had moved twelve miles inland and taken its objective, Blida airfield. But at Beach Beer a variety of problems—high surf, boat crew inexperience, absent beach guides, engine failures—scattered the 168th Team over fifteen miles of coastline and delayed the British 6th Commando over five hours. Fortunately, landings at Apples and Beer were unopposed. At Beach Charlie, however, coastal batteries fired on transports as the landing craft neared shore. Naval gunfire responded, but then high surf scattered 39th Regimental Combat Team boats, smashing some against coastal rocks. Leaving the boats, most troops found, instead of gradually rising ground, a vertical bluff with stairs cut for sightseers. Overcoming all these difficulties, the troops of the 39th Team moved eight miles inland and took the airfield at Maison Blanche by 0830. But for the rest of the day a fierce battle raged with a French marine artillery battery. Royal Navy surface and air units eventually prevailed, though Axis bombers managed to damage a transport and destroyer.
As at Oran, the British insisted on an antisabotage mission into the heart of the objective area. Operation Terminal called for Colonel Swenson's 3d Battalion, 135th Infantry, to enter Algiers harbor on two Royal Navy destroyers, debark, and secure port facilities for future Allied operations. As the two ships moved toward the bay at 0140 on D-day, Terminal began to resemble the Reservist disaster at Oran. The first ship soon drew a searchlight beam, then hostile fire which drove it back to sea in flames with thirty-five casualties. Ignoring its sister ship's fate, the other vessel ran through the intense fire, tied up along a breakwater, and debarked Swenson and half of his battalion. By 0800 the troops had secured several objectives and seemed on the verge of success when the ship, waiting for their return, came under fire. A few men made it aboard as the ship pushed off, but the rest of the unit was surrounded. When Swenson was forced to surrender his force seven hours after entering the city, Terminal ended in failure, though with fewer casualties than Reservist at Oran.
Algiers presented the Allies with more than military objectives. As headquarters for French forces in all of North Africa, the city incorporated a political character which Allied commanders did not find at other landing sites. Since the fall of France this political aspect had become especially tangled, with the French military deeply fragmented and local commanders promoting various responses to Torch. For Allied commanders on the ground Algiers was a political maze in which a turn toward one French unit might result in a champagne reception while a turn in a different direction might land one in a deadly firelight. This confusion manifested with frustrating clarity for
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