Twelve Desperate Miles (28 page)

R
ené Malevergne, traveling as Viktor Prechak, had arrived in Norfolk on the same evening as the
Contessa
, Thursday, October 22. He was immediately taken in a launch out in the harbor to the battleship
Texas
, the flagship for the northern branch of the Casablanca invasion. Its commander was Rear Admiral Monroe Kelly, to whom Malevergne was soon introduced. Afterward, Malevergne was taken to the transport
Susan B. Anthony
, where an upper deck cabin had been reserved solely for him. He was liking the way he was being treated by the Americans.

His first week in the States had been spent primarily in an army camp barracks about sixty miles from Washington. It housed officers in transit, many on their way, like him, to Hampton Roads. Malevergne told his diary that the atmosphere here was “
frank and cordial” and that “the living is good.” He was surprised to discover that morning reveille was delivered by means of a recording delivered over the camp loudspeaker, rather than by a genuine trumpet.

Much as he appreciated the hospitality shown to him in the camp, he was anxious to get on with his journey and was thankful to find himself flying down to Hampton Roads and then on to his berth on the
Susan B. Anthony
. Waking the morning after his arrival on board, he found himself eyeing the superb harbor that stretched around him and counting the impressive number of ships waiting to sail within. There were ten transports alone moored in his vicinity, along with the
Texas
and several destroyers. All would get under way shortly. By the end of the day, ten more transports would join them, along with an escorting cruiser and more destroyers.

Late in the morning, the
Anthony
began her voyage. Malevergne was shown to the wardroom, where he was excited to see a large map of
Morocco fixed to the bulkhead. He was even more thrilled to see big red arrows on the map pointing directly toward Casablanca and Mehdia. For weeks now, he had lived in a state of high excitement and suspense, feeling that he must be returning soon to Morocco—why else would he be here?—but never had he been told precisely where he was going. Now he could see with his own eyes that he was heading directly home. He told his diary that he
wanted to “cry out: ‘Friends of Morocco, who have waited so long for this day to arrive; Friends of France, who are still in prison: Your day is at hand. Each turn of the propeller brings us closer to you. The second front is on the way.’ ”

Malevergne held his tongue. He was already feeling a bit conspicuous on the ship because of his native language and the fact that he was the only person on the ship dressed in civilian clothes.

He waited for more answers about his mission, and on his second day on the
Anthony
, they came. Malevergne was introduced to Lieutenant Colonel Jack Toffey of the Third Battalion, Sixtieth Regimental Combat Unit. Toffey gave the Frenchman his first concrete sense of what lay ahead in the operation. There would be three large attacks on Morocco as a whole: at Mehdia, Casablanca, and Safi. Mehdia itself was to be invaded in three columns; the northernmost would be above the jetty marking the entrance to the River Sebou. The southern column was to land at Lac Sidi Boughaba, near the highway between Rabat and Port Lyautey. The central attack would be aimed at Mehdia Beach and was expected to face the fiercest resistance.

While the battle in the center was engaged, the two flanking forces were to sweep around the conflict and head for the airfield and Port Lyautey. Just what Malevergne’s role in the invasion would be remained, for the time being, a mystery to him. It was easy to assume that his piloting skills were wanted, but specifics were not yet made available to him.

At this point, it hardly seemed to matter. He was going home in the company of a great American army. Soon French Morocco would be free once again.

If Malevergne had been able to linger a little while longer on the
Texas
after he’d first arrived at Hampton Roads, he surely would have run across a young member of the small press corps that was stationed on the battleship, the United Press correspondent Walter Cronkite, who had been give the Operation Torch assignment by the newspaper syndicate. Cronkite perhaps could have used Malevergne’s limited English-language skills to help him translate some of the conversation of his bunkmates. These were a group of radio broadcasters working with the Office of War Information, the recently formed arm of the federal government assigned to disseminate news of the conflict to the free world. The broadcasters were a trio of upper-crust New Yorkers with European roots who practiced their French in the shared cabin, while wearing “
fancy civilian pajamas,” according to Cronkite. “They were to operate something called ‘Clandestine Radio Maroc,’ ” he would later write. “Their sole function was to broadcast propaganda intended to persuade the army of France’s puppet government to desert Hitler and come over to the Allied side.”

Cronkite had just completed an assignment covering convoy shipping in the North Atlantic. Prior to his first trip between New York and London, he’d gone to the U.S. Navy offices in Manhattan to get credentials and a correspondent’s uniform. At the time, in those first few months of the war, according to Cronkite, the U.S. military “
was as unprepared for handling the requirements of the press as it was for meeting the enemy.” He was given a green armband with a large letter “C,” for correspondent, to be worn on his left arm. The trouble was that soon after donning the uniform and brassard, he felt that something in his outfit was inhibiting conversation with the officers and seamen he was encountering on the trip. The language they used seemed too formal; it lacked the usual color and profanity of military personnel. “
The officers in the wardroom that evening seemed to me particularly dull,” wrote Cronkite. It was only after being asked one too many times about his religious affiliation (“A sort of jackass Episcopalian,” he told one questioner) that it dawned on
him that the “C” on his arm was suggesting to everyone who saw him that he was a chaplain.

