SECRET MISSION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 25, 30 January 1943, Page 8

SECRET MISSION

HAD NARROW ESGApf

AFRICAN PRELUDE

(0.C.) LONDON, November 13. The negotiations which enabled the Allies to land in North Africa with the minimum of resistance were carried out in highly dramatic circumstances with pro-Allied French leaders. : \ According to the; "Daily;; Telegraph's" special correspondent at Allied Headquarters in.North Africa a small party' of British and American Army officers secretly entered the ter-v ritory by submarine, ship, any and ■railway./ >' •: ••- ■ " :'■'■■■ .•■■•'■. r-.';v_ ■'>•'"■. General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Nor,th Africa, said that earlier in the year the Anglo-American - High Command knew that the vast majority of sentiment in French North Africa was anxious to avoid Nazi domination and, eager to co-operate- with Britain and America. "We started preparing then, he said. "It was necessary to send a professional group to get the reaction of North Africans, because we would be crazy to proceed in the dark. "The fact that land resistance was not terrifically great anywhere and that we did not have to land in a place where opposition was great testifies to the.success of the mission. # "All the men taking part in the mission's success will be recommended for American decorations." . From the earliest stages French leaders, representatives of General Henri Giraud, insisted that the Vichy navy should be regarded as most certain to oppose any such Allied plan. MEMBERS OF PARTYJ General Clark, aged 46, the youngest general in the United States army and Deputy Commander to General Eisenhower, who was head of the party, told the correspondent some of his adventures in a drama as thrilling as any the North African territory has provided for fiction writers. He said that he went to Algiers after "a. certain group of people in North Africa had asked for a conference with an American general. "To get there," he said, "I used planes, trains, ships, submarines, canoes, automobiles— everything but mules." .' ,' ~ The other members of the expedition were Captain C. Courtney, Captain R. Livingstone, and Lieutenant ;J. Foot, British Command officers, i ana Brigadier-General Lyman Lemmtzer, Colonel Archelaus Hamblen, Colonel Julius Holmes, all of the United States army. All volunteered for the hazardous exploit ,- ' _ . . In addition, members of the, Special Service Brigade and 61 a special boat section of combined operations accompanied the reconnaissance. DELAYED SIGNAL DRAMA. Details of how they got to Algiers are still military secrets, but at one point on the coast they had to look for' a light which would be shining from the window of an isolated house, where they were to talk with French leaders. The light failed to appear. The mission thought that it had been trapped. It waited for 24 hours. Finally, late one night, they saw the light shining through the darkness. They cautiously made their way towards it and entered a gloomilylighted house, where they were greeted warmly. The owner of the house had sent his wife away on a holiday, and had told the Arab servants to take a few days off, as they would not be needed because of his wifes absence. : . . • The Arabs became suspicious. They later told the police of mysterious movements in the house, which nearly put the party in the hands of the local authorities, loyal to Vichy. The police raided the house. There was just, time for the brightly uniformed French officers, to make a quick change into civilian clothes." "I never saw such excitement m my life," General Clark said. "Maps disappeared like lightning. The French general changed his clothes in a minute. I last saw him going out of the window." A HURRBED RETREAT; ■General Clark and his staff gathered their papers and guns and hid in an empty wine cellar for an uncomfortable two hours. The Vichy police search, plus the protestations by the proAllied French officers, "sounded in the cellar like a riot." , , The tall, angular general crouched in the cellar- with a revolver in one hand. "If the police came down I was undecided whether to shoot them or bribe them," he said. - ■" After the mission had spent an hour in hiding the police left partly satisfied. The mission decided that there was no time to waste. Gathering them papers, they deported. Their two boats upset. . •■>; . • "|/e lost almost every stitch of our clothes and £4500.'" said General Clark. The * party scrambled ashore with only their papers and underclothes and hid in the woods during the day, alternatively walking'and shivering. Finally they reached a Secret destination 'where transport whisked : them out of North Africa. ■ Even then their mission remained secret, as they could not be recognised anywhere until they reached London, eight days after their start. Major-General Clark was afterwards promoted to the rank of lieutenantgeneral. .