Patton writes in his diary: "Last night it was very rough, almost a storm. This morning it is still very rough, with a 40- mile wind...things are bound to get better, as they could not get worse. I have done some extra praying. I hope that whatever comes up I shall be able to do my full duty."

His Casablanca invasion worries Ike the most. Experts say the surf can rise as high as 15 or even 18 feet. Surf over five feet high can wreck an amphibious assault.

Another worry for Patton and Ike is the attitude of General August Nogues, the French Resident-General in Morocco. In 1940, Nogues was ready to continue fighting against Hitler. Now he wavers with indecision.

Before dawn, Rommel's men start pulling out of Alamein. There aren't many left. Not much transport either. Rommel's worries are worsened by reports of large Allied convoys in the western Mediterranean. The Germans believe they are headed for Tripoli in Libya to cut off Rommel's retreat. The Spanish believe they are headed for Italy. The Italians believe they may be headed for French North Africa. Goering scoffs at that idea, another one of his stupid decisions.

In the dark, under shellfire, the Axis forces pack up and retreat, watched by British and New Zealand Long Range Desert Group and Special Air Service patrols. These raiders - one of Britain's great contributions to the war - fire off streams of radio messages to 8th Army headquarters saying that the Germans are in general retreat.

Among the retreating Germans are Capt. Hans Von Luck and his reconnaissance team. His patrolling armored cars struggle through sandstorms, rain, and mud.

At dawn, Monty's tanks advance. Briggs' 1st Armoured Division and Harding's 7th Armoured Division (the "Desert Rats") are both ordered to drive west-north-west to the coast. Gatehouse's 10th Armoured is to move west of Fuka, with Freyberg's New Zealanders in parallel, to capture the string of airstrips near Sidi Haneish, enabling the RAF to move up. The armored cars are to block the road.

The 8th Army jumps to it and by 7 a.m., the British are on the move. 1st Armoured rumbles forward all the way to the village of El Daba, where an 88 mm gun opens fire and hits a British jeep. The shell kills Captain Grant Singer, the man who had captured Von Thoma the day before.

8th Armoured Brigade spots a retreating Axis column and goes hull-down by the road. When the Germans come within range, British Shermans open fire and shred 14 panzers and 29 Italian tanks. The Axis forces get the point and surrender. 8th Armoured takes four guns, 100 vehicles in running order and nearly 1,000 POWs. The British thumb the POWs back, and advance. Soon they find 11 more tanks and several more vehicles abandoned.

2 NZ Division's advance crosses over 7th Armoured's advance line, and the 4th Light Armoured Division runs into 15th Panzer Division. Maneuvering like battleships on the high seas, 4th Light Armoured's Grant tanks charge the Germans, destroy five tanks, and capture two more. Accompanying riflemen of the 1st King's Royal Rifle Corps collect several hundred German and Italian infantrymen as POWs. Among the disheveled and thirsty prisoners are Brig. Gen. Giorgio Masina and his staff, who have been wandering about the desert for two days.

Capt. Harry Dalton, 23rd Battalion's Quartermaster, is driving north when he sees thousands of Italians coming towards him, waving white flags and handkerchiefs. Amazed, he thumbs them back.

As the British advance, they have to drop off troops to act as guards over POWs and minefields, making it more difficult to reach objectives.

On the other side, the German and Italian forces continue to retreat. Rommel goes to the Fuka rendezvous point and watches his men flood in, exhausted. British code breakers locate Rommel from his HQ's radio transmissions, and the RAF bombs Rommel twice, forcing him and Westphal to take shelter in slit trenches.

As Rommel winces under the bombing, he gets word that the British are outflanking him. He orders his men to continue to retreat to Mersa Matruh.

The outflanking force is Pip Roberts' 22nd Armoured Brigade, and its 11th Hussars struggle to find a hole through a minefield in front of them that is also delaying 2 NZ Division. 11th Hussars' engineers probe the minefield, and discover that it's a dummy - one that had been laid by the British during the June retreat. The fake minefield slows the British down, and they aren't through it until 6 p.m. By then, Roberts is nearly out of petrol.

