The U.S. Navy Comes Ashore in the Med

Citizens of the United States pay little attention to the role of the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean during World War II. Compared to the outpouring of literature on the Pacific campaigns, there are only a few serious writings by U.S. naval historians on a subject that has major professional and historical importance.¹

American neglect may result from the fact that the Mediterranean was an area primarily of British strategic concern. Dwight Eisenhower did serve as the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean until January 1944, but prior to the landings in southern France during the summer of 1944, British forces in the theater were predominant. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that Eisenhower’s overall army, navy, and air force component commanders were British officers. Nor should we forget that London gained U.S. assent for the North African, Sicilian, and Italian campaigns only over the opposition and serious reservations of senior U.S. military leaders, who viewed these operations as diversions from the decisive theater of war in northern Europe. The invasion of southern France, a move that directly supported the northern European campaign, was the sole effort in the Mediterranean initiated by the United States.²

The essential preamble to this story is the invasion of French North Africa in November 1942. In Operation Torch, the U.S. Navy organized and trained a force that crossed the ocean to land U.S. troops on the Atlantic coast of French Morocco. Two other major task forces, under British operational command, landed on Algeria’s Mediterranean littoral. Yet, hoping that the French would be less likely to resist the United States than Great Britain, the assault force in Algeria also was predominantly American. The strategic goal of Operation Torch was to open a new front against the Axis armies in North Africa.³

Operation Torch featured several key U.S. leaders who later won distinction in the Mediterranean. Commanding the Western Naval Task Force that sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, late in October 1942 was Rear Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, who later served as the senior U.S. naval officer in all future operations in the Mediterranean/ Admiral Hewitt’s chief of staff, Rear Admiral John L. Hall, Jr., later was a task group commander under Hewitt at the Sicily and Salerno landings. Hall also was the chief trainer for all of the American amphibious forces involved in those operations.⁵ Hewitt’s total task force included more than 100 ships and approximately 35,000 troops commanded by the famed Major General George S. Patton.⁶

Torch also surfaced a number of critical issues in amphibious doctrine. Based on pre-Pearl Harbor preparations, this and all other U.S. landings in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters recognized that unity of command over army and naval forces must be exercised by the senior naval commander during the assault phase. Once the forces were ashore, overall command shifted to the ground commander.⁷ Also, much thought was given to the timing of an operation. To avoid the confusion of night landings, the Navy preferred an early morning assault preceded by naval and aerial attacks on enemy positions. But, hoping to maximize the element of surprise, the Army demanded and obtained in North Africa a night landing without preliminary bombardment.⁸

Although some attention was given in pre-1942 American exercises to using naval guns to support troops once ashore, the Army distrusted the accuracy of sea-based ordnance. This attitude did not change during Torch when, as U.S. naval leaders themselves concluded, naval fire support, in general, was ineffective.⁹ It was fortunate that opposition to the Allied invasions by French ground, naval, and air units in North Africa was short-lived.¹⁰

Close air support was a more successful aspect of Torch. Because Morocco was outside the range of Allied land-based air support, U.S. planners assigned a force of one large and four small U.S. aircraft carriers to Admiral Hewitt’s task force. The aircraft embarked in those ships neutralized French air opposition and attacked shore targets. In addition, the carriers embarked approximately 75 U.S. Army fighters that flew ashore after an air strip was secured in the Casablanca area.¹¹

Although the eventual control of major ports was always a vital objective of Mediterranean amphibious campaigns, these operations typically began with landings over open beaches. At the time of the North African operation, the United States did not have large numbers of seagoing amphibious vessels, such as the LST and LCI, capable of offloading sizable numbers of tanks and troops over unimproved beaches. In Morocco, the Navy operated many smaller personnel landing craft and LCMs and carried a few Army-manned amphibious DUKW tractors to ferry men and supplies directly between transport ships and the beach. Despite some confusion and delayed schedules, the vital ship-to-shore phase of Operation Torch succeeded in landing a sufficient American force. But it was at a heavy cost. More than a third of the landing craft were lost in the Moroccan operation, primarily because of the inexperience of naval boat crews and the hazards of night landings under heavy surf conditions.¹² One problem endemic in amphibious warfare was the tardy clearance of supplies from the beachhead. If that task had been undertaken more efficiently, personnel might have been able to salvage many of the lost amphibious craft.¹³

After French forces in North Africa ended hostilities against the Allies and joined the war effort against the Axis, the U.S. Navy established bases in the area and turned its attention to the vital— if often unappreciated—task of protecting and using the sea-lanes to support the armies ashore.¹⁴ In the spring of 1943, the Axis army in North Africa was surrounded in Tunisia by British troops advancing from the east, Allied navies controlling the maritime escape routes to the north, and Anglo- American ground forces moving in from the west. The enemy’s collapse marked a major victory for Anglo-American land and sea power. During the final North African campaign, more than 275,000 Axis troops were taken as prisoners of war.¹⁵

