After the Allied Task Forces’ amphibious landings, an
overland assault from Algeria was necessary to seize the Tunisian ports of
Bizerte and Tunis, since the Axis air presence in Tunisia and Sicily had
negated a simultaneous seaborne landing to achieve those objectives. Five
German fighter groups and dive-bombers had transferred to Tunisian airfields
since November 8, 1942. Although Tunisia was relatively small, extending only
160 miles east to west and 500 miles north to south, it was still more than 400
miles from Algiers, from which Lt. Gen. Kenneth Anderson’s Eastern Task Force
troops would have to begin their overland advance.
The overland advance was scheduled to begin on the night of
November 24, and Anderson’s force was made up of the British 78th Infantry
Division, under the command of Maj. Gen. Vyvyan Evelegh, and an armored
division, along with several smaller supporting American armor and
reconnaissance contingents. This force would attack on three axes. The first
objective was Tunis, followed by the encirclement of Bizerte to compel its surrender.
The British troops were divided into three infantry brigade groups (IBGs). In
the north, toward Bizerte, the 36th IBG would advance along a road 10 miles
inland from the sea. In the south the 11th IBG would be 40 miles inland and
advance in a northeasterly direction toward Tunis. A third IBG, Blade Force,
would move in between the other two units, 20 miles inland, and meet with the
11th IBG near Tebourba, due west of Djedeida, for the continued eastward
advance toward Tunis.
The first clash with Axis forces occurred on November 16 at
Djebel Abiod, with the enemy retreating toward Bizerte after losing eight
tanks. Despite this, the Allied attack commenced as scheduled. The 11th IBG was
stopped at Medjez el Bab along the southern axis; however, the Germans
retreated within twenty-four hours and the town of Tebourba was taken on
November 27, with Axis forces withdrawing to Djedeida. Blade Force’s 100
American and British tanks moved east at sunrise on November 25. The initial
American-German armor engagement occurred on November 26 at Chougui, north of
Tebourba, with the enemy again retreating after several tanks were knocked out
on both sides. After a delay the 36th IBG started its advance on November 25–26
and ran into fixed enemy defensive positions on November 28, 30 miles to the
west of Bizerte, at Djefna.
Axis defenses were stiffening, which subsequently stalled
the advances of the 11th and 36th IBGs. Panzer Mk VI (“Tiger”) tanks made their
combat debut at Djedeida, 13 miles to the west of Tunis, proving their
superiority over extant Allied armor. German air squadrons enjoyed local
superiority due to hard-surface airfields east of the Atlas Mountains and more
favorable weather, enabling them to attack Allied armor and infantry columns,
thereby impairing their mobility, which was a factor that Eisenhower and his
local commanders had counted on. Axis counteroffensives in early December from
Djedeida pushed back to just east of Medjez el Bab along the southern axis
while inflicting losses of roughly 500 tanks and vehicles as well as 70
artillery pieces. More than 1,000 Allied troops became prisoners of war.
Nonetheless, General Anderson planned to continue his attack
on Tunis to commence on December 22, 1942. After reinforcements arrived, almost
40,000 Allied troops, now including French forces, would strike at fewer than
25,000 Axis combat troops under the command of German general Walter Nehring’s
XC Corps. Elements of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division and British Coldstream
Guards advanced up the lower ridges of Longstop Hill, which was the dominant
terrain feature controlling the river corridor to Tunis, on December 22 during
heavy rain. However, on December 24, a German counterattack halted the Allied
advance up the slopes, and within forty-eight hours a withdrawal was ordered,
with more than 500 casualties. The Allies’ highly anticipated “race for Tunis”
ended in failure.
Now the Allies would have to wait for better weather since
the vital need for improved air support to aid the newly formed British First
Army in the north, comprising five divisions (with the British 6th Armored and
78th Infantry Divisions as the current nucleus), to fight the Axis armies had
become readily apparent. Also, Maj. Gen. Lloyd R. Fredendall would command the
U.S. II Corps in central Tunisia, which was to include regiments from the 1st
and 2nd Armored Divisions as well as infantry from the 1st, 3rd, 9th, and 34th
Divisions that moved up from their Moroccan and Algerian landing zones.
Eventually the French XIX Corps, after being equipped by the Americans and
under the command of Gen. Louise-Marie Koeltz, would be stationed between the
British First Army and Fredendall’s U.S. II Corps.
