Operation Torch: Sub-Task Force Goalpost Capture Port Lyautey

 | World War II  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

In the meantime, Companies K and M of Toffey’s 3rd Battalion were still in position on the northern end of the Port Lyautey bridge. Things had not changed until Toffey had his forward artillery observer call in fire from the 60th Field Artillery, still located atop Hill 74. Coupled with rounds from the distant battleship Texas and the destroyers Eberle and Kearney they destroyed enemy batteries along the Rabat­Tangier highway northeast of the city. After that, the French promptly blew out three spans of the bridge, which proved useless in saving the town from invasion as McCarley and part of his 3rd Battalion, supported by tanks, entered from the south and captured it. By noon, both the airport and the city were in American hands and French units were surrendering everywhere. The Casbah, however, still held.

In the early morning darkness, Dilley’s 2nd Battalion had begun advancing once more toward the Casbah, backed by self-propelled assault guns. The French retreated back to the old fort. By midmorning, the enemy trenches and machine-gun positions were occupied by the Go-Devils, but sporadic sniper fire still managed to make life treacherous around the fort.

Back on the beach, Truscott organized a force of cooks, mechanics and clerks so inexperienced that he had to take a few minutes to show them the proper way to fire their weapons before sending them out to clear the area between the beach and the Casbah of the pesky snipers. After ordering Colonel Fredrick J. de Rohan, commander of the 60th Regimental Combat Team, to take personal command of the assault on the Casbah, Truscott, accompanied by Maj. Gen. John K. Cannon, who had been sent by Patton to see how things were going for the 60th, boarded a jeep and followed the skirmishers toward the front lines.

Dilley’s men had come under heavy mortar and machine-gun fire from the fort, with Foreign Legionnaires shooting from atop the walls in the best tradition of Hollywood’s Beau Geste. Unfortunately, the flying lead was not make-believe, and de Rohan ordered up a couple 105mm howitzers to fire point-blank at the massive fortress gates.

The heavy gates held, and de Rohan was forced to rely on a more basic approach. Reinforced by 125 men of Captain Verle McBride’s 540th Engineers and 871st Aviation Engineers, the Go-Devils rushed the gates under heavy fire and were repulsed. Undaunted, they tried it again with the same bloody results. At last, de Rohan asked Truscott for the air support Truscott had once hoped would not be necessary.

The request was transferred to the Navy, which diverted a flight of planes from another mission to take on the Casbah. With the target clearly marked by palls of smoke, and the American troops pulled back to a safe distance, the planes went to work. Truscott and Cannon watched them from the native village as, one by one, they dropped their heavy bombs. As the smoke and rubble filled the air, de Rohan brought up his howitzers again and blasted open the weakened gates.

Before the fort’s French defenders could recover their wits, the Go-Devils charged through the breach, bayonets at the ready. The defenders, realizing further resistance was futile, surrendered. Almost 250 prisoners were taken by the victors, at a cost of 225 casualties.

Except for securing a strategic ridge southeast of the fort against a force of infantry and tanks, and the threat against the southern flank by reported French cavalry, which turned out to be four soldiers on horseback surrendering to an American telephone lineman, all resistance at Port Lyautey was effectively over. French soldiers were surrendering everywhere, and in Port Lyautey, Colonel Petit, who had been desperately trying to rally his men and had been captured in the process, suggested that he be remanded to the custody of his own prisoner, Major Hamilton, and subsequently ordered all his forces in the area to cease firing.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.