<text id=00he0703><title>After El Alamein, Torch</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>After El Alamein, Torch</hdr><body>
<p>Torch was planned as an Allied—largely American—invasion of North Africa at three points: Casablanca, in French Morocco, and Oran and Algiers, both in Algeria. It was a coordinated attack to remove the threat of German and Italian ground forces in North Africa. The American landings on the west coast would move toward the British Eighth Army in the East, and trap the enemy in the middle.
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<p>Primary air support was the responsibility of the newly-established 12AF, cut from the heart of 8AF strength. General Doolittle assumed command on 23 September 1942, and within a few days the first combat units began arriving. They were to consume more than half of the available strength of 8AF, and a quarter of its combat-experienced units.
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<p>The D-day landings on 8 November were essentially unopposed, although the French did put up some resistance. There was little air action for 12AF; most of the support came from carrier-based fighters and bombers that ranged inland. The 31st Fighter Group, arriving by way of Gibraltar in its Spitfire Vs, was jumped by half a dozen Vichy French Dewoitine D.520 fighters, and claimed three shot down in the brief combat that followed. The 60th Troop Carrier Group, its C-47s moving paratroopers to seize key airfields, lost a few of its planes to French fighters and French anti-aircraft.
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<p>Algiers fell on D-day, Oran on 10 November, and Casablanca and the Vichy French forces surrendered on 11 November. In Tunisia, the Germans had enough troops to control the country, and so it had to be conquered by force.
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<p>The Germans reinforced their garrisons by ship and air, with as many as 50 Junkers Ju 52 transports landing each day at Bizerta. They based their fighters along the east coast of Tunisia, and sent them and bombers from Sicily and Sardinia against American and British ground forces. By mid-December the Allied drive had stalled; the winter rains had arrived and Tunisian mud brought air and ground operations to a halt.