Also in December 1942, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring,
commander in chief (C-in-C), South (in control of Tunisia and Rommel’s Axis
forces retreating through Tripolitania), activated the German 5th Panzer Army,
under Gen. Hans-Jürgen von Arnim. This 5th Panzer Army would comprise the 10th
Panzer Division near Tunis; an armored division under Col. Friedrich Freiherr
von Broich (Division von Broich) near Bizerte; the 21st Panzer Division, under
Lt. Gen. Hans-Georg Hildebrandt; the 334th Infantry Division; and the 5th
Fallschirmjäger Regiment. The Italian XXX Corps would comprise the 1st Superga
Division, the 47th Grenadier Regiment, and the 50th Special Brigade to the
south. Eventually Rommel’s Panzer-Armee Afrika would join von Arnim with the
intent to move westward as a combined force to push the Allies back into
Algeria and, perhaps, Morocco. For this operation the Axis would have to have
control of the mountain passes in the Eastern and Western Dorsal Mountains of
central Tunisia.
On January 30, 1943, a battle group of the German 21st
Panzer Division and the Italian 50th Special Brigade, the latter with Semovente
assault guns, attacked a French regiment in the Faïd Pass in the Eastern Dorsal
near Sidi Bou Zid on the Sfax-Sbeitla road and defeated them there. An American
counterattack with limited infantry and armor forces from Sbeitla failed to recapture
the Faïd Pass and other neighboring ones, now defended by German 88mm antitank
(AT) guns. Also, Fredendall’s II Corps’ advance during the last week of January
on the Maknassy road junction via Sened—more than 30 miles to the southeast
with his Combat Command C of Maj. Gen. Orlando Ward’s 1st Armored Division—had
to be recalled and redirected to Sidi Bou Zid instead, just to the southwest of
the Faïd Pass, as a crisis was unfolding to the north.
The loss of the Faïd Pass and failed counterattacks there
from January 31 to February 1 would set the stage for further German offensive
movements. On February 14 columns from both the 21st and 10th Panzer Divisions,
under von Arnim, with more than 200 tanks combined broke through a thin
American armor defensive line at Sidi Bou Zid from two different directions.
The 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions made contact with one another to the west of
Sidi Bou Zid at nightfall on February 14 to consolidate their gains. A failed
American armored and mechanized infantry counterattack the next day led to the
capture of approximately 1,500 GIs. More than 150 American tanks, half-tracks,
artillery pieces, and trucks were left on the Sidi Bou Zid battlefields. The
U.S. 1st Armored Division’s Combat Command A (CCA) had been crushed.
The Tunisian battlefield, mid-February 1943. After the
Allies failed to win the race to Tunis in late November and December 1942,
General Eisenhower called a halt to offensive operations and consolidated his
forces while awaiting better weather. The British 1st Army was deployed in
northern Tunisia with both armored and infantry divisions. In central and
southern Tunisia, the French 19th Corps, under General Louis-Marie Koeltz, was
positioned to the south of the British and to the north of the U.S. II Corps,
under Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall. The American II Corps comprised the 1st
Armored Division, with its dispersed armored combat commands, and the 1st
Infantry Division, which, likewise, had its 16th, 18th, and 26th Regiments
scattered along a 200-mile front from north to south. Elements of the U.S. 34th
Infantry Division were also assigned to the II Corps sector; however, their
deployment was also scattered. The 5th Panzer Army, under Gen. Hans-Jürgen von
Arnim, had its headquarters in Tunis; however, its infantry and armored
divisions were situated along a defensive line running down the eastern side of
the Eastern Dorsal Mountains from the Mediterranean coast in the north to the
impassable Chott Djerid salt marshes to the south of El Guettar. Major elements
of 5th Panzer Army’s two panzer divisions, the 10th and the 21st, would force
through the Eastern Dorsal Mountains during the second and third weeks of
February, thereby preempting a U.S. II Corps offensive, which theoretically could
have split the Axis forces if it reached the sea at Sfax. In addition, von
Arnim’s and Field Marshal Rommel’s separate armored offensives inflicted major
defeats on the Americans at Sidi Bou Zid and at Kasserine on February 14–15 and
February 20–22, respectively. Upon entering Tunisia, Rommel’s Panzer-Armee
Afrika was situated in the south along the Mareth Line and was renamed the
Italian 1st Army as major armored elements of the Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK)
were transferred to the German 5th Panzer Army in central Tunisia. The Italian
20th and 21st Corps, with some armor in the former, would remain in the south
with elements of the DAK to combat Gen. Bernard Montgomery’s advancing 8th Army
from the south.
On Kesselring’s direct order, von Arnim’s 21st Panzer
Division continued 25 miles farther to the west, in the absence of another
American counterattack, on February 16. Around Sbeitla were the remnants of the
U.S. 1st Armored Division’s CCA and Col. Paul Robinett’s CCB. The Germans captured
Sbeitla on February 17 after some lackluster fighting by the demoralized CCA,
necessitating the withdrawal of CCB. The U.S. II Corps, after suffering
extensive losses to the German armored thrust, had to establish a new defensive
line through the Kasserine Pass, just to the southwest of Sbeitla, on the road
toward Thala.
