Twelve Desperate Miles (29 page)

There was not time for second-guessing the idea; no time for wondering what might go wrong if a group of tipplers from the jailhouse were drafted into this mission. Wilder and company simply proceeded.
The county sheriff and a judge needed to be contacted, which was quickly done through the offices of the port. By two fifteen in the afternoon, Ramizel of Standard Fruit was waiting down on East Main Street in Newport News to do a quick survey of fifty inmates hauled from the jail for inspection. Of these he chose eighteen, who agreed to sail with the
Contessa
. They were immediately driven to a navy launch and, in the midst of a stinging sleet storm, were whisked out into the harbor where the
Contessa
was preparing to sail.

A few weeks after the events of late October, one of Lieutenant Leslie’s hometown newspapers in Pittsburgh would describe those who boarded the
Contessa
as a “
bedraggled crew [who] you’d think were the scum of the earth.” But others, including Wilder and the Standard Fruit Company people, understood that most of the prisoners rounded up to fill out the crew “
were good seamen” who had been where they were “
because most of them had done too good a job of celebrating the end of a hazardous trip.”

Among those who joined the crew from the jail were seamen who had worked on Standard Fruit Company ships in the past. Perhaps they had already contacted the Standard Fruit Company reps in Wilder’s office to let them know their whereabouts. Perhaps this helped precipitate the solution to the dilemma on that Monday morning. These were a quartet of Arabs—Ahmed Ali, Ali Salik, Ahmed Mohammed, and Said Mohammed—British nationals, originally from ports around the Gulf of Aden, who were brought on board to work as firemen in the ship’s engine department. Ahmed Mohammed had served under Captain John on the
Amapala
, while Ahmed Ali had served before on the
Contessa
, prior to John’s service as her master.

The inmates also included a trio of Portuguese sailors and a Brazilian who were hired on as able seamen. An Australian named Henry Drummond came on board as a cook’s helper. A couple of young Irish sailors were hired as utility seamen, as were a teenaged Finn named John Sutinen and a seventeen-year-old American boy named John Riccio. A handful of others filled out slots as ABs and utility workers.

Specifically what had caused these sailors to wind up in the Norfolk County Jail was left unrecorded but can be easily imagined. None of them assumed a position of status in the command of the
Contessa
, but almost all fit easily into the realm of a merchant ship.

Only four of the ex-inmates were U.S. citizens, and, like the regular crew on the
Contessa
, the majority were well into their thirties and forties. Most knew the cut of a merchant vessel from stem to gudgeon. All were willing to cross the ocean in a banana boat on a “special mission,”
rather than spend another night in the Norfolk County Jail. But it was only when they climbed on board the
Contessa
that these newcomers learned that they were making a lone run across the Atlantic, outside the protective circle of the gigantic convoy that was already three days ahead of them, and carrying a cargo of bombs and gasoline.

Though Leslie had given his blessing to the idea of hiring this group from the jail, the U.S. Navy’s lack of trust in both the
Contessa
and her regular crew had been exhibited earlier in the orders given to the armed guard commander when he was assigned to the ship. The lieutenant was to make sure the ship’s mission was successfully completed “
whatever the attitude or actions of her crew might be—and to use [his] judgment as to how best accomplish that should the necessity of my taking over arise.” Now added to a mix that the U.S. Navy was inclined to distrust anyway was a gang composed largely of foreign boozehounds and reprobates.

Climbing on board from the launch in the cold, wet sleet, their duffel bags slung over their shoulders, to join the rest of the seamen on board the
Contessa
, the newcomers no doubt felt some sidelong glances. But this was already a heterogeneous lot. Even for a merchant ship, it was a remarkable mix of ethnicities, experience levels, and races. Twenty-six separate nationalities were represented in all. Even the flag the
Contessa
flew—still the Honduran flag of her registry—suggested her mongrel status.

Many, if not most, of the crew were doubtless dedicated to the Allied causes they were serving, but only the navy guard and its officers had actually enlisted in the war effort. The fact that this particular ship had been given a special function and crucial assignment by the commander of the Moroccan invasion, George Patton himself, might have filled some with a sense of pride had they known of that fact. It might have struck others as odd and haphazard, and it’s easy to imagine a stray negative thought crossing some minds:
God help us all if this banana boat has been handed a vital role in the first action of America’s war in Europe
.

What was planned for the
Contessa
on the other side of the ocean was a mystery to everyone on board except Leslie. All the crew knew
for certain was that they were on this voyage together, and if a German U-boat should happen upon them while they were carrying their load, the
Contessa
would first light up the sky and next disappear from the face of the earth.

At ten thirty on Monday, October 26, fully crewed, patched, and loaded, the
Contessa
finally headed out of Hampton Roads with Captain William John at the helm and Lieutenant Albert Leslie at his side. They were slightly delayed at the capes that marked the entrance to the ocean—a pilot was needed to guide them through the minefield that marked the entrance to the bay. After dropping him off, they were soon on their way after the convoy.

T
he Western Task Force, now joined as a vast fleet sailing across the Atlantic from west to east, took its initial tack toward Bermuda to indicate to anyone who might be shadowing that it was likely headed for the United Kingdom. Soon after the rendezvous, however, the convoy took a mighty swing toward the southeast, on a course farther down the African coast than Morocco. The intention here was to suggest a destination of Dakar, which many in the German military considered to be the most likely point of attack if the Americans were going to invade North Africa.