The confusion was fairly well cleared up by the time Cronkite joined the convoy on its way to North Africa. Though the contingent of reporters on board the
Texas
was small, army and navy public relations staff, along with Clandestine Radio Maroc, had substantially increased the presence of communications personnel in the war, helping to alleviate confusion about who was and who was not a correspondent.

Cronkite settled into his cabin for the voyage, listening to the French chitchat around him. As the
Texas
sailed out of the harbor and into the open sea beyond, the first big wave that hit the ship sent water cascading through a hatch left open above their quarters. Cronkite watched with some bemusement as the aristocratic radio team, soaked and assuming the
Texas
was swamped, raced “
halfway across the wardroom to the boats” wearing their fancy civilian pajamas. It was only after they saw the totally calm officers in the wardroom that they realized “all was normal, with no indication that the
Texas
was soon to sink.”

On the nearby flagship
Augusta
, George Patton was already beginning to acclimate himself to the voyage. He found the mess on the ship to be excellent and cautioned himself about eating too much during the two-week voyage. Someone had given him a rowing machine so that he could exercise while on board. For reading material, he’d packed the Koran, in order to get a better sense of Moroccan culture, which he’d soon be experiencing for the first time.

The
Augusta
left the harbor at 8:10 on Saturday, the twenty-fourth. Patton’s central part of the task force, the largest contingent in the convoy, would sail at a slight northeasterly angle, as if heading for England. The southern and northern groups would head toward Bermuda, on a southeasterly course. A rumor had been purposely spread that they would be heading for Haiti to perform maneuvers in the Caribbean. A third contingent, a covering group composed of the battleship
Massachusetts
,
two cruisers, and four destroyers, had sailed from Casco Bay in Maine to the southeast on the twentieth. When all elements of the convoy finally rendezvoused out in the Atlantic on the twenty-sixth, there would be more than one hundred ships steaming toward North Africa.

Aboard the
August
along with Patton was the task force’s naval commander, Admiral Hewitt, to whom Patton was finally warming. He told his diary that the admiral “
impresses me better” each day.

In the sky above Hampton Roads,
two silver blimps, serving as spotters for the vessels below, mirrored the panoply as it sailed slowly and gracefully out through the channel to the ocean.

N
ow two days behind the rest of the ships but repaired and fully loaded, the
Contessa
was buttoned up and ready to go the morning of the twenty-sixth. Unfortunately, she still lacked a full crew. With the addition of the one sailor from New York, fourteen crewmen were needed in the engineering department and fourteen needed as deckhands and in the steward’s group.

Another hand arrived by way of the War Shipping Administration—an intern from the Merchant Marine Academy; and the
Gloria
, that tanker newly arrived to Hampton Roads, provided some relief in the engineering department. Seven of its crew members, including an engineer and a third officer, agreed to sail with the ship in the convoy. But even this addition was problematic to poor Wilder. Because it was a merchant ship whose crew would be paid at a higher rate than they, the
Gloria
crew members wanted a bonus for sailing with the
Contessa
, and the navy was slow to grant the request. In desperation, Wilder agreed to pay the extra funds without having authorization from the U.S. Navy. By this time, no doubt, he was ready to pay the wages out of his own pocket if it meant getting this ship to sea.

Meanwhile, the calls kept coming. General Gross wanted to know if the
Contessa
had yet sailed. Still waiting on a crew, Wilder told him. Colonel Franklin called with the same question. He got the same answer.

Captain John phoned to let Wilder know that he had one more recruit in hand: his own brother-in-law, the salesman Bill Sigsworth, had agreed to sail with the
Contessa
as a part of the steward’s department. According to family members, Bill Sigsworth
had always wanted to work at sea but had never had the chance. Well, here it was, the opportunity to sail on a memorable first voyage.

By midmorning, Wilder was joined in his office by Lieutenant Leslie,
the new “cocaptain” from the armed guard. Then came four representatives of the Standard Fruit Company: Hall and Ramizel from New York and Weiss and Koontz from Hampton Roads. The irony of the situation was obvious to all of them. Here they were in one of the great shipping capitals of the United States—one of the great shipping capitals of the world—and yet they couldn’t find eighteen sailors to fill out the roster of an old merchant ship wanting to sail across the Atlantic.

Whether it was a solution that had been bandied about earlier or came in a flash Wilder does not say, but out of this gathering finally came the answer to their dilemma.
In his notes, Wilder does not give the name of the person who said it first but the resolution seems to have been quickly agreed upon:
Why don’t we fill out the crew with sailors from the Norfolk County Jail?

It was, after all, Monday morning in Hampton Roads. The jail was no doubt bursting with weekend drunks and truants. Among the crowds that had been boozing and brawling in the juke joints down on East Main Street and taking cabs out to the stockades to hook up with the ladies in the trailers would certainly be enough qualified seamen to fill out the crew of the
Contessa
. Surely the Norfolk County Jail and the courthouses would have no problem disposing of a few of their overwhelming number of cases if it meant lessening overcrowded dockets and providing assistance to the recently departed convoy.