On 8 November 1942, the Allies launched Operation TORCH: a series of amphibious and parachute assaults along the North African coastline designed to sieze important strategic locations from Vichy French forces and prevent them falling into Axis hands. That same morning, a lone reconnaissance aircraft of 1PRU left Gibraltar on sortie G/0229, to take aerial photographs of the ports of Barcelona and Toulon, to assess the reaction of French and Spanish naval forces.