Early in 1943, U.S. and British leaders agreed to continue to press the enemy by attacking Sicily that July. This was a far larger campaign than Torch—one historian has called it the “greatest amphibious operation in recorded history if measured by the strength of the initial effort.”¹⁶ In all, eight U.S. and British divisions made assault landings on beaches at the southeastern end of the island. About 470,000 Allied troops and 1,400 American and British ships and seagoing amphibious craft participated in the operation. Of the naval vessels involved, 580 were in the U.S. task force commanded by Admiral Hewitt, which landed American troops originally embarked in North African ports. Once again, General Patton was the senior U.S. ground commander.¹⁷

Sicily demonstrated the considerable progress made in amphibious tactics since the North African landings. At the Army’s request, there was no preliminary shore bombardment. But, unlike the situation eight months earlier in North Africa, the Navy’s post-landing gunfire support at Sicily was heavy and effective. In one memorable engagement off Gela, a group of Admiral John Hall’s cruisers and destroyers moved close to shore to repulse a major counterattack by enemy tanks that threatened to wipe out the beachhead. That type of shooting stilled the doubts of many Army leaders about the value of naval guns.¹⁸

In Sicily the U.S. Navy also demonstrated that massive quantities of troops, armor, and supplies could be landed over ocean beaches. Sizable numbers of LSTs, LCIs, and amphibious DUKW trucks had become available to the invaders. These supplemented the LCVPs, LCMs, and other smaller craft that were prominent during Operation Torch. Sicily’s hydrography, featuring false outlying beaches and then deep runnels along the coast itself, led the Navy’s amphibians to use pontoon causeways and other ingenious means to move men and cargo ashore.¹⁹

Yet the invasion of Sicily revealed that many problems remained. Once again, the congestion of supplies on the beachhead was a major difficulty.²⁰ Later historians have criticized ground commanders, particularly the British General Montgomery, for not making full use of naval forces to launch flanking assaults from the sea that might have cut off pockets of enemy forces.²¹ Senior commanders also are faulted for failing to interdict the retreat of more than 100,000 Axis troops from Sicily to the mainland of Italy across the narrow strait at Messina in the final days of the Sicilian campaign.²²

Although the U.S. Army and Navy deserved praise for their generally effective cooperation both in planning and undertaking this operation, the coordination between the autonomous air forces and their sister services was poor. Because air officers refused to work closely with their Army and Navy counterparts in planning, rehearsing, or undertaking this operation, complete unity of command was not achieved. Under these circumstances, efforts by land-based air to isolate the Sicilian battlefield and to provide air cover for ground and naval forces on the whole were not successful. A specific and tragic example of the results of inadequate coordination was a paratroop operation on the night of 11-12 July 1943, during which 144 U.S. air transports flew at low altitudes over Admiral Hall’s task group, which had just been the target of heavy enemy air attack. Despite last-minute attempts to alert U.S. gunners, many of Hall’s ships opened fire on the Army Air Forces planes. A number of air transports were shot down or damaged, resulting in a heavy loss of American lives.²’

After securing Sicily, American leaders agreed to invade Italy in September 1943 in return for a British promise to undertake the long-delayed invasion of northern France in 1944- A major strategic goal of the Italian campaign was to force the enemy to divert forces from other war fronts, including France. Initial phases of this operation featured lodgements by British troops near the Strait of Messina and at Taranto. The main attack followed on the night of 8-9 September, when a 600-ship attack force under Admiral Hewitt, carrying six U.S. and British divisions trained and loaded in North African and Sicilian ports, approached preselected landing beaches near Salerno. The port of Naples, a major objective, was only a few miles north.²⁴

Several hours before these troops stormed ashore, the world learned the stunning news of Italy’s armistice with the Allies. The timing of this announcement allowed most of the Italian Navy to escape and to join the Allies as cobelligerents. But Rome’s departure from the Axis alliance, a process that began with the Allied victory in Sicily, was no surprise to the Germans, whose troops were pouring into the Italian peninsula. The German defenders expected an attack at Salerno. As a result, the Allied invaders faced a strong German force of almost 40,000 men. The enemy mounted one of the most determined defenses of any World War II beachhead.²⁵

For more than a week Allied control of the Salerno plain was in doubt. The Germans built up their forces to about 100,000 men, including strong armored formations. Naval and ground forces were the targets of repeated enemy air attacks. The eventual success of the Allies in conquering the objective area, and then in seizing the port of Naples on 1 October, resulted from valor and skill both ashore and afloat. Despite German minefields that initially forced them to make long run-ins to the beach, Allied naval amphibious units were able to build up men and supplies in the objective area rapidly. The Germans simply could not match these maritime reinforcements through the use of overland lines of communication. The time required to offload naval transports at Salerno was more than a third less than at Sicily. Naval gunfire support against tanks and other enemy targets also was a key to Allied victory.²⁶

