The Bloody Road to Tunis and Destruction of Axis Forces in North Africa - David Rolf

In equally remote country, 4th Indian Division had struggled to gain a position where it could threaten the rear of the Mareth position in the shorter of Montgomery’s two ‘left hooks.’ Early on the morning of 27 March, Major Gregory’s company of l/4th Essex advanced against the Italians along a narrow, bare ridge from Hardy Crossroads. After they put in a bayonet charge and broke into Italian Pistoia Division’s positions the defenders fled, leaving behind 116 prisoners and numerous dead and wounded. For some time the Italians had been increasingly jittery about holding fixed positions. Messe was convinced his Italian troops were no longer useful fighting material and on 22 March OB Süd ordered German staff of First Italian Army to examine reports that they had given up without a struggle and put out white flags in abject surrender.

Against weakened opposition, 5th Brigade (4th Indian Division) made good progress despite the rugged nature of the Matmata Hills. While the 1/4th Essex reached Téchine and explored forward towards Matmata itself, 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment (normally under 7th Brigade but temporarily with the 5th) pushed on to Toujane in order to protect 5th Brigade’s right flank. On the same day (27 March) patrols from 7th Brigade passed beyond Téchine and, travelling fast north-eastwards, reached the top of the defile, 1,500 feet above Beni-Zeltene. Working like beavers, Blundell’s 4th Bengal Field Company of engineers gingerly hauled down two huge compressors and a bulldozer and began shoring up the road which had fallen away in several places. By next morning, 4th Indian Division had opened a supply route for the New Zealanders and was making ready for 7th Brigade to debouch onto the Gabès Plain below.

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But the Mareth position had already been abandoned by their enemies. In great haste, Italian non-motorised units began to withdraw in accordance with von Arnim’s instructions on the night of 25/26 March and by the 28th all remaining troops of 90th German Light Division were hurrying back towards Gabès or further north to the Wadi Akarit. There, they were shielded by a rearguard of 164th German Light Division assisted by von Liebenstein’s skilful delaying action at El Hamma and Lang’s continuing denial of American forces at Maknassy.

At Gabès and Sfax, demolitions of electricity works, harbour installations, unloading facilities and all useful factories and workshops were set. Meanwhile, reports received by Heeresgruppe Afrika from Italian intelligence sources at Gibraltar suggested that the next attacks would be mounted in the Tunis-Bizerte area, supported by amphibious landings and a heavy naval presence.

Held up before El Hamma, Horrocks asked Freyberg to stage another Supercharge. Slow to respond, Freyberg was more intent on destroying any remaining opposition at the Tebaga Gap and bringing up his artillery. This was a dangerous business: ‘Troop leader made elementary mistake of leaving defined track to cross open ground,’ noted Sergeant Caffell, ‘with result our convoy runs into minefield… we return to track.’ One man was killed and another badly wounded.

Unsure of his line of communication, Freyberg argued instead for a move which would by-pass El Hamma and strike north-east towards Gabès. By the time this had been agreed by Montgomery any major advantage gained by the speed of the break-through at Tebaga had been lost. The Axis forces were already streaming from the Gabès Plain: ‘Under a hail of English bombs we broke through the enemy and headed for Gabès,’ recorded the Gefreiter from 104th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. ‘It was a miracle… that we got out again.’ Inching 7th Brigade’s guns down the Beni-Zeltene gorge on the 28th, 4th Indian Division watched in frustrated impotence as the enemy slipped away. Despite a magnificent effort – ‘everyone is very pleased with them,’ recorded Major-General Miller – they were marginally too late due to the bottleneck which had cost the division precious time at Medenine.

By 0900 hours that same day, Eighth Army had at last taken possession of the Mareth Line. Grossing the Wadi Zigzaou, Major Rainier thought it a thoroughly evil spot: ‘Our dead guardsmen lay strewn before the wire like autumn leaves. I estimated sixty in one small area… [the place] reeked of death. I mean potential death, not the death of past days which was evidenced by bodies lying bloated in the sun.

