A Pattern for Joint Operations: World War II Close Air Support, North Africa

Operations; TORCH Landings and the Offensive Against Tunisia 

Casualties were light during the TORCH landings, 8 November 1942, at Casablanca and at Oran and Algiers. The inexperience of the forces was very evident. Even the British forces had not absorbed lessons from the successful Eighth Army operations in Libya. Fortunately, the Vichy French, having no heart for serious battle, undertook only a short-lived delaying action. The XII Air Support Command with Patton in the Western Task Force could not get Army Air Forces aircraft off the carriers that were carrying them to the invasion shore and into action until after the surrender at Casablanca. Naval aircraft picked up the responsibility, carrying out the necessary air cooperation tasks. Only air support parties and service personnel of the XII Air Support Command became involved in the action by participating in a II Corps infantry assault. The 31st Fighter Group flew to Oran to help the naval air forces support Fredendall and his ground forces in a brief battle for Oran, but the French surrendered that city on D-Day plus 2. The Royal Air Force helped, in a minor fashion, the Eastern Assault Force, led by Maj. Gen. Charles W. Ryder. A successful assault on Algiers, in order to facilitate seizure of Tunisia, was the most important object of Operation TORCH. Algiers surrendered on the evening of D-Day.¹⁵

As the troops were congratulating themselves, General Anderson arrived in Algiers to start the push eastward. The British First Army and, for close air support, the Royal Air Forces' No. 242 Group, Eastern Air Command, made up the main force. Attached to Anderson's task force were a few Free French and American elements. The largest American unit was a tank regiment of Combat Command B, commanded by Col. Paul M. Robinett. Supporting American air elements, including the 60th Troop Carrier Group (C-47s), 14th Fighter Group (P- 38s), and 15th Bombardment Squadron (A-20s), were employed by the Eastern Air Command within a few weeks. Six hundred miles to the east, in Tunisia, the Germans were assembling a large counterforce. Time became important, with winter rains expected in December and Rommel in full retreat before Montgomery, westward toward Tunisia.¹⁶

As with the TORCH landings, the Allies underestimated the opposition and problems associated with a winter campaign hundreds of miles across Algeria and Tunisia. Their planners had assumed that the Vichy French and local Arabs would not effectively deter the rush eastward and that the Axis would not build a strong defense. Air and ground leaders did not make a great effort to absorb the lessons of mobile warfare, including the revival of the principle of mass dictated by Montgomery's Eighth Army experience. Anderson led the forces with the British First Army, which was composed of one incomplete division and a few smaller units, including a small portion of the American 1st Armored Division. British tactical air forces and portions of the Twelfth Air Force provided close air support. Troops were well trained, but the force included neither experienced, battle-tested, leaders nor individual units. Anderson spread his attacking force in a north-to-south formation in the drive eastward towards Tunisia. His intent was to prevent Axis units from harassing the main drive along the coast, but the spread formation precluded concentration of forces to push through Axis defenses just then building up in Tunisia (Map 3). Allied intelligence initially underestimated Axis strength in numbers of aircraft, vehicles, and defensive weapons. Then, by the end of November, as additional Allied units were called in to beef up the attack against determined Axis air and ground forces, the logistical support broke down, and the forces at the front could not be adequately supplied.

A host of problems affecting general operations likewise limited the air-ground support system. Long distances and inadequate transportation facilities limited logistics support for the air forces as well as the army. A lack of all-weather airfields forced units to crowd onto workable fields, and the long distances to targets limited the time Allied support aircraft could loiter over the battlefield waiting for calls from the ground (Map 4). Lack of radar and inadequate communications systems encouraged Anderson to look for alternatives in his air support. He ignored standard doctrine, for example, when he resorted to extensive employment of aircraft in defensive cover missions to try to stop the aggressive German air attacks. This left insufficient aircraft for other close air support tasks and other tactical functions, such as air superiority, supply interdiction, and reconnaissance.

