Note on Sources

Sources for this history are now held in six principal repositories: (1) Departmental Records Branch, The Adjutant General's Office (DRB TAGO), Alexandria, Va.; (2) Military Personnel Records Center, The Adjutant General's Office, St. Louis, Missouri; (3) Kansas City Records Center, Kansas City, Missouri; (4) Division of Naval History, Washington, D.C.; (5) Archives Branch, U.S. Air Force Historical Division, Director, Research Institute, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama; and (6) Office of the Chief of Military History (OCMH), Department of the Army, Washington, D.C.

The most important single collection of records in the preparation of this volume has been the AFHQ records. This consists of reports, messages, correspondence, planning papers, and sundry other material on all phases of Operation TORCH and the subsequent campaign in Tunisia. The sprawling body of this collection is in the United Kingdom, but microfilm copies of all these records are located in DRB TAGO. Some of these microfilm copies have been photoenlarged and arranged in file folders. Both the microfilm and the photo-enlarged documents are organized by job and reel number, as well as by a topical or chronological classification. Use of these records is greatly facilitated by two unpublished bibliographical guides: (1) Kenneth W. Munden, Analytical Guide to the Combined British-American Records of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in World War II, prepared in 1948; and (2) the three-volume Catalogue of Combined British-American Records of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in World War II, a more complete listing of these records. Both of these guides are located in DRB TAGO.

Two collections subsidiary to this larger one are the AFHQ Chief of Staff Cable Log and the Smith Papers. The former is located in DRB TAGO and contains an abstract of all incoming AFHQ messages. It was for the use of the Chief of Staff, Deputy Commander in Chief, and Commander in Chief, Allied Force. The complete copies of these documents are in the AFHQ records. The Smith Papers are now at the Army War College Library, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

Much reliance has been placed upon contemporary messages, correspondence, and papers. Although these have not been found in any one single collection, the Operations Division (OPD) records are of the utmost importance for high-level decisions and planning. These are divided into several subdivisions of which the following were used: (1) the official central correspondence files of OPD; (2) Executive Group file (OPD Exec), which contains messages exchanged between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill as well as other high-level papers; (3) the Strategy and Policy Group file (OPD ABC). All of these files are in the custody of DRB TAGO. (4) Microfilm copies of the War Department Message Center file which contains all official incoming (CM-IN) and outgoing (CM-OUT) messages sent to and from Washington during the war are in the custody of the Staff Communications Office of the Office of the Chief of Staff.

Other files and documents which are of importance for the planning, strategy, and high policy are the following:

ETOUSA Incoming and Outgoing Cables, Kansas City Records Center.

CinC Allied Force Diary, in General Eisenhower's custody when consulted. A diary kept for General Eisenhower which contains messages, papers, and other materials.

NAFñFAN messages. These are the messages between CinC Allied Force and the Combined Chiefs of Staff. They may be found in several locations, one of which is AFHQ Microfilm, Supreme Allied Commander's Secretariat. They are listed with other messages to and from the AFHQ Message Center.

Patton Diary. This was in private possession when consulted.

WDCSA file, DRB AGO. This includes correspondence and papers of the Office of the Chief of Staff, Army.

CCS and JCS minutes and papers. Copies are in the custody of DRB TAGO.

The basic sources for the landings in North Africa are the task force reports. The Western Task Force (WTF) Final Report, which is located in DRB TAGO, covers the landings on the Atlantic coast. The Report of Proceedings, Operation TORCH, by the Naval Commander in Chief (NCXF, TORCH Despatch), contains the reports of the Center Task Force (CTF) and the Eastern Assault Force (EAF). TORCH Despatch is part of the AFHQ microfilm collection. These documents are supplemented by various naval reports--action reports and war diaries of U.S. warships as well as other records--which are located in the Division of Naval History, and by the reports and other official records of the U.S. Army units involved.

