page_title: Naval Battle of Casablanca
section_title: 8 November
hierarchical_section_title: Naval Battle of Casablanca / Battle / 8 November
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Wichita (CA-45) engaging the French battleship Jean Bart, off Casablanca, Morocco, on 8 November 1942. Note the shell splashes off Wichita's bow.
context_page_description: The Naval Battle of Casablanca was a series of naval engagements fought between American ships covering the invasion of North Africa and Vichy French ships defending the neutrality of French Morocco in accordance with the Second Armistice at Compiègne during World War II. The last stages of the battle consisted of operations by German U-boats which had reached the area the same day the French troops surrendered.
  Allied military planners anticipated an all-American force assigned to seize the Atlantic port city of Casablanca might be greeted as liberators. An invasion task force of 102 American ships carrying 35,000 American soldiers approached the Moroccan coast undetected under cover of darkness. French defenders interpreted the first contacts as a diversionary raid for a major landing in Algeria; and Germany regarded the surrender of six Moroccan divisions to a small commando raiding force as a clear violation of French obligations to defend Moroccan neutrality under the Armistice of 22 June 1940 at Compiègne.
context_section_description: Center group troopships USS William P. Biddle, Leonard Wood, Joseph T. Dickman, Tasker H. Bliss, Hugh L. Scott, Joseph Hewes, Edward Rutledge, Charles Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Ancon, Elizabeth C. Stanton, Thurston, Arcturus, Procyon, and Oberon anchored 8 mi (7.0 nmi; 13 km) off Fedala at midnight. Loaded landing craft rendezvoused and left the line of departure at 06:00. Pont Blondin coast defense batteries were alerted by the noise of landing craft engines and illuminated the beach approaches with searchlights but the searchlights were extinguished when the landing craft support boats opened fire with machine guns. The destroyer Wilkes and a scout boat tasked with marking red beach 2 moved out of position while maneuvering to avoid an unidentified boat evaluated as potentially hostile; and landing craft ran onto rocks while running at full speed rather than reaching their intended beach. Twenty-one of the 32 landing craft from Leonard Wood were wrecked. Eight of the ship's surviving landing craft were wrecked in heavy surf landing later waves.
  3,500 American troops were ashore by dawn; but early morning mist concealed the size of the invasion force. Fedala coast defense batteries opened fire on the landing craft shortly after 07:00. At 07:20, Admiral Hewitt authorized four American destroyers supporting the landing craft to open fire on the French shore batteries. French gunners damaged the destroyers USS Ludlow and Murphy, and at 07:25 the destroyers were defended by the heavier guns of the cruisers Augusta and Brooklyn screening the troopships. Ludlow and Wilkes silenced the Pont Blondin battery, while Augusta silenced the Fedala battery. Murphy, Wainwright, and other U.S. vessels engaged two French aircraft just before 07:00 on 8 November, ultimately driving them off.
  The French submarines Amazone, Antiope, Méduse, Orphée and Sibylle sortied to defensive patrol stations at 07:00. At 07:50, French fighters rose to intercept a force of bombers from Ranger and Suwanee. The French fighters were engaged by fighters from Ranger in a dogfight that felled seven French and four or five American planes. Bombs started falling on Casablanca Harbor at 08:04. Ten civilian freighters and liners were sunk and French submarines Amphitrite, Oréade, and Psyché were destroyed at their moorings before they could get underway. The American covering force of Massachusetts, Wichita and Tuscaloosa screened by destroyers Mayrant, Rhind, Wainwright, and Jenkins appeared offshore and Massachusetts' 16 in (410 mm) guns were added to the bombardment. The El Hank battery observed gunfire from the covering force and straddled Massachusetts with its first salvo. The operational turret aboard the incomplete battleship Jean Bart also opened fire and was targeted by Massachusetts. Jean Bart had fired only seven rounds before Massachusetts' fifth salvo jammed the turret rotating mechanism on Jean Bart. Massachusetts' heavy 16-inch projectiles caused significant damage although few actually exploded because they had been fitted with fuzes manufactured in 1918. The covering force then targeted El Hank Battery from 08:40 to 09:25.
  While the covering force engaged El Hank Battery west of Casablanca, seven ships of the French 2nd Light Squadron sortied from Casablanca harbor at 09:00 under cover of a smoke screen to attack the troopships anchored off Fedala to the east. The French destroyer Milan sortied with destroyers Fougueux and Boulonnais. At 09:20, the French squadron was strafed by fighter planes from Ranger. French gunners sank a landing craft and scored hits on Ludlow. Milan beached after being damaged by gunfire from Wilkes, Wichita, and Tuscaloosa. Massachusetts and Tuscaloosa engaged the French destroyers Fougueux at 10:00 and Boulonnais at 10:12. Fougueux sank at 10:40. The French light cruiser Primauguet sortied with flotilla leader destroyer Albatros and destroyers Brestois and Frondeur. Engaged by Massachusetts, the Primauguet force was outgunned; Primauguet had been under refit and was not fully operational but returned fire nonetheless. 
caption: The heavy cruiser USS Wichita under fire off Casablanca.
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