'And nobody moves, nobody protests?'

A little before midnight, Saturday, 7 November 1942, there is a certain amount of excitement in the streets of Algiers. Little by little, several hundred men in civilian clothes, armed with different types of weapons and wearing an armband with the letters VP, take control of a number of strategic places by brandishing orders signed by the major of the Algiers garrison. It was at the Villa des Oliviers on the El-Biar heights of Algiers that the American consul Robert Murphy came to tell General Alphonse Juin, military commander of French North Africa, about the landing in progress. The Americans in Algiers, led by General Clark and Consul Murphy, justify themselves with the same arguments when talking to the conspirators of 8 November. Overnight Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle is swaggering around Algiers. He swaggers packing a revolver. It seems he is a staff sergeant.