Iron Cross

It was near the end of September, and the weather in Washington had already begun to cool, but the heart of U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Kent Hewitt was hot, or more precisely, it was because of anxiety.

He had received the mission to land in Northwest Africa a few months ago. This was the policy determined by the Allies at the Arcadia Conference on Christmas Day in 1941. Prime Minister Churchill specifically proposed the "Northwest Africa Plan" - codenamed "Sportsman", which planned to land in Algeria, Africa in order to gradually tighten the encirclement of Germany, and stated that if France agreed, the U.S. military would also land on the coast of Morocco. Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not interested in this plan, President Roosevelt himself agreed with it and repeatedly promoted it.

At the beginning, the plan was designed perfectly: wait for the British 8th Army to achieve a decisive victory in Cyrenaica, and then cooperate with the British and American Allied Forces to land in Northwest Africa to completely eliminate the North African Axis Army. But in June this year, not only did the expected victory not come, but the African Army, led by Rommel, even attacked the Jazzala Line first and caused the collapse of the British Army in North Africa. However, Churchill's enthusiasm for this plan continued unabated. He not only renamed it "Super Sportsman", but also advocated that the Allied forces land in Northwest Africa as soon as possible and advance to the border of the United States. The Joint Chiefs of Staff saw the plight of the British Army in North Africa and decided to help these "poor and pathetic Anglo-Saxons" - this was what Hewitt heard from General Marshall, and the original words of Hopkins, the President's special envoy and close friend, were said in private. It is not known whether President Roosevelt meant it. The promised siege of the Axis Army ended up being a relief for the British Army. Anyway, he felt very irritated.

In July, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of the United States and Britain held two more meetings in London. Finally, at Churchill's initiative, the operational plan was renamed "Torch" in the hope of inspiring people. It was also decided that American Lieutenant General Eisenhower would be the commander. However, apart from the agreement on the commander, the differences in time and location were even greater. In their eagerness to relieve the North African troops, the British side suggested October 7 as the target date, while the American side suggested November 7. Finally, President Roosevelt compromised and required the landing date to be no later than October 30. The opinions of the two sides on the choice of the landing site were even more different. The British side strongly advocated landing on the north coast of Africa in the Mediterranean so that they could quickly advance to the Mediterranean and force the German and Italian troops to return. However, the American side obviously did not want to play chestnuts out of the fire for the British, so they turned out the first draft of the "Sportsman Plan" revised in June, and believed that it would be most reasonable to limit the landing site to Casablanca on the west coast of Morocco. During the hottest months of July and August in Washington, Hewitt's daily work was to spend his time in endless quarrels between the two sides. He felt that he needed to explode once a day to vent his anger, but unfortunately he had the lowest rank among the participants, so he couldn't find anyone to vent his anger on.

Finally, Eisenhower, the commander-in-chief of the operation, proposed a compromise plan: it was recommended to land simultaneously inside and outside the Mediterranean, but not to cross the east of Algiers, because the German army might send planes from Sicily and Sardinia to carry out air strikes, and only a small-scale landing could be carried out in Bonnie to seize the airport. Unfortunately, the British side was not satisfied and insisted on a large-scale landing in Bonnie or further east. After more than half a month of quarrels, and countless telegrams between Roosevelt and Churchill, it was not until September 15 that the two sides finally reached an agreement: November 8 was the designated landing date, and the Algiers landing was agreed to be included in the plan, but the US military only landed in Casablanca, Morocco and Oran, Algeria, and the British army landed in Algiers and further east.

Hewitt was ordered to lead the 34th US Task Force, with 102 US warships (including 29 transport ships) and more than 30,000 US troops from Hampton Roads, Virginia to Casablanca, Morocco, to carry out an expedition spanning 4,500 nautical miles. The task of capturing Oran was given to the Central Task Force, which had nearly 20,000 US troops, commanded by Rear Admiral Lloyd Fredendall and escorted by British naval forces commanded by Commodore Thomas Trubridge - because these troops were transported to Scotland and Northern Ireland in early August, they had spent two months doing nothing in the countless quarrels between the top leaders of both sides.

I thought the plan was determined, but I didn't expect that only 10 days later, Hewitt was pulled into a meeting again, and he heard a fierce quarrel before he entered the door.

"The enemy situation has changed dramatically, and we can't simply execute according to the original plan." An American staff officer said something with red ears, while the British liaison officer stationed at the Joint Chiefs of Staff looked indignant.

"What happened, Tom?" Hewitt stopped a lieutenant colonel he was familiar with and pointed at the two groups of people who were in a heated mood, "Why are they arguing again?"

