In November 1942 the 1st Parachute Brigade was committed to Operation TORCH, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. TORCH should have been a watershed moment the first opportunity for Britain's airborne capability to transition away from being restricted to minor raiding operations to become a component part of the full-scale conventional battle. The three separate battalion-level British airborne operations conducted during TORCH were akin to three individual raids. Two brigade-sized British airborne operations were executed during HUSKY and a third was planned but cancelled. In fact when 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade was temporarily withdrawn from the front line it successfully executed two deliberate, set-piece operations, albeit elsewhere in the Mediterranean. In July 1944 the Brigade withdrew to an airborne base near Rome where it was placed under the command of U.S. Seventh Army to begin training and preparation for the invasion of southern France.