The story of the ground action was constructed primarily from the reports of the U.S. Army units, which are filed according to the organizational units where they originated, such as II Corps, etc. These documents consist of after action reports (AAR's), histories, journals, war diaries, field orders (FO's), general orders (GO's), situation reports (sitreps), combined intelligence and situation reports (cosintreps), and operations instructions (opn instrucs). They are located in DRB TAGO. The information obtained from these official reports was supplemented by selected monographs prepared at The Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, and at The Armored School, Fort Knox, Kentucky, as well as by diaries and memoirs of other participants.

The records of the British units have not been systematically and completely assembled in the United States in any one collection. Many are scattered among the records of AFHQ or of the American units directly involved. In a few instances photostat copies are held by DRB TAGO. Details concerning the activities of British Army forces were for the most part extracted from an unpublished narrative of the Campaign in Tunisia which was prepared by the Historical Section, Cabinet Office, London, or were furnished in response to specific inquiries.

For the activities of the Allied air forces in North Africa, the work of Thomas J. Mayock in Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. II, Europe--TORCH to POINTBLANK (Chicago, 1949), is indispensable. Historical reports of the Army Air Force are located in the Archives Branch, Research Studies Institute, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. Other records are scattered throughout the

AFHQ collection. Data concerning the Royal Air Force came chiefly from an operational narrative and statistics which were provided by the Air Historical Branch, Air Ministry, London.

The information in the official records has been amplified, clarified, and interpreted in the light of the author's interviews and correspondence with participants, now filed in OCMH. Such evidence depends fundamentally on memory from five to eight years after the events.

Material dealing with relations with the French have come from many sources. The files of the Liaison Section, AFHQ, and of the Joint Rearmament Committee, AFHQ, are in the AFHQ microfilm collection. Also of importance are Haute Cour de Justice, Le Proces du Maréchal Pétain (Paris, 1945), and a documentary appendix for an unpublished report by the U.S. Naval Commander, Europe (Admiral Harold R. Stark), which is entitled U.S.-French Relations, 1942ñ1944. A copy of the latter is held by OCMH.

Certain combat records of French units operating in Tunisia were photo-copied for the files of OCMH by Mr. Marcel Vigneras with the co-operation of the Service Historique de l'Armée, the Ministére de la Guerre, and others in French Army. These consist of the Journaux de marche of the French divisions and armored brigade in Tunisia, of the Commandement supérieur des troupes de Tunisie, and of the XIX Army Corps, and the report written in General Giraud's headquarters after the liberation of French North Africa. The account of German planning and operations is based on original records of the German Army and on a series of interrogation reports and monographs written by German officers after the war.

Included among original records are war diaries (KTB's) and their supporting papers--special orders, reports, telegrams, and conference minutes--of army, corps, and division headquarters. These documents are in the Captured Records Section of the Departmental Records Branch, Alexandria, Virginia. German naval, air force, and diplomatic records were also used to some extent.

The interrogation reports and monographs were prepared under the direction of the Historical Division, USAREUR, by German officers relying at first on unaided memory, and later, on memory supported by copies of pertinent records, and by discussion with other participants. The Foreign Studies Branch, OCMH, has custody of such writings. They are mainly concerned with matters of strategy, logistics, and command and are supplemented by a series of briefer essays on a wide range of topics, including the tactical history of certain task forces in Tunisia. The author used these memoirs in manuscript form; subsequently some of the writers published the substance in books which appeared too late for consultation.

Contemporary archives relating to Italian forces in Northwest Africa are confined to those arising from Italy's association with Germany in the Axis partnership, and to German-Italian military-diplomatic relations. Some of Mussolini's papers have survived, either in the records of AFHQ or elsewhere, and Italian policy is recorded in a special group of Count Ciano's Papers which fell into German hands and were translated into German, the form in which they were recovered at the end of the war. Copies of these papers are in OCMH. Material on Italian operations was also available in the volumes covering the North

African campaign published by the Ministry of Defense, Army General Staff, Rome, Italy, and from other published postwar narratives. Extracts from the diary of Chief of the Italian Armed Forces Staff (Comando Supremo) have been published under the title: Ugo Conte Cavallero, Comando Supremo (Rome, 1948).

Secondary sources are listed only in the footnote citations.

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