Help Identify

[Gil Boyd]

Operation Torch - North Africa - Use of SOE

Be good to hear back from Muffett whether they might have operated in North Africa as the powers that be, decided that they’d first pacify North Africa, where the British Eighth Army and the German Afrika Korps had been fighting back and forth since 1940.

After much disagreement, it was decided to invade Morocco and Algeria and establish a base where the supply lines for the Germans in the Mediterranean could be cut. This would open as Mr. Churchill called it the “soft underbelly of Europe.” But this first foray for the Americans into the war against Nazi Germany was a victory, not so much militarily but politically as the allies were treading on a slippery slope dealing with the Free French as well as Vichy and the inexperienced Americans.