Word: oran
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Commanding U.S. ground troops: on Africa's west coast, Major General George Smith Patton Jr., former commander of the First Armored Corps; at Oran, Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall; at Algiers, Major General Charles W. Ryder...
...Plan. Unfolding at Algiers that morning was a plan for the conquest of French North Africa. It was thorough and simple. Its initial objective was the seizure of the principal ports of French North Africa: Algiers and Oran on the Mediterranean, Casablanca on the Atlantic and Rabat, the capital of Morocco. These cities are more than ports and naval bases: they are also the keys to French North Africa's railways, highways and airdrome system (see p. 22), and to the political control of French Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia...
Maison-Blanche fell without a fight; U.S. paratroops seized Blida airdrome. U.S troops marched quickly inland to cut the Algiers-Oran railway. U.S. and British fighters and light bombers flew in to the captured airdromes from carriers; other bombers arrived, probably from Gibraltar...
...sentiment of France's Ecole navale has long tended to be antidemocratic, and that sentiment was underscored in blood two years ago when the British attacked the French Fleet at Oran. But if most Vichy naval officers would probably fight Britain with gusto, French seamen are generally pro-British...
...Dakar, is reported unable to move, now serves as a floating fort for Dakar. Its sister ship, Jean Bart, towed to Casablanca at the war's outbreak while still incomplete, has possibly not yet had all its guns mounted. Fully repaired or nearly so, after the battle of Oran, are the 26,500-ton Strasbourg and Dunkerque, the 22,000-ton Provence, all in Toulon. There are also eleven heavy and light cruisers, six supposedly en route to Madagascar, two perhaps in Dakar, the rest in French home ports. There are some 40 destroyers, some 60 submarines...