With little room for its artillery positions, supported only by undergunned 2-pounder Valentines, lacking space to form up its infantry properly, none whatsoever for its own HQ and an exit on the far side of the enemy which was itself a bottleneck, 50th British Division had suffered directly as a result of Montgomery’s inept plan. Had the Hallouf Pass been seized early on his flanking movement would not have been, as Tuker observed, ‘a lengthy, clumsy and obvious operation, visible from any position on the Matmata heights… But 8 Army,’ he added, ‘was a ponderous machine.’

In sending Freyberg to attack the Tebaga Gap by an obvious route, Montgomery claimed this was intended to divert attention from Leese’s assault on the Wadi Zigzaou. Before he knew from Ultra, however, that the New Zealanders had been discovered as early as 19 March at Wilder’s Gap, he intended them to move in great secrecy. Only after their route became known did he try to turn this to advantage: ‘having… received a setback on my right, I recovered quickly, and knocked the enemy out with a “left-hook”.’ Despite the fact that Mareth was what he termed ‘the toughest fight we have had since Alamein,’ Montgomery was in no doubt it had been, ‘the most enjoyable battle I have fought. Alamein was a slogging match. Mareth gave considerable scope for subtlety, and for outwitting the opponent.’ But the cost was high. Leese’s 30th Corps suffered nearly 2,000 casualties and the Mareth Line was still claiming victims in its minefields long after the battle had moved on.

As 51st Highland Division continued to advance along the main coastal road towards Gabès and 4th Indian Division concentrated at Beni-Zeltene, the New Zealanders moved north and east on 28 March on rough tracks, traversing wadis where bulldozers had improved the crossings. On their western flank, 1st British Armoured Division put in a holding force at El Hamma (which the enemy vacated the next day) and prepared to move in the small hours of the following morning into the 20-mile gap to Gabès.

The New Zealanders’ 6th Brigade cleaned up the opposition while 5th Brigade, together with Leclerc’s Free French, came abreast on a different axis towards Gabès. In the vanguard was Kippenberger, with a squadron of King’s Dragoon Guards and artillery. They met little opposition and on the morning of 29 March, after smashing a line of pill-boxes with well-directed fire, he sent an advanced party of Dragoon Guards and Bren Gun carriers of 23rd NZ Battalion flying into Gabès; they arrived just as the last elements of 15th Panzer Division left the town, destroying a bridge on its northern limits.

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Battle of Mareth Line won

Although only a small place, it was the first town with a sizeable European population to be liberated and was afforded much publicity by newspaper reporters who flocked there. Despite pattern-bombing by the Americans which had left hardly a building standing in the centre, the Allied troops were given a huge welcome by the local populace, including French police and, noted Kippenberger, ‘some astonishingly nicely dressed girls whom we looked on with some relish.’ Not that there was much time for fraternization; the New Zealanders had already begun to move northwards on the main road before Freyberg’s tactical HQ arrived.

In the meantime, forward patrols of 4th Indian Division’s 7th Brigade raced across the Gabès plain, over-running an Italian rearguard of 100 men and taking them prisoner. When they reached the town they had to wait while the 51st Highland Division put on their kilts and marched through. This sealed 4th Division’s intense dislike of the Scots; Major Jephson, one of their officers who won a MG in the Matmata Hills, thought they were made to pause because Montgomery undervalued the Indians as fighting soldiers. Such resentment was widespread and shared by Tuker who believed that Monty had, ‘no use for Indian troops’, so that they were the last to be called into action once 30th Corps ran up against the Mareth Line. ‘All these people seem to think 4 Div ought not to be put up against Germans,’ he remarked. ‘I only want to have one really good Boche slaughter to convince the rest of this Army that they play at fighting – we don’t – it’s our profession.’

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Chapter 14

Into the Furnace

‘We now hold the initiative and I intend to keep it – pounding here and there and making the enemy dance to my tune…’General Sir Harold Alexander to General Sir Alan Brooke, 30 March 1943.