2nd Armoured Brigade also continues to advance, struggling through German slit trenches, gun-pits, and minefields, travelling 55 miles in 12 hours.

Meanwhile, the Axis forces continue to withdraw. The Italian 21st Corps's two divisions, Trento and Bologna, has been nearly destroyed after a stiff resistance. 10th Corps' Brescia and Pavia Divisions, lacking transport, march west hopelessly. 20th Motorized Corps' four tough outfits, Ariete and Littorio Armored Divisions, Trieste Motorized Division, and Folgore Parachute Division, have all been destroyed. Only the Corps HQ and a few companies are left to flee.

The three German divisions are now barely small combat groups, but such is the flexibility of German organization that they are still cohesive units, able to retreat.

At that time, Tito and his 6,000 guerrillas were being surrounded by German, Italian, and Croatian forces. Tito decided to fight his way out, sending his five brigades across the mountains. His route is the exact barrier between the German and Italian zones of occupation. Tito has taken advantage of this line on a map and the confusion that results, to march across Croatia. The result is that Tito's main enemy has been the Croatian National Guard and the Ustaschi militia. The former are utterly ineffectual. Tito's partisans capture them, take their weapons and clothes, and set them free. Two weeks later, the same Guardsmen show up for another losing battle. Tito calls them the "Partisan supply unit."

The Ustaschi militia, however, are another matter. Fanatically loyal to the Croatian head of government, Ante Pavelich, the Ustaschi specialize in vicious atrocities. For example, at the village of Kragujevac, Croatian Ustaschi massacre between 2,300 and 7,000 civilians - in retaliation for a guerrilla action that cost the Germans 40 men.

But the Ustaschi taste for bloodshed boomerangs in Pavelich's face. As his goons spread terror and destruction, they leave in their wake outrage and fresh Partisan recruits. The Partisans find this destruction, and it leaves them horrified. "It looked as if a magician's hand had stopped all life," writes one Partisan of a ravaged valley. "The houses were all razed; nothing but rusted nails, grass, and weeds. Everywhere fruits were ripening, but there was no trace of a human being."

The Partisans move in small detachments, but the main body, with herds and pack animals, is two miles long. Partisans take their wounded with them. The Germans have shot wounded Partisans they have captured. In one battle, the Germans have run tanks back and forth over wounded men. The Partisans retaliate by raiding Axis hospitals and shooting enemy wounded in their beds.

To avoid aerial detection, the Partisans march by night, and rest by day. Tito forbids looting - offenders who steal a pair of shoes or a jug of mil are summarily shot. One-fifth of the Partisans are women, so sexual relations are banned. Persistent offenders are shot.

Nonetheless, Tito himself and some of his top aides take Partisan mistresses. Tito's mistress, Zdenka, poses as his secretary.

Tito's men haul a printing press with them, as well. Every day, throughout the war, they put out their newspaper, Borba.

As the Partisan shuffle across the mountains, liberating villages, they set up municipal governments to replace Ustaschi stooges and murdered officials. They also start a postal service, printing red stars over Croatian stamps that in turn commemorate the Croatian Legion and the Ustaschi forces. The Partisans also run schools and health services.

The Partisans also establish "people's courts," who try captured Ustaschi for their atrocities. In one town, hundreds of peasant women whose families were slaughtered by Ustaschi, come to watch the execution of 50 convicted prisoners. "When the first volley of bullets was fired," Communist writer Milovan Dedijer records, a woman runs up to the dead victims. "She ran at their still warm bodies, jumping over them, with eyes closed, groaning. Her long white skirt became red with blood, but she continued trampling the bodies under her feet, groaning more and more. At last she was taken away from the corpses, her eyes still closed, grey hair wet with seat, the muscles on her face loosened, as though with some kind of inner relaxation."

Chaplains accompany the Partisans. In each town and village, the chaplains find the Ustaschi have killed or driven away all the local Orthodox priests, and desecrated the churches. In one village, there are 216 babies to be baptized. Father Vlado Zechevich, a former Chetnik commander who had joined the Partisans in Serbia, covers his uniform and revolver with a priest's vestment and performs 100 baptisms a day.

