return fire at some 75s on shore. She silenced them and, by accident, also destroyed an anti-tank gun that had been holding up the 1st Battalion’s tanks farther inland. After making the southerly bend in the river, Dallas encountered two ships that the French had scuttled in the river, but she maneuvered easily between them. With the 3rd Battalion’s Company I cheering her on from their position on shore, and with some air cover provided by fighters, Dallas began her final run to the airport. Suddenly, she ran aground on a hidden sandbar, but that was close enough for the soldiers, who by this time were eager to get ashore. Their exit was greeted by a rain of shells from a nearby 75mm gun, which was rapidly put out of action. One of the covering fighters dropped a depth charge on it, an innovation of Sub-Task Force Goalpost. By the time Dallas was out of danger, one of her officers could declare, ‘The hand of God was right around us.’

November 10 proved to be the climactic day of Operation Goalpost. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd battalions at last reached their assigned objectives and closed in to capture the airport. Earlier that morning, a wayward company of the 3rd Battalion reached some high ground overlooking the airport just in time to provide covering fire for the unit landed by Dallas, which was charging from the west, and the men of I Company supporting them from their position along the riverbank in the north. By 8 a.m. resistance had ended, and the airport was at last in American hands. By 10 a.m. Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighters from Chenango were using the airfield and fuel and supplies were being ferried up the river.

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