On hearing that four American divisions were to drive towards Gabès, Tuker was certain that this, ‘ought to fix the Boche if Yanks just walk forward in big squares.’ But fighting in such forbidding terrain was not quite so simple as, to his immense and growing frustration, Patton was discovering. His troops were spread over a front of more than 100 miles: ‘However, this is not as bad as it sounds,’ he told Marshall, ‘because three divisions are well-grouped and the fourth – the 34th – is on a sort of raiding mission to the northeast [Fondouk].’ Anticipating some ‘very hard’ fighting and losses in battalion and company commanders ‘higher than average,’ he added that should anything go drastically wrong the general scope of operations was laid down by Alexander and he was merely carrying out orders: ‘We are trying to be simple, not change our plans when once made, and keep on fighting.’

Attempting a breakthrough in the wild and mysterious country east of El Guettar, however, was a formidably difficult undertaking. Forced to navigate by re-photographed French maps last surveyed in 1903 which were hopeless in scale (1:100,000), the infantry could not obtain accurate co-ordinates nor pinpoint their own positions. Compass-bearings had to be taken from high points which exposed those doing this to murderously accurate fire from German snipers supported by 88s.

When the attack opened on 28 March, 1st US Infantry Divisionwere badly cut up by terrific mortar and machine-gun fire from the broken yellow and red stone mass of Djebel Chemsi. Colonel Fechet reported, ‘mines, booby traps… and trip wire… Wops in forward positions, Germans in rear… Wops faked surrender and then threw hand grenades. Mountains… strongly held by automatic weapons.’ Fighting through these powerful defences, Terry Allen’s men struggled as far as the western end of the hill on the first day. Across the valley, however, 9th US Infantry Division could make no progress through the shimmering heat to take Djebel Kreroua nor clean out the enemy artillery observation posts on the high, bare wall of Djebel Berda. By clever use of interlocking fire zones, the Germans pinned down both prongs of the attack and pounded supply trucks which raced between the palms and blossoming fig and plum trees in the El Guettar oasis.

With the 1st and 9th US Infantry Divisions lost in a confusing mass of jumbled rock and deeply-cut wadis, the 34th US Infantry Division failing in its feint at Fondouk, where Ryder had been told to, ‘Go out in the area and make a lot of noise but don’t try to capture anything’, and the attack from Maknassy abandoned, Patton’s troops had come to a grinding halt everywhere. Prior to this setback he had planned that units of 1st US Armored Division would undertake a meteoric 80-mile drive from El Guettar to Gabès. Now Patton pinned his hopes on Ward’s former chief of staff, Colonel ‘Chauncey’ Benson. Before Ward lost his command he had sent Benson to 13th Armored Regiment. Despite a reputation for heavy drinking, Patton admired his aggressiveness.

Blocking the route were newly-arrived mobile elements of 21st Panzer Division, sent to reinforce 10th Panzer Division near El Guettar. In support, the Luftwaffe stepped up its attacks on US artillery which laid down a heavy barrage on 30 March to clear enemy positions in front of 1st Infantry. At noon, Benson’s Sherman and Lee tanks rolled through the narrow gap in the ridge at El Guettar. Self-propelled guns followed, then half-tracks carrying infantry, tank-destroyers and Jeeps. Well dug in and superbly sited, the Germans slowed this force with an extensive minefield and then plastered it with accurate anti-tank gunfire. When 13th Armored was forced to retreat from this ill-coordinated and costly assault, the burning remnants of 13 tanks and two tank-destroyers were left behind.

In the meantime, Man ton Eddy’s 9th US Infantry Division had crawled along the foothills of Kreroua but could do little more than hang on by their fingernails. Suddenly in their midst appeared a British military policeman, dressed incongruously in razor-smart uniform, who was to direct the first elements of Eighth Army to their supply dump in Gafsa. He was hurriedly sent back, having arrived ‘a trifle early.’

Next day, Patton told Benson to try again and expend a whole company if necessary. Simultaneously, to take the heat off Benson, and off Ryder’s 34th US Infantry Division stuck at Fondouk, he ordered Ward to attack at Maknassy, disregarding any number of casualties. ‘I feel quite brutal in issuing orders to take such losses, especially when I personally am safe,’ he noted, ‘but it must be done. Wars can only be won by killing, and the sooner we start the better.’