The
Augusta
, with Patton and Admiral Hewitt aboard, was screened by a covey of destroyers. In nine columns of five lines behind the flagship and her consorts were thirty-five transports, with additional cargo vessels and tankers, each separated by about a thousand yards of ocean. Protecting these ships on the flanks were the battleships
Texas
and
New York
. Twelve miles behind this main body of the convoy sailed the air group: one aircraft carrier, the
Ranger
, and four escort carriers—the oil tankers that had been modified to allow them to carry planes that could be launched or catapulted, but not landed. Accompanying this group were a cruiser and nine destroyers. Forty more destroyers served as antisubmarine vessels cruising in both an inner and an outer circle around the convoy. Above it all, planes from the
Ranger
buzzed around the ships, also watching for submarines or any other stray ships that might wander into the group.
In all, the convoy stretched over the ocean in an area of almost six hundred square miles.

If Patton’s force, having just finished its first amphibious landing practice back at Solomons Island, was as green as grass, Hewitt’s U.S. Navy crew was equally fresh to the ocean.
On two ships mentioned by Samuel Morison, the escort carrier
Sangmaon
and the cruiser
Brooklyn
,
fully half of the “bluejackets” were experiencing their first voyages. Many, if not most, of the officers were reservists who hadn’t been to sea in years. Perhaps not surprising, under the circumstances, the assembled ships became “
floating school[s] of amphibious operations. On the capital ships and destroyers, officers and chief petty officers studied the parts they had to play, and on board the transports and carriers there were endless lectures, discussions and rehearsals for all hands. Large silhouettes of the Moroccan coast were constructed from contour maps and from data furnished by the Amphibious Force staff; pictures and models of enemy ships and aircraft were studied; the air pilots were so well indoctrinated in Moroccan geography that by the time they arrived they could fly straight to their designated targets.”

The soldiers crammed into the transports were likewise encouraged to prepare for battle. Training programs were prescribed, according to Truscott, so that every available moment during the voyage should be “
devoted to an intensive training to the end that all men of the command would be conditioned mentally and physically to achieve victory regardless of hostile resistance or privation.” The problem was that in ships where every square inch that wasn’t occupied by a soldier or a sailor was crammed with the stuff of battle, it was damned hard to find space to exercise or train. As Truscott also wrote, “
space is the soldier’s medium,” and it was at a premium on the ships of the Western Task Force.

Individual units and soldiers found creative ways to train. Patton’s friend tank commander Harry Semmes wrote of an officer who felt a need to test the bazookas on board—these were the new rocket-launching weaponry that had been loaded on the transports separately from their operating instructions.
After finally marrying the launchers to their directions, the commander proceeded to assemble some troops to fire practice rounds into the crests of waves from the decks of his ship.

On the
Henry T. Allen
, Nick Craw—the tough-guy colonel of Greek descent who’d made a name for himself duking it out with an Italian lieutenant in Athens prior to the U.S. entry into the war—organized two groups of air-maintenance workers to serve as infantry reserve in the
invasion. Craw, who was the Army Air Force liaison to Truscott’s command, decided that because his personnel weren’t going to be busy until the Port Lyautey field was taken and humming with American P-40s, they ought to be armed, organized, and useful to Truscott should they be needed in the assault on the port.

On the
Susan B. Anthony
, René Malevergne tracked the progress of the ship, noting her crossing of the gulf stream by the seaweed that marked the flow and the fact that the ship was now experiencing shirtsleeve weather. He found a quartet of French-speaking American lieutenants on board and was happy to join in conversations in his native tongue. One of the soldiers, Jacques Bartach, had an artistic bent and started to paint a portrait of Malevergne on the crossing. Bartach also surprised and
delighted Malevergne by his ability to quote Racine and Corneille.

Malevergne’s conversations with Colonel Jack Toffey continued as well. Perhaps trying to allay the Frenchman’s fears, Toffey told Malevergne that the American army “
shall do everything possible to avoid bloodshed. We shall not be the first to fire. But I must tell you also that we have no plans for reembarkation.” Toffey needn’t have worried about Malevergne’s sensitivity to what was about to happen in Morocco. He understood, perhaps better than the Americans themselves, what lay ahead. “Most of these soldiers do not understand that in order to save the French it will be necessary to engage in a cruel and stupid war against them,” he wrote in his diary.

Malevergne studied the maps of the region around Port Lyautey that were on board the
Susan B. Anthony
and added detail about the terrain. Toffey thought his “
G-2 information was invaluable.” Malevergne worried over certain plans that he became privy to while on board. He learned, for instance, that the Americans were hoping to land artillery to the north of the jetty marking the entrance to the River Sebou. Malevergne knew that landscape to be extremely sandy and laden with dunes that would make a crossing difficult. But he was told the amphibious
force had the means necessary to haul even the heaviest guns over the terrain, so he simply noted his reservations.

A week into the trip across the Atlantic, General Truscott came aboard the
Susan B. Anthony
for a briefing, and Malevergne was invited to attend. Afterward, Truscott and Toffey spoke with Malevergne in private and for the first time described his mission in detail. When they reached Mehdia Malevergne would embark on a destroyer whose job would be to force open the estuary and steam upriver. At the Port Lyautey airfield, the ship would land a contingent of commandos, who would quickly subdue the French Moroccan force there and open the airfield to American air traffic. It would be Malevergne’s job to pilot the destroyer to its destination.

Did Malevergne have any objections to this plan? No, he told the general and Toffey. There was, however, one thing that bothered him. “
My civilian clothing,” he told them, “it does not fit this type of operation.” Immediately, Truscott gave the order to equip Malevergne with the uniform of a first lieutenant. “We hope that you will do it honor,” the general told him as he left.

It was Toffey, not Malevergne or Truscott, who later noted that by wearing the uniform of the United States Army, the Frenchman was subjecting himself to the possibility of being executed as a spy, should he be captured on his mission.