Operation Torch — Map

Operation Torch was the first major Anglo-American offensive of the war and the first time U.S. troops fought in the European theater. On 8 November 1942 three task forces went ashore in French North Africa at once. The Western Task Force under Patton landed at Safi, Fedala and Mehdia around Casablanca. The Center Task Force took Oran. The Eastern Task Force took Algiers.

The Western force had sailed straight from Virginia across the Atlantic, some 4,500 miles. The opposition was French, not German: Vichy garrisons that fought for three days before a ceasefire on 11 November.

Hitler answered by pouring troops into Tunisia through the port of Tunis. The fight for North Africa the Allies hoped to win in weeks took until May 1943. The piece is drawn as a period-style campaign map.

Most of this map is water. The Mediterranean runs pale blue across the top and the coast of North Africa is drawn in warm sand and ochre, with Spain and Portugal hatched above it. Five blue arrows curve in from the west and settle on the coast at Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. The only red on the page is a small crossed box in Tunisia, pointing back the other way — the shape of the next six months.