W.W. McClyde

Nov 8, 1942. The same morning two ships were destroyed trying to crash into Oran harbor, an old American destroyer pulled off the same trick in Morocco. And it worked. To land General Patton's tanks in Morocco, the Americans needed a real port with docks and cranes. Besides Casablanca itself, the only one that could handle medium tanks was the small port of Safi. So the Navy chose two old World War I destroyers, USS Bernadou and USS Cole. Their masts and funnels had been cut down to make them low and hard to see, and they were packed with assault troops. The plan was simple and dangerous: in the dark, run straight into Safi harbor ahead of the main landing and put the soldiers ashore right on the docks. At about 4:30 a.m. on Nov 8, Bernadou crept toward the harbor mouth. A French signal light challenged her. Then the French guns opened up. Bernadou kept going. Her crew fired back, and the cruisers and battleship offshore joined in. She raced into the harbor under fire and ran herself right up onto the beach so her soldiers could jump off and storm the waterfront. Cole came in behind her and landed her troops on the docks. The soldiers quickly seized the port. Unlike at Oran, the French didn't have time to sabotage it. By that afternoon, Safi had surrendered. Within days, tanks were rolling off ships at Safi's docks and heading north toward Casablanca. Two harbor raids on the same morning. One ended in a slaughter. The other became one of the best-run operations of the whole invasion.