And so, on the morning of Oct. 26, three days after her arrival in Newport News, the Contessa turned her bow toward Africa and her appointment with history. She was loaded with 900 tons of bombs and 400 tons of high-octane gasoline, a cargo that would earn her the nickname "Roman candle."

At sea, the weather turned clear and the Contessa zigzagged along with ease. "When we reached the Azores," Leslie wrote, "I disclosed our destination to the captain and, since we had no knowledge of the convoy's whereabouts, hove to overnight in a moderate northeast gale."

The next morning they continued toward North Africa. At dawn on Nov. 6 a Gibraltar-based British Sunderland seaplane challenged them. The Contessa did not have a code identification, nor had she been furnished with challenges and replies. The Sunderland circled about two hours and, although apparently less than satisfied, left without attacking.

The next day a destroyer approached and the Contessa, with the aid of visual communication, managed to make her position clear. But it was dusk before she finally found her proper place in the invasion fleet.

The invasion was set for Nov. 8. Long before dawn, a netcutting party of 17 men headed for the Sebou. They passed between the two jetties that had been built out into the Atlantic to confine the current and partially protect the river mouth from silting. They soon reached the wire net and boom, which blocked the river inside the jetties, and started to work. However, machine guns at the foot of the Kasba, an old Portuguese-built fortress which guarded the mouth of the Sebou, opened up and they were driven off.

This brought about a change of plans.

Pilot Malevergne had been scheduled to guide the Dallas, an old "four-piper" of 1919 vintage, upriver at dawn to Port-Lyautey airdrome with a raider detachment. Instead, at noon the Dallas attempted to ram the boom but shells from shore batteries twice drove her off.

It was not until the early morning hours of Nov. 10 - two days later - that a netcutting party successfully cut the inch-and-a-half wire of the boom. A half-hour later, Malevergne started the Dallas toward the jetties in heavy rain and darkness. Although the seas were high and breaking, making the Dallas yaw badly, the sturdy, quiet little pilot took the destroyer through the surf and between the jetties. Machine-gun fire opened up on them, but by dawn they had passed through and could see the boom.

Malevergne was dismayed at the sight. It had been cut on the north side, where the water was too shallow for the Dallas. They would have to ram the boom where it crossed the channel and hope that it would part. Before reaching that point the destroyer ran aground and began to pound in the swell that washed in from the sea. By turning on full power, Malevergne managed to barely move the ship through the soft mud. At that moment, French 75 mm guns in the Kasba opened fire. A big shell hit the water dead ahead as the Dallas approached the boom, and another lifted her stern off the mud. The Frenchman turned up 18 knots, hit a point on the boom midway between the two floats, swept it aside, and promptly reduced speed to 15 knots to steam up the river.

Although Malevergne had not seen the Sebou for more than two years, he could still remember with some exactness how the stand bars tended to change from season to season. Today he would face an additional hazard - the French had sunk eight cargo ships in the channel.