In mid-November, when Anderson moved his headquarters eastward towards the Algerian-Tunisian border, he asked the Royal Air Force to carefully coordinate with his ground forces the obviously inadequate number of aircraft. Air Commodore C. M. Lawson moved into a command post next door to facilitate air-ground support. Evidence suggests that the interrelationship was not effective; Lawson was not able to control the few American units transferred to the British-led task force, raising the charge that air and ground leaders were conducting separate warfare. For their part, airmen claimed that many mission requests produced ineffective results and that aircraft were wasted on missions to satisfy demands of subordinate ground commanders. The record shows extensive air activity during the third week of November, when fighters flew nearly fifteen hundred reconnaissance and top-cover defense sorties. Unfortunately, it is never clear how many of these were conducted as close air support missions, as opposed to general air support work. Eisenhower was becoming convinced that one way to attack the problem of air support was to bring air units under the more centralized control of an air commander.

During the last week in November, when Anderson attacked with his force's greatest energy, the air arms flew nineteen hundred sorties, twice the number of the Axis. Close air support in terms of defensive covers continued, but most air missions were given to bombing the supply line and hitting shipping and air bases. The intensive air action produced heavy aircraft losses and damage that could not be overcome by shorthanded maintenance crews or replacement aircraft and crews. The greatest problem, according to the ground commanders, was the repeated attack by the supposedly obsolete German Stukas. Fighters would be called up for defensive cover, but because of the great distances, the fighter loitering time was brief. While the Allied aircraft were in the air, German dive bombers merely returned to their airfields and waited for the all-clear signal. Allied air forces could not provide enough continuity in their air cover.¹⁷

Because Allied air support forces could not stem the enemy air attacks over the battlefield, some ground commanders complained. Robinett, now a brigadier  general, insisted that men cannot stand the mental and physical strain of constant aerial bombing without feeling that all possible is being done to beat enemy air efforts." Brig. Gen. Terry Allen, commander of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division during the invasion of Oran, suggested that division command staffs should include an air adviser. Allen had been assigned a temporary air adviser, Col. Harold Fowler, during the landing assault, to help plan air support for the ground forces. Allen saw great weakness in the "on call" air support by which requests went up through the various levels of army command and down through the air force echelons. The method was too slow. He wanted a system that assured "prompt air support against anticipated targets in the zone of advance of the major effort."¹⁸

Eisenhower agreed that enemy "strafing and dive-bombing" were responsible for stopping the attempted advances of the First Army. Anderson suggested that unless the enemy attacks could be reduced, Allied forces would have to withdraw to a position where they could get cover. The ground commanders were even more adamant about cover because they did not see or know of reciprocal air attacks against enemy troops. Eisenhower and Anderson were probably unaware that Churchill, in reference to use of the air umbrella in the Western Desert the year previous, had forbidden the use of aircraft in troop-cover operations because it was a waste of resources. The air doctrine of both Allied forces also rejected employment of air cover as an inefficient use of air resources. Nevertheless, the orders of insistent ground commanders carried weight, and airmen continued assigning ineffective air cover missions. When the battle got worse for the Allies, airmen pointed to improper employment of air cover as an important cause for failure. But the air forces failed in other areas of air support. Fighter groups continued their offensive air missions against enemy air bases and air defense over friendly forces, but were not trained for strafing. Light bombers, originally designed for close air support work, proved useless against well-protected targets and were assigned night bombardment duties, which minimized enemy defensive fire from aircraft or ground antiaircraft artillery. The Allies had no effective ground attack aircraft until mid-December, when they brought in some modified P- 40s and Hurricanes that would serve as fighter-bombers.¹⁹

Believing that victory in Tunisia depended on full employment of air power, and the fact that the ground forces were unable to break Axis defense, Eisenhower halted the offensive. Winter rains and mud made the operations difficult throughout December. Ground forces, with supporting air units, probed at weaknesses in the German lines, but the offense was uncoordinated and opportunistic. Until mid-January, Allied operations aimed at local consolidation and keeping pressure on the enemy. The air forces started work on new airfields closer to the battlefield. Eastern Air Command and Twelfth Air Force bombers continued the interdiction attacks on ports, supply dumps, shipping, and airfields in Tunisia and Sicily, but generally the enemy retained air superiority in the region.²⁰