Meanwhile, the Partisan army moves on - girl couriers carry messages through enemy lines, by foot, horseback, bicycle, or even motorcycle. Partisans leave behind little units to guard liberated villages and train the hordes of volunteers who join their ranks, eager to avenge atrocity.

Now, in Bihac, Tito claims 150,000 guerrillas under his command. (German intelligence calls it 45,000). Tito also controls one-sixth of Yugoslavia and rules it with his Partisan units and People's Liberation Committees in each town.

He radios Moscow, to set up a national government, and summons 54 delegates from his People's Liberation Committees in a convent decorated with large drawings of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill. The convent is also decorated with Allied and Partisan flags and decorative branches from local evergreen forests. Above the table hangs a banner with the Partisan slogan: "Death to Fascism: Freedom for the Peoples."

Tito pulls the strings, but avoids the spotlight, sitting quietly in the front row of the audience, and appointing Ivan Riba, a Yugoslavian politician, as president. Ribar is flexible. 20 years ago, he outlawed the Communist Party. Now he takes orders from one.

The partisans are now organized into the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. Tito kits his men in German and Italian uniforms - without their Axis insignias and rank badges - and issues each brigade its own flag.

The delegates elect the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia, which approves a non-controversial platform calling for individual rights, private property, and free elections after the war. Nonetheless, Tito has served notice on the Allies that he is not just another guerrilla leader. He is a force to be reckoned with - by all powers.

Guadalcanal is still a nightmare for Japanese and American forces. Rupertus orders the 164th Infantry's National Guardsmen to cross to the east bank of the Nalimbiu River and envelope the inland flank of the Japanese, pinning them against Puller's Marines. As usual, the advancing Americans struggle through intense jungles and swamps.

While the Guardsmen advance, the Japanese 11th Air Fleet emerges from its repair shops and hangars to attack Guadalcanal, in answer to Hattori's requests. 27 Betty bombers and 24 Zeros head south from Buka and Rabaul, in heavy clouds. The cloud cover hides the Japanese from American fighters, and the airfield from Japanese bombardiers.

That evening, the Tokyo Express makes another run, with fifteen destroyers led by the light cruiser Tenryu. Unlike their American counterparts, Japanese light cruisers are poorly armed and armored, and serve as destroyer leaders. Tenryu and five destroyers deliver part of the 228th Infantry Regiment at Cape Esperance. Ten destroyers arrive at Tassafaronga and land the 38th Infantry Division's headquarters, the rest of the 228th Infantry Regiment, and Maj. Gen. Ito, the division commander, and his staff. The Japanese take back 206 construction workers and 142 officers and soldiers, including Kawaguchi. The new men shuffle into column formation and march off into the jungle, for Kokumbuna.

The other five B-17s wave-hop through rain and fog for hours, and reach Gibraltar at 4:20 p.m., local time. Tibbets sees the Rock of Gibraltar looming up ahead of him, and yanks his plane upward. He tells Ike, "This is the first time I have ever had to climb to get into landing traffic at the end of a long trip."

As Red Gremlin streaks in, three British Spitfires race toward them. Gibraltar has sounded Air Red Warning Yellow. The Spitfires wag their wings and escort Eisenhower's plane onto the tarmac.

Gibraltar is packed with American and British aircraft, ranging from huge B-17s to nimble Spitfires.

Ike's arrival in Gibraltar is good news for Winston Churchill in London. The Prime Minister has been worried that German aircraft or weather may have shot down Red Gremlin.

Eisenhower's chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith reports with General Pug Ismay to Churchill. The Prime Minister looks ashen on seeing them, and proclaims, "Don't tell me he's drowned!" Bedell Smith assures Churchill that Ike is safe.

Churchill says, "I never had the slightest idea that it would be otherwise."

On the ground, the Governor of Gibraltar, Gen. Mason-MacFarlane, a Dunkirk veteran, greets Eisenhower, along with his aide, Major Anthony Quayle. Mason-MacFarlane puts Eisenhower up at Government House.

