Chapter One
Great Expectations

My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure ...

— “Sir Galahad” by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Imagine the scene.

You are a middle-aged Canadian serving in the British Royal Navy in charge of a mostly American task force. You’re commanding an extremely hazardous mission against well-armed French defenders who were once steadfast allies but are now under the thumb of Nazi conquerors. You received confusing orders from the commander of the Allied campaign to capture Oran, the swaggering Gen. Fredendall, who would later be exposed as one of the worst field commanders in U.S. Army history.

Your ship, HMSWalney, has successfully broken into the harbour in the dark of night but is now smack in the middle of a congested Algerian port, taking hit after hit from shore guns and French warships, some of them just yards away.

Most of the crew is either dead, seriously injured or blown into the water, so you have to fearlessly scramble from one end of the ship to the other to get landing lines in place so you can take over the largest French warship with a commando force.Walney and her sister shipHartland are on fire, ammunition and depth charges are exploding, casualties are horrific, but somehow you manage to remain calm and collected, determined to somehow take control of the harbour so it can be used immediately for the massive Allied invasion of French North Africa. No one who witnesses the hellish scene will ever forget it. The famedCharge of the Light Brigade in the Tennyson poem you memorized as a boy, was a picnic in comparison.

Ironically, one of the greatest movies in history,Casablanca, set in the French colony of Morocco after Germany conquered France, finishes production in November 1942, just as Allied troops are landing on beaches in Algeria and Morocco. The Allies have to deal with unpredictability, intrigue and conflicting loyalties similar to the setting of the fictional story in the movie. Unfortunately, the French commander at Oran harbour does not convert to the Allied side when it really counts, like Captain Louis Renault’s last-minute conversion in the movie.

You wonder what happened to the coup by pro-Allied French officers that was supposed to happen in concert with the invasion. You’ll try anything to achieve the mission’s objectives, but you’ll never lower the Royal Navy’s White Ensign or the U.S. Stars and St