North Africa

North Africa enters the memoir as a possible continuation of the war after France’s defeat, not as a secure refuge. Orders send air crews toward Meknès, and the narrator reaches Algiers before learning that the authorities in the region have accepted the armistice. The region thus becomes both a military destination and a test of whether resistance can survive the collapse of official command.

A Proposed Base for Continuing the War

By the time the air crews at Bordeaux-Mérignac Airfield were awaiting instructions, many believed the struggle would continue from North Africa. England was an unpopular alternative among them, while the situation and their next orders remained uncertain. The narrator’s wish to reach England therefore set him against the expectations of many of his fellow airmen, who considered North Africa the likelier theater for continuing the war.

At four in the afternoon, the squadron received orders to proceed to Meknès, in Morocco. The order seemed to confirm that North Africa would remain in the conflict. The crew left Mérignac at five and reached a landing ground on the Mediterranean shore that evening, only to find that every plane there had been forbidden to take off. A new authority had taken control of air movements toward Africa, and earlier instructions were nullified.

Flight and Reversal

With help from a sympathetic pilot, the narrator set course for Algiers at dawn rather than wait for further orders. Their Potez had Petrel engines and no supplementary tanks, leaving a serious risk that it would run out of fuel before reaching the African coast. The aircraft made it to the airfield at Algiers with ten minutes of fuel remaining. The episode presents North Africa not only as a destination on military maps but as a hazardous crossing reached through an unauthorized decision.

The following morning, the crew proceeded to Meknès, where the flying school had established temporary headquarters. There they learned that the North African authorities had also accepted the armistice. After crews intent on reaching Gibraltar had been called deserters, orders grounded all aircraft. The expected base for renewed resistance had become another place from which the airmen could not freely depart.

A Staging Ground for Escape

The narrator’s attempts to find a way to England continued through North African ports and transport routes. In Casablanca, he and two other trainees searched for passage; the harbor gates were guarded, and the last British ship carrying Polish troops appeared to have left. Their prospects changed when they encountered a Polish corporal who told them that the cargo ship Oakrest, carrying Polish troops from North Africa, was due to sail at midnight. With borrowed Polish clothing and a false claim of a special mission, the men passed the guards and boarded.

That departure gives the region a second, distinct function in the memoir. North Africa had first represented the expected continuation of collective military resistance; Casablanca became the point from which the narrator could leave that stalled route and try to reach England. The changing orders, grounded aircraft, guarded harbor, and departing ship make the region a threshold between surrender and renewed service rather than a settled destination.

Narrative Significance

North Africa’s importance lies in the gap between what the narrator and his comrades expect from it and what its authorities permit. The orders to Meknès briefly seem to offer a way to keep fighting, but the acceptance of the armistice overturns that expectation. The narrator’s movement through the region is consequently defined by reversals: military instructions first direct him there, new restrictions confine him there, and a cargo ship finally offers a route out. Its place in the story is strategic and transitional, bound to the uncertain choices facing French airmen after the defeat.