Historians tell us that when it became evident by mid-1942 there could be no cross-channel attack on Europe in September, American planners in World War II acceded to a plan the British had been urging to use the means that would be accumulated in England by the fall of 1942, plus additional forces from the United States, to invade North Africa.

It was hoped, French forces might lend support to the operation.
The primary objective was to relieve pressure on the Russians. Other objectives were to gain French Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia as bases for enlisting the French colonial empire in the war, to assist the British in destroying Axis forces threatening Egypt and Suez, to open the Mediterranean to Allied shipping, to shorten the route to the Far East, and to prepare the way for further operations against the European Axis.

The combined chiefs of staff named General Eisenhower as commander in chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force that was to invade North Africa.

Meanwhile, I was a seaman in the United States navy aboard an LST that carried troops and equipment to Bizerte, Tunisia for the North African campaign. The ship made numerous trips, the U.S. troops advanced against the enemy and me and a shipmate we’ll call Harry decided, after no shore leave for months, to jump ship in Bizerte and see what was going on.

We were especially intent on thumbing a ride with the army to Tunis to check out the near virgins in the area. Historical records do not record our success or lack of it. Nor do they record our encounter with a bomb crater filled with oil near a Bizerte dock on our way back to the ship in late-night darkness.

 We fell in. After we boarded our ship, dripping oil all the way, the captain was not happy. He had a small compartment near the bow turned into a brig and deposited us there for two weeks. We were fed, we didn’t have to work, and during the two weeks the crew never got off the ship. The fortunes of war.

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