Enter Rommel! Since Gen. Bernard Montgomery’s Eighth Army
had outrun its supplies and needed time to reassemble its lines of
communication, so Rommel strengthened the Mareth Line in southern Tunisia with
his infantry (now to become the Italian First Army under General Maresciallo
Giovanni Messe) and utilized the mobile elements from his retreating
German-Italian panzer army to seize Gafsa and Feriana on February 17, followed
by the capture of the Allied airfield at Thelepte along with many aviation
stores. Meanwhile, on February 17, von Arnim sent the 10th Panzer Division
north toward the Fondouk and Pinchon Passes, while leaving the 21st Panzer
Division at Sbeitla. On February 18–19, Kesselring approved of Rommel’s plan
over von Arnim’s to now attach both the 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions to
Rommel in order to attack the U.S. II Corps defenses in the Kasserine Pass area
on February 19. After getting through the Kasserine Pass through the Western
Dorsal, Rommel could threaten Tebessa, the American supply base in Algeria on a
road and railway network, and/or strike northwestward toward Thala and Le Kef,
which would place him in the rear of the British First Army in northern
Tunisia.
Rommel attacked the Kasserine Pass with his former Deutsches
Afrikakorps (DAK) mechanized forces, while the 10th Panzer Division was still
en route, during the early hours of February 20. The 21st Panzer Division
attacked Sbiba directly due north of Sbeitla; however, this German force was
repelled by Allied forces there. Initially opposing Rommel were only an
American engineer regiment and a battalion of the U.S. 26th Infantry Regiment
of the 1st Infantry Division. Other elements of the U.S. 39th Infantry Regiment
of the 9th Infantry Division also arrived. Anderson reinforced the road to
Thala by ordering in contingents of the British 26th Armoured Brigade. Late in
the afternoon elements of the 10th Panzer Division (without its Mk VI Tiger
tank battalion) arrived, and along with Rommel’s German-Italian troops, they
attacked to get through the Kasserine Pass with the intent of moving on either
Thala to the northwest or Tebessa to the west. This German advance caused some
Allied units to begin to retreat or become surrounded. Also, the armor of the
British 26th Brigade, which had initially held off the German armor on the road
to Thala, was finally overwhelmed with enemy reinforcements. Rommel’s Italian
tanks were moving on the road toward Tebessa. Fredendall sent in Robinett’s CCB
and other units of the 1st Infantry Division to block the further movement of
Axis armor in light of the disintegration of Allied defensive positions.
Rommel consolidated his gains in the Kasserine Pass on
February 21 as he vacillated in moving on Tebessa, Thala, or Le Kef (via
Sbiba). As a result, he divided his battle groups along the three different
road axes of advance, and each was to encounter increasing Allied strength. The
Axis attempt to break into Thala was rebuffed by British armor; American
artillery, including 105mm and 155mm howitzers of the 9th Infantry Division;
and Allied fighter sorties, on the morning of February 22. American tank and
artillery fire from Robinett’s CCB halted the Axis movement on Tebessa on
February 21. The 21st Panzer Division’s movement along the road axis toward
Sbiba was, likewise, stopped by British armor and American infantry defensive
positions. By the afternoon of February 22, Rommel had realized that although
his initial forays into the Kasserine Pass had been successful, a combination
of stiffening Allied resistance along the axes of his advance, his waning fuel
reserves, and the threat of Montgomery attacking the Mareth Line well to the
southeast all necessitated him to issue a withdrawal order late on February 22
for all units. By the next day most of the German and Italian units had left
Kasserine Pass.
After Sidi Bou Zid and Kasserine, Eisenhower altered his
command structure by appointing the British general Sir Harold R.L.G. Alexander
the new leader of the 18th Army Group. For the final drive to capture Tunisia, Alexander
would have twenty divisions in three main groups along a front of 140 miles.
The formation of a Mediterranean Air Command under British air chief marshal
Sir Arthur Tedder in late February would hopefully obviate some of the
inadequacies of the Allied air presence up till then. It would comprise the
242nd Royal Air Force (RAF) Group, the XII Air Support Command, and the
Tactical Bomber Force. Maj. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. was to take over the
command of II Corps from Fredendall, with Maj. Gen. Omar N. Bradley as his
deputy.
On February 26 von Arnim launched an offensive against the
British in northern Tunisia to expand his perimeter of defense for Tunis. Von
Arnim’s 5th Panzer Army would operate north of the area of Gabès, while Rommel
would stand his forces facing southward toward Montgomery and his advancing
British Eighth Army. On March 6 Rommel attacked Montgomery at Medenine;
however, Eighth Army artillery and AT gunfire, along with RAF attacks on Axis
columns, halted the German field marshal’s last Tunisian offensive.
