The Quiet Preparations for Torch

On 22 October 1942, the first ships of the invasion fleet for Oran left Scotland. On the same day, a small fishing village on the Algerian coast hosted a meeting whose purpose was less visible: finalizing plans for the Allied invasion of North Africa. The preparations were not yet the landings, but they were no longer merely plans on paper. ([On This Day](https://www.onthisday.com/events/october/22))

The meeting was Operation Flagpole. U.S. Major General Mark Clark and Brigadier General Lyman Lemnitzer met Vichy French Général Charles Mast secretly at Cherchell. The source identifies the location as a small fishing village and gives the meeting’s purpose plainly: to finalize plans for the invasion. It did not describe a grand conference or a public agreement. The detail that mattered was that the Allied officers and a Vichy French general had met, in secret, to settle the arrangements. ([On This Day](https://www.onthisday.com/events/october/22))

The day therefore left two different traces in the record. Ships began their passage from Scotland toward Oran; Clark, Lemnitzer and Mast worked through the invasion plan at Cherchell. One movement was at sea, the other in a village. Both belonged to the same approaching operation, though the sources did not specify how the meeting’s decisions related to the ships’ departure that day. ([On This Day](https://www.onthisday.com/events/october/22))

The invasion followed on 8 November, when Allied forces landed in French North Africa under Operation Torch. The operation targeted Oran, Algiers and Casablanca; the landings opened a campaign that continued into 1943. The Second Battle of El Alamein, meanwhile, began on 23 October, the day after the Cherchell meeting and the fleet’s departure. In the North African theatre, the calendar offered no pause between preparation and another major battle. ([HISTORY](https://www.history.com/articles/world-war-ii-battles-timeline); [Imperial War Museums](https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/a-short-guide-to-the-war-in-africa-during-the-second-world-war))

Cherchell’s place in the story was modest in scale and substantial in purpose. The meeting did not seize a port or mark the start of the invasion. It brought Clark, Lemnitzer and Mast together to finish plans, while ships bound for Oran were already moving. On 22 October, the operation’s advance party was a conversation; its larger force had begun to sail. ([On This Day](https://www.onthisday.com/events/october/22))