Sultan
Mohammed V sided with the nationalists and was deposed in 1953.
This further angered the Moroccan populace. In-country violence
increased.
The Sultan returned from exile in 1955 and Morocco gained its
independence some years later. Many French and Spanish citizens
returned to their countries of origin. French military forces, business
enterprises, and employment for the indigenous population in Morocco
became uncertain, and so did American military presence on Moroccan
territory.
In the years that followed, the Libyan government also changed rulers,
with the results that American use of Wheelus Field, for any purpose,
was revoked. Nevertheless, context and circumstances in North Africa
aside, USAF planning for support to SAC operations under general war
conditions, and for a variety of military contingencies, continued; in its
way, North Africa all along the Med, would likely experience a deja vu of
its WW2 occupations and their consequences. Caught up in a nuclear
exchange, probably worse.
In WW2, oil refineries, and storage and transport nets, such as those in
the Romanian Ploesti complex, were important but extremely costly
targets.
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