USS Auk (AM-57) - Participation in Operation "Torch"

Participation in Operation "Torch"

After shakedown and training off the Virginia Capes, the new minesweeper operated along the Atlantic coast until October when she received orders to join the Western Naval Task Force for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. She sortied from Norfolk, Virginia, on the 23rd of that month as a part of the Center Attack Group, bound for Fedhala Roads just off the Moroccan coast. Shortly before midnight on 7 November the task force arrived in position and began disembarking troops for the landing at dawn on the 8th. Just a few minutes after 0500, a little French steamer escorted by the trawler Victoria blundered into the columns of transports offshore.

Hogan (DMS-6) investigated the intruders, crossing the French trawler's bow and ordering him to reverse engines. For an answer, the scrappy little Frenchman tried to ram Hogan. The high speed minesweeper swept Victoria with 20-millimeter gunfire and stopped the trawler dead. Auk placed a prize crew on board, then continued screening the transport area.

At 1200, Miantonomah (CMc-5) began laying a minefield to the east as a protection for the Center Attack Group. While screening the minelayer, Auk and Tillman (DD-641) engaged the Vichy French patrol vessel W-43 which was escorting six merchant and fishing vessels through the transport area. They captured the corvette with a minimal amount of trouble and also took three of the other ships.

Auk worked out of Casablanca, French Morocco, operating as a convoy escort, a screening ship, and a harbor patrol boat until 11 April 1943, when she headed west with a homeward-bound convoy. Following her arrival at Charleston, South Carolina, on the 30th, the minesweeper proceeded to Norfolk, Virginia, for drydocking and overhaul. From June to April 1944, Auk escorted convoys from Norfolk and New York to ports in the Caribbean and along the U.S. Gulf coast.