Ike's headquarters is a half-mile inside the Rock, at ground level, cut from solid rock. The operations room is 30 feet high, but Eisenhower and Clark share one small room. The tunnels are cold, damp, and dismal, the gloom punctuated by naked light bulbs.

However, Gibraltar is bombed - three times a day - by long-range Italian bombers, whose bombs are inaccurate, often falling on Spanish soil.

At 10 p.m. that evening, Ike informs London that Allied Force Headquarters, Gibraltar is open for business.

For 32-and-a-half hours, the four convoys transit the Straits of Gibraltar. German and Italian spies watch them head east at 14 knots.

Another operation off the French coast, however, proceeds. General Henri Giraud is ready to head for Gibraltar from a villa near Toulon's Cape Negre. Giraud and his party - which includes his son - prepare to leave, but a terrible storm arises, preventing anyone from sailing out. The fisherman assigned to ferry Giraud to the submarine HMS Seraph says it is impossible to leave port. Giraud insists otherwise. The fisherman's wife starts screaming her head off, alerting the neighbors.

Giraud decides to head out to the rendezvous with an amateur crew, suitcases in hand. As Giraud and party head out, the violent wind changes direction and the sea becomes calm. Giraud and his party board their motor boat and sail into the calm. One of the Frenchmen flashes his recognition signal. Out of the dark, HMS Seraph flashes back a blue letter A. Two British Commandos reach out for Giraud. The general misses his footing and hangs suspended for a moment or two between boat and submarine. Then he manages to hold onto Seraph. Once aboard, the nominal American commander of the submarine, Capt. Jerauld Wright, a future admiral - the actual boss is Royal Navy Lt. Richard Jewell - welcomes Giraud.

HMS Seraph signals Gibraltar, "Task done. Radio failing." At Gibraltar, the message is interpreted as "task gone." Panic ensues at Gibraltar, and the Fleet Air Arm launches British and Canadian Sunderland flying boats to find Seraph.

Leif Larsen and his two charges, meanwhile, are also in the hands of Swedish army officers. During the interrogation, the phone rings. It's the Germans, warning the Swedes that Larsen and his pals are wanted by German authorities for murdering a German soldier on the road. "Right," says the Swedish officer.

He asks Larsen about the murder.

"Don't know anything about it," Larsen answers. "We didn't take that road." The Swedes don't press the matter.

The Swedes reunite Larsen and Brewster and take the whole lot in hand, and they ultimately return to Britain.

All except Evans. The Germans take him to hospital. While there, Gestapo agents interrogate the wounded Briton. With the operation over, Evans gives full details, in an effort to prove he is a sailor on active duty, not a spy, and therefore, subject to the Geneva Convention.

The Germans are not impressed. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Oberkommando Wehrmacht, orders Evans to be subject to the "Commando Order," enacted in the wake of the Dieppe Raid. This document, a violation of the Geneva and Hague Conventions, mandates the execution (by firing squad) of captured commandos.

On January 19, 1943, Evans is shot.

Operation Title is over. Despite its failure, Larsen receives a Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, the first non-Briton to do so, and Brewster the Distinguished Service Cross. The Admiralty records the operation as "the achievement of penetrating to within 10 miles of the berth occupied by the Tirpitz represents, on the part of the personnel and particularly that of the Norwegians, a fine example of cold-blooded courage."

But now, African troops marching south towards Ihosy, in the island's southwest corner, see a French car driving north. Annet is ready to surrender. His forces have held out for six months and one day, achieving his primary objective. Under French law, the island's defenders are now entitled to higher pay and awards for enduring more than six months in combat.

Hostilities cease at 2 p.m. Of the Frenchmen who go in the back, half the officers, two-thirds of the NCOs and all of the enlisted men (other ranks) join up with Charles De Gaulle's Free French forces. Many of the French officers who support Vichy do so for a simple personal reason: their personnel records are in Paris, accessible to the Vichy government. The officers fear that if they disobey Vichy in any way, their pensions would be wrecked.