Word: dakar
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...picture department has to meet is to be sure we are never caught short without the right cover ready to put on the press at an hour's notice after a big break in the news-whatever it may be or whenever it may come, in Norway or Dakar, in Tunis or Guadalcanal...
With them in hand or enveloped, Dakar to the south of Casablanca could safely be left for later disposal, and the larger objectives of the U.S. entry into North Africa could unfold: first the joining of the U.S. forces in the northwest with the British in Libya, then the destruction of the Afrika Korps, the re-establishment of Allied mastery over the southern Mediterranean and finally assault on southern Europe...
Closing upon Casablanca and its airdromes, the U.S. forces were fighting for Vichy's second-best Atlantic naval anchorage (the best: Dakar), a sizable segment of Vichy's Navy, Vichy Africa's principal Atlantic railhead and a modern city (pop. 257,000) which was the pride of colonial France. After the capture of the three key cities-Casablanca, Oran and Algiers-the rest of French North Africa might well be the Allies' for the taking...
Vichy had in North and West Africa (Dakar) some 120,000 troops, mostly Arab, Berber and Senegalese enlisted men and noncoms with French officers, and the thoroughly Germanized Foreign Legion. Thanks partly to many a Frenchman's and colonial's ingrained hatred of the Nazis, partly to the assiduous labors of De Gaullists and U.S. State Department agents (see p. 15), the invaders could hope for only nominal resistance from many of Vichy's troops. The colonial air force had perhaps 700 planes, many of them obsolescent, and many of these were concentrated at Dakar...
Vichy's Navy was also an unknown quantity. Unhappily for Vichy, most of its Navy was at: 1) Dakar, 1,500 miles southwest of Casablanca; 2) Toulon, France's base 400 miles north of Algiers. The battleship Richelieu, three light cruisers, several destroyers and some submarines at Dakar did not figure in the initial defense. At Toulon were the battleships Strasbourg, Dunkerque (repaired after its shelling by the British in 1940) and Provence (also damaged but repaired), probably seven cruisers, 25 destroyers, 27 submarines and one seaplane carrier (the Commandant Teste). Axis reports said Toulon naval units...