In mid-March the Eighth Army prepared to assault the Mareth
Line with several of its divisions. The Mareth Line consisted of a series of
outdated blockhouses and entrenchments built by the French in the late 1930s to
protect southern Tunisia from Mussolini’s Tripolitania outposts. It ran roughly
from east to west halfway between Medenine to the south and Gabès to the north.
The Mareth Line was to defend the plain between the Matmata Hills and the sea.
To the west of the Matmata Hills were salt marshes and broken desert. Rommel
harbored grave doubts about the suitability of the Mareth Line to stop
Montgomery and left Africa permanently on March 9. After direct attacks on the
enemy fortifications on March 20 failed, separate British operations at such
locales as Wilder’s and the Tebaga Gap from March 23–26 successfully turned the
Mareth positions from the flank and rear, respectively. This compelled the
Axis, under General Messe, to begin its retreat on March 27, first to the north
of Gabès at Wadi Akarit and then farther north to Enfidaville, less than 50
miles from Tunis.
Patton’s II Corps had three full infantry divisions, an
armored division, and the 1st Ranger Battalion, plus engineers as well as field
and coast artillery units, all totaling almost 90,000 men. In mid-March its
first objective was Gafsa, directly due south of Kasserine, to draw enemy
forces away from Montgomery in the south. The 1st Armored Division took Gafsa
without a fight on March 17. Despite extremely muddy terrain, Sened, about 30
miles directly east of Gafsa, was captured with light opposition. The 1st
Armored Division advanced an additional 20 miles to the northeast and took
Maknassy uncontested. Finally, encountering stiff Axis resistance just to the
east of Maknassy, the armored unit stopped its advance on March 22, just as a
German counterstroke was to be unleashed on II Corps infantry at El Guettar,
between Gafsa and Sened.
From March 21–24 the 1st Infantry Division repelled two
major assaults by the 10th Panzer Division utilizing massed artillery, tank
destroyers, mines, air sorties, and hand-to-hand combat. The American infantry
suffered heavy casualties, but the Germans were compelled to withdraw. The
Allied command had received their wish, namely, a diversion of Axis armor away
from the Eighth Army in the south.
Following his victory at El Guettar, Patton unleashed a
two-infantry-division (1st and 9th) attack to the sea between Gabès and Sfax,
which would divide the Axis forces in two; however, the 9th Division, in its
combat debut as a complete division, encountered stiff enemy resistance and
incurred more than 1,600 casualties over nine days of combat. As little
progress to the sea was made in late March and early April by II Corps,
Eisenhower and Patton replaced Orlando Ward with Maj. Gen. Ernest Harmon to
lead the 1st Armored Division on April 5. In any event, the Axis troops
hastened in their northward retreat into the Tunis and Bizerte bridgeheads. II
Corps divisions began shifting north to close in further on the two Tunisian
ports.
On April 15 Bradley took command of II Corps as Patton
returned to the rear echelon to plan the Sicily invasion. II Corps was to
assist the British First Army in pushing back the enemy perimeter, and after
the two enemy ports were isolated, Bradley was to capture Bizerte. Both the 9th
Infantry Division along the coast and the 1st Infantry Division to its south
had rough combat with the enemy in the hilly terrain, with daily success
measured only in yards. On April 26 the 34th Infantry Division entered the II
Corps thrust between the 1st and 9th Divisions. With objectives such as Hill
609 and Hill 523, the American infantry divisions continued to meet fanatical
enemy resistance, with the 1st and 34th Divisions incurring more than 2,300
casualties in three days of nearly continuous combat. On April 30 II Corps
began another general attack and overran Hills 609 and 523, with the Germans
retreating into Mateur on the night of May 1. After two more days of tough
combat, the 1st Armored Division drove the Germans out of Mateur. Bradley and
his troops were only 20 miles from Bizerte.
The American attack on Bizerte with Maj. Gen. Manton S.
Eddy’s 9th Infantry Division and Harmon’s 1st Armored Division commenced on May
6. On the next day, after some heavy street fighting in Bizerte to root out
snipers with infantrymen and M3 Lee medium tanks, the retreating enemy fled
through the city. Concurrent with this the British First Army’s V Corps drive
on Tunis began on May 3, after linking up with Eighth Army. Alexander shifted
Montgomery’s 7th Armored Division, the 4th Indian Division, and the 201st
Guards Brigade from the Eighth Army to the First Army for this final assault on
the Axis redoubt. Montgomery’s remaining troops would participate only in local
operations so as to conserve manpower for the upcoming Sicily invasion. Tunis
fell on May 7. The Axis units encountered in and around Bizerte and Tunis were
in a state of complete disarray, with wholesale surrender commonplace. Eventually
275,000 Axis prisoners surrendered with the capture of Bizerte and Tunis. With
the advent of the second week of May, the hard-fought, six-month-long Tunisian
campaign was over, with the formal Axis surrender on May 13, 1943.
