Re: D-Day November 1942
I don't have an exact number for you on your question. In Morocco, where the fighting was heaviest, the US had 337 killed, 637 wounded. Overall, killed amounted to less than a thousand and a good portion of those killed were in accidents related to the landings themselves. High surf and poor beach conditions combined with inexperianced boat crews led to almost half the landing craft involved being constructive losses.
Of course, most of these were later salvaged and repaired but, for the immediate landings having almost 500 boats (337 in Morocco alone) lost was not good. The problem in Morocco was that the landings were on the open Atlantic coast in a region known for its surf.
Another major cause of casualties were two operations at Oran and Safi where the US and British tried to pull a Coup de Main using some cutdown old destroyers to land a commando / ranger force directly into the port. In both cases the French shot these attacks up very badly in a combination of shore battery fire and infantry defense ashore.
The Vichy forces in North Africa did oppose the landings, in some areas for days. They fought in many cases very hard to stop the US landings and advance. Unlike German units in the 7th AOK in Brittany they also had a considerable stock of artillery and several battalions of H39 and D1 tanks that also fought.
Their naval forces sortied against the US (this included a number of destroyers a couple of light cruisers and several submarines) only to be literally slaughtered at sea. Two US destroyers each suffered a couple of shell hits; the extent of their damage. For this, the French lost their entire fleet with the exception of one destroyer.
The French also had a number of shore batteries that engaged the US fleet. The battery and El Hank (outside Oran) in particular was a thorn in the US side right up to the French surrender.
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