Battleship Massachusetts Lights up Casablanca: Operation Torch

Bearing Straight
Bearing Straight
10,385
0
Published 2023-08-26
In this episode of Battle Stars, while technically on her shake-down cruise, USS Massachusetts (BB-59), not only had the unique old-world experience of fighting ships and fortresses, but also the more modern thrill of surviving submarine and aircraft attack during Operation Torch and the attack on Casablanca.

Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/BearingStraightMarketing/

Credits: US National Archives, US Naval Institute, Naval History & Heritage Command, World of Warships Naval Legends

Sources:
1. Vincent P. O’Hara, TORCH: North Africa and the Allied Path to Victory (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2015).
2. Robert J. Cressman, USS Ranger: The Navy’s First Flattop from Keel to Mast, 1934-1946 (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, Inc., 2003).
3. Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. II, Operations in North African Waters, October 1942—June 1943 (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1947; reprinted Naval Institute Press 2010).

Thumbnail: World of Warships, Battleship Massachusetts
All Comments (9)
  • @alanbare8319
    I get to visit USS Massachusetts regularly as I live close to her retirement home at Battleship Cove.
  • @jmc317
    Thanks for the video, I haven't heard about these events since I took my kids to see her 20+ years ago. She's a beauty!
  • @vladlenvronsky
    Very well done! Finally, I have a good picture of how this battle went down. Big Maimie is HUGE! Hard to imagine it functioning at full combat effectiveness and maneuvering! I bet it was a scary sight to behold for the enemy.
  • @JohnnySmithWhite-wd4ey
    The Americans complete Richeleau and she has a almost all American secondary and AA armorment.
  • @cultureshock5000
    were the french destroyers any of teh countretourpilliures .... wondering if teh tourville was part of it i think that was a cruiser... my name is tourville...im from pepperell mass but my family is french