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Took me a while to get around. Here is the Naval Battle of Casablanca. On November 8th, 1942 the Allied forces began Operation Torch. The Western Task Force was landing at serveral locations West (hence the name) of Morocco. The thirty six ship fleet, Task Force 34, was led by Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt. The enemy's flee forty-three ships strong, however many were still in port, and the French battleship, Jean Bart, was still getting fitted out. 6:00 am on the eighth, under the cover of the sea morning mist, the landing craft from fifteen troopships departed. Around 7:00 am, naval guns from the shore open fire on the landing craft starting the Naval Battle of Casablanca. Around the same time, the seven French fighters departed to intercept the Ranger's, and Suwanee's aircraft. However, the French fighters were no match for the overwhelming amount of carrier fighters. The U.S. dive and torpedo bombers made it to the port at 8:04 am. Ten civilian ships, and three submarines were sunk before they were able to escape. The rest of the aircraft began their focus on the Jean Bart. Now regarding naval combat, at 8:20 am, Admiral Hewitt authorized four American destroyers supporting the landing craft to open fire on the French shore batteries. Two destroyers were damaged by the shore batteries. Though Jean Bart was still being fitted, one of the fifteen inch guns were active. Around 8:00 am, USS Massachusetts began firing upon the Jean Bart. The fifth salvo from the Massachusetts damaged the only active turret knocking out the Jean Bart. The landing craft continue to land troops to shore hours after the start of the battle. Around nine twenty o'clock am, the French 2nd Light Squadron, seven ships totally after escaping the harbor under the cover of smoke, destroyed several landing crafts, and shifted their focus to the fleet. Massachusetts and Tuscaloosa engaged the French destroyers Fougueux and Boulonnai. Boulonnai sank at 10:40am. The Massachusetts focus fire on the French destroyer Albatros causing a critical hit which led the destroy to beach itself to avoid sinking. On November 10th, two days after the battle had commence, nine dive bombers from the USS Ranger permanently knocked out the Jean Bart. At the same time, around 10:00 am, Ranger, Massachusetts, and Tuscaloosa dodge torpedos launched by the French submarines Le Tonnant, Meduse and Antiope. The submarine fleet has been stalking TF34 since the first conflict on the 8th. It wasn't until the next day that a German submarine, U-173, torpedoed torpedoed the destroyer Hambleton, the oiler Winooski and the troopship Joseph Hewes. One hundred lives were lost on the Joseph Hewes. The 12th was the last day of the Naval Battle. U-130, under Ernst Kals—torpedoed the troopships Tasker H. Bliss, Hugh L. Scott, and Edward Rutledge; 74 military personal lost their lives. It wasn't until the 16th that U-173 was sunk off Casablanca by American destroyers. Near the shores of Casablanca, two VP-92 PBY Catalina flying boats off Villa Cisneros sunk the Le Conquerant. The Axis lost 462 servicemen, and the Allies lost 174. The Allies won the battle with the lost of four troopships, and 150 landing craft including General Patton's luggage. (FYI, this is just a brief explanation of the Naval Battle of Casablanca)