"You don't know? No wonder." The other party handed over a document and whispered, "This is what the intelligence department has recently collected and sorted out. The British are hiding a lot of things from us."

"Malicious concealment?" Hewitt's heart was beating fast. He speculated for no reason. When he opened the document, he found that the facts were even more outrageous than he had imagined:

First, the victory of the Battle of El Alamein boasted by the British was an outright hoax. The British 8th Army lost more than 50,000 people, 700-800 tanks and aircraft, more than 1,000 artillery pieces and a large amount of military supplies. Three of the four main armored divisions were defeated or severely damaged, and the infantry units of two divisions and two brigades were severely damaged or moderately damaged. There were more than 5,000 prisoners below the rank of brigadier general. The results they achieved were basically achieved against the Italians. Except for the three Italian infantry divisions that surrendered without a fight, the German losses were less than one-tenth of the British.

Secondly, the Germans did retreat to Tobruk for defense as the war report said, but their strength was growing rapidly. According to the report sent by the Tobruk intelligence personnel, Guderian received reinforcements from one armored division (the 4th Armored Division) and one armored brigade (the Flying Fortress Armored Brigade) from the country, as well as a large number of tanks and personnel. There were 20,000 to 30,000 tons of various fuels. The British base in Malta failed to intercept these fleets. Their bombers were hit hard by the escorting German fighter wing, losing more than 30 aircraft and only sinking and damaging one ship each. The damaged transport ship struggled to dock at the port of Tobruk.

Finally, although the number of tanks in the hands of the Germans was slightly inferior to that of the 8th Army, the quality was far superior. The newly added German tanks were all newly launched Type 4G. This new tank with a long barrel gun and thickened frontal armor was difficult to deal with. In addition, the Germans also invested in T-34 tanks captured from the Russian front, with a number of nearly 200. After analyzing the wreckage left by the German army on the battlefield in North Africa and combining it with the technical parameters obtained from Russia, the tanks currently owned by the US military - whether it is the M3 General Grant Lee or the M4 Sherman - are unlikely to pose a threat.

Considering that this report may be sent to naval officers who may not understand tanks, the campaign staff also attached a tank performance comparison analysis report:

The Sherman tank is equipped with a 75mmL/40 tank gun. In theory, the M72 armor-piercing projectile can penetrate a 60mm/30° steel plate at a distance of 914 meters. However, due to the special inclined shape of the T-34, the ricochet effect is particularly good. In fact, it can only be effectively killed within 600 meters. When facing the German army's thickened armored No. 4G type 80mm frontal armor, it can only be effectively penetrated at 100 meters - when the tank exchange distance generally remains at 800-1000 meters, this is almost a suicidal distance.

"Tom, does this mean that our tanks can't hit them, but they have no difficulty hitting us?"

The other party nodded and said in a worried tone: "That's about it. It's like we use destroyers to fight against other people's light cruisers. In theory, destroyers can kill or even sink cruisers at close range, but whoever tries it on the battlefield will die. Not to mention that the number of new tanks of the Germans accounts for 80% of their total possession."

Hewitt began to have a headache. He was not willing to use destroyers to fight against enemy cruisers.

So the reason for this quarrel is easy to understand. In addition to the meaningless verbal battle of accusing each other of concealing the situation (the British believed that the Americans concealed the defect of insufficient firepower of the Sherman tank), it was a quarrel about the time of action.

Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff who was responsible for the landing, proposed that since the Sherman tank had insufficient firepower, it could not be foolishly hit head-on, and rectification must be made first. Artillery experts have verified the rectification through examples. The Sherman tank should be replaced with the M1 76mmL/52 gun. This tank gun has a penetration of 11 on vertical steel plates at 500 meters and 1000 meters when using the M62 capped armor-piercing projectile. The penetration of 30° (normal angle) steel plates at 500 yards (457 meters) and 1000 yards (914 meters) is respectively capable of killing all German tanks. The price is that the departure time needs to be postponed for 40 days, and the torch operation will be launched on Christmas Eve in 1942.

The British firmly disagreed with this request. They wanted to set off as early as possible, and even mocked the Americans for being afraid of death.

Considering that the British are currently confronting the Germans outside Tobruk and are in urgent need of tank reinforcements, the US military not only withheld the tanks sent to Russia and supported the British, but also took the initiative to give priority to replacing new tank guns for British tanks. But the British were not grateful for this, saying that they did not need to change the tank guns, and just wanted the Americans to leave as soon as possible.

The two sides remained in a stalemate.