US intelligence was very pessimistic and worried about the effect of this holdup on the whole Tunisian campaign, 18th Army Group nervous and uncertain, and Patton himself in no doubt that reports of enemy withdrawals, in front of 1st and 9th US Infantry Divisions, were the product of ‘wishful thinking.’ Benson’s second effort went ahead at 1230 hours on the 31st in advance of coordinated artillery and air support which Patton had planned. Sure enough, while 2nd Battalion, 1st Armored Regiment managed to pass through a lane cut through the enemy’s minefield, its tanks then became marooned and could penetrate no further against determined resistance.

A tremendous effort by the Luftwaffe over 2nd US Corps’ area of operations and the new longer-range offensive strikes ordered by Coningham, rather than Broadhurst’s more effective air umbrella, temporarily offset the Germans’ loss of numerical superiority. During a sudden attack by a dozen Ju-88s on 1 April, the death of Captain Richard N. Jenson, his aide, seems temporarily to have driven Patton over the brink of frustration at the inability of his troops to make any progress. On the same day a Sitrep (situation report) from 2nd US Corps HQ complained that: ‘Forward troops have been continuously bombed all the morning… enemy aircraft have bombed all division C.Ps. Total lack of air cover for our Units has allowed German Air Forces to operate almost at will.’ This intemperate claim might not have called for much response but as Spaatz explained, ‘[it] caused great concern as to its inaccuracy and the unjustness of its accusation plus the widespread distribution given it by Patton.’

At Ain Beida, 50 miles south-east of Constantine where 18th Army Group had its HQ, Spaatz’s deputy, Brigadier-General Larry Kuter, read the report and was inclined to think it, ‘obviously exaggerated and emotional’, but the short-fused Coningham (who argued everyone with Alexander , Montgomery , Eisenhower etc) exploded with rage. Next morning he fired off a bellicose response which carried worldwide, including even to the official historian at the Pentagon. After accusing Patton of deliberately exaggerating his previous day’s casualties and recalling that 362 Allied fighters had been in the air, including 260 over 2nd US Corps’ front, Coningham retorted: ‘It is… assumed that there was no intention… of using air force as an alibi for lack of success on ground. If sitrep is in earnest and balanced against… facts it can only be assumed that II Corps personnel concerned are not battleworthy in terms of present operations.’

Tedder realized at once this was, ‘dynamite with a short, fast-burning fuse’, for it struck at the very heart of inter-Allied relations. Americans were stunned and infuriated by this attack on the fighting ability of their soldiers, none more so than Eisenhower who, deeply wounded and angered, drafted a signal to Washington asking to be relieved since he could not control his subordinate commanders. Only Bedell Smith’s timely intervention stopped him sending it.

At once, Tedder ordered Coningham to withdraw and cancel his signal and made it absolutely clear that he took ‘the gravest exception’ to comments which, he said, ‘are entirely outside his competence.’ On 3 April, together with Spaatz, Kuter and Brigadier-General Paul L. Williams (12th Air Support Command), he visited Patton who was wearing his ‘fiercest scowl’. Patton told them he intended to make an issue of Coningham’s outrageous telegram in which, ‘he accused me of being a fool and lying.’ Patton was still ‘very mad’ as the delegation sat discussing the matter when, as Bradley recalled, ‘along came four Me’s about 300 feet high, machine-gunning the streets, jammed the back door so we couldn’t get in or out when it [one of the aircraft] dropped a bomb.’ ‘Now how in hell did you ever manage to stage that?,’ asked a shaken Spaatz. ‘I’ll be damned if I know,’ shouted back Patton, ‘but if I could find the sonsabitches who flew those planes, I’d mail them each a medal!’

Next day, when Coningham appeared, both men were aware that some accord in this unholy row had to be reached and agreed that Coningham should send a message retracting his criticisms of the American ground troops, which he did the following morning. In public, Patton made handsome amends for his earlier signal, regretting what he called a ‘misunderstanding’ and accepting he was ‘partially responsible.’ Later however, he added a revealing comment. ‘The sentence, “for which I was partially responsible,” I put in – though a lie – to save his [Coningham’s] face. I may need his help some day in another matter.’

