World Battlefronts: Key in Hand

Madagascar’s last important port, Tulear, surrendered to British naval forces. The island’s main railway was occupied by South African troops. Vichyfrench officers and their dark Malagasy troops laid down their arms, happy at the prospect of the continued pensions promised by the British. Only in isolated southern sections were there still Vichy adherents under arms. These sections were Britain’s for the taking.

Three weeks after opening the second Madagascar campaign (TIME, Sept. 21), Britain was in possession of a key island that controls the southern gateway to India and the Middle East, a source of graphite, rice and beef, a base where, had it fallen to the Axis, the Luftwaffe and Japanese air force might have met.