General Eisenhower had demanded that the air forces work more closely with the Navy and Army in planning and undertaking the Salerno landing, and indeed, Allied land-based air was considerably more effective than at Sicily. Also, a five-carrier task force directly under Admiral Hewitt’s control protected the amphibious flotilla from Luftwaffe attacks.²⁷

In the months that followed the landing at Salerno, the United States and sister navies continued to protect the Mediterranean sea-lanes from German air and naval attack.²⁸ This allowed essential supplies and reinforcements to reach U.S., British, French, and other Allied troops as they struggled to advance up the Italian peninsula. In January 1944, U.S. Rear Admiral Frank J. Lowry commanded a task force that threatened the rear of the German army by landing two divisions at Anzio, a position approximately 75 miles north of the major line of German resistance near Monte Cassino. Winston Churchill was a major champion of the operation, which initially appeared to be a success. But over the next four months, Allied forces could not break out of the Anzio beachhead.

Instead of turning the enemy’s position, Anzio became a bloody stalemate. Historians now recognize that this failure resulted primarily from the decision to commit a landing force that was too small to sever the lines of supply for the main German army.²¹²

The climax of U.S. Navy’s Mediterranean campaign came in August 1944 with the conquest of southern France, which Samuel Eliot Morison termed “an almost perfect amphibious operation from the point of view of training, timing, Army-Navy-Air Force cooperation, performance, and results.”³⁰ The veteran Admiral Hewitt once again commanded the naval task force, composed predominantly of U.S. ships, but also including British, French, and other Allied contributions. The invasion flotilla was immense—including 880 ships and seagoing landing vessels. Admiral Hewitt initially landed five American divisions on beaches between Toulon and Cannes. They were followed by hundreds of thousands of additional troops, including large numbers of French soldiers. One of the major lessons learned by the United States from its amphibious experience was the essential need for close cooperation between all participating organizations. In southern France, highly effective coordination was demonstrated on both the interservice and international levels.³¹

In this operation, the U.S. Army at last agreed to undertake a daylight landing preceded by heavy naval and air bombardment. Obviously, this involved the loss of strategic surprise. But by using cover and deception techniques and exploiting the mobility of sea power, Allied forces were able to mislead the enemy regarding the exact location of the landings. Further, the hard-pressed Germans fielded considerably weaker forces in southern France than at Sicily or Salerno.³²

The southern France landings were a major success.³' The allies effectively swept German sea mines blocking the approaches to the coast. Prior to the landings, air and naval forces bombarded many enemy positions and cut supply lines into the objective area; later, they provided support for the forces ashore. Aircraft from a force of nine British and American escort carriers spotted for naval guns, protected the fleet, and flew armed reconnaissance missions deep into the interior of France. Amphibious craft, large and small, off-loaded massive quantities of supplies and troops.

Within two weeks of the initial landings, the ports of Marseilles and Toulon fell to French troops. By the end of first month, forces landed in this area pushed 400 miles north into France where they established a continuous front with the other Allied armies. In the meantime, through France’s Mediterranean beaches and ports—especially Marseilles—passed the massive manpower and logistical requirements of modem warfare. In all, between August 1944 and the end of the European conflict nine months later, no less than 1.3 million troops and almost 4-5 million tons of cargo moved through supply lines along the Mediterranean coast.³⁴

Although many British leaders and historians viewed southern France as a diversion that weakened the campaign in Italy, which they considered to be of paramount importance, there is no doubt that the French landings contributed significantly to the Allied victory. The enemy was forced to make a major retreat. The shortage of major Allied ports on the European continent following the June 1944 Normandy invasion became less critical with the opening of Marseilles. Further, southern France—not Italy—was the logical point to introduce French ground forces—equivalent to eight to ten U.S. divisions”-—into World War II.

Today’s U.S. Navy gives special attention to operations in the littorals. Capabilities required for littoral warfare include amphibious landings, air and missile bombardment missions against shore targets, and the logistical support of armies fighting ashore. Many people in the United States vividly remember the nation’s hard-won amphibious successes more than a half century ago in the islands of the Pacific, but the nation’s less-known experience during the same period in the relatively restricted waters of the Mediterranean—where maritime forces projected Allied power onto North Africa and Europe— may be even more relevant to future naval requirements. The U.S. Navy’s World War II experience in the Mediterranean stands as a classic demonstration of the ability of sea power to influence events on the land masses of the world.