This incident laid bare the very bones of Anglo-American co-operation. Tedder thought Coningham’s ‘ill-judged signal’ had created, ‘grave danger of very serious political and international repercussions’, but the long-term effects would probably be positive: ‘Patton is now certainly a friend of ours and I think chance of bellyaching signals from Army greatly reduced.’ The most disturbing aspect was to focus attention on the ‘repeated failure of US troops’, something which greatly worried Eisenhower because it might be used by W.R. Hearst’s newspapers at home to support a campaign for confining American military effort to the Pacific theatre. ‘We shall,’ added Tedder, ‘have be careful to avoid over-stressing British contribution to present campaign.’

Patton thought this was exactly what was happening. If proof were required, new orders delivered on 3 April by a ‘bird of ill-omen,’ Brigadier Holmes of Alex’s staff, confirmed it by downgrading 2nd US Corps and splitting up his forces.

While trying to advance on Kairouan, Ryder’s 34th US Infantry Division had been badly rebuffed in its approach to Djebel Haouareb by elements of Oberst Ernst-Günther Baade’s 961st Afrika Rifle Regiment (999th German Division), part of Kampfgruppe Fullriede. Many Germans believed that US troops were not combat-worthy, as one officer’s report stated: ‘The American gives up the fight as soon as he is attacked. Our men feel superior to the enemy in every respect.’

On the day he issued Patton’s orders, Alexander told Brooke he had laid on for the Americans, ‘what should have been a first class show’, in the Gafsa-Maknassy area. ‘In fact, I handed them a ready-made victory on a plate, but their hands were too weak to take it.’ This was less than fair but Alexander still had valid critisms had now decided that in the Fondouk sector, where a genuine offensive was now to be mounted, 34th US Infantry Division should pass under command of Lieutenant-General Crocker’s newly formed 9th British Corps. American objectives elsewhere were severely limited. At El Guettar, 1st and 9th US Infantry were to resist any enemy advance up the Gabès road while merely threatening to attack. As soon as Montgomery broke through, the 9th US Division was to be transferred to the north, on the British left, near the coast, while active reconnaissance at Maknassy was to establish that the enemy was retreating before ‘the most aggressive action’ could be started.

Virtually excluded from participation in the final assault, Patton was as furious as might be expected: ‘In this way the U.S. troops get wholly separated and all chance of being in at the kill and getting some natural credit is lost… I hope the Boches beat the complete life out of the 128th Brigade and 6th US Armored [sic] Division. I am fed up with being treated like a moron by the British.’ Bradley was equally angry but, ‘short of raising another disruptive furor [sic]’, unthinkable so soon after the major row between Patton and Coningham, neither he nor Patton could do a thing.

As part of the shake-up of American forces, Alexander told Eisenhower of his dismay at 1st US Armored Division’s performance and Ike, in turn, informed Patton. The real target was Ward; ‘He is quite useless in my opinion,’ wrote Alexander, adding that incompetents should not simply be removed and given jobs elsewhere in their senior rank, or even promoted – as happened to Fredendall. Patton too thought Ward too timid and was convinced already that he should be replaced. Nothing would have been done, however, without Alexander’s instigation: ‘I delayed removing General Ward in the hope that the Division would find itself,’ Patton wrote soon afterwards. ‘Finally at the insistence of General Alexander and in consistence with my own judgement, Ward was relieved….’ But he hated doing it himself and despatched Bradley, who disagreed with the decision, to break the fateful news.

On 4 April Bradley arrived at Maknassy to tell Ward he was being sacked. ‘Men devoted to Pinky – his personal loss will be irreparable,’ observed Bradley’s aide, Captain Chester B. Hansen, ‘but situation demands a god [sic]… Germans playing a crafty game & we have not sufficient reserves to match him.’ A man of great integrity, Ward took his dismissal with characteristic dignity: ‘Bradley gave me order for my relief. He much upset, more than I’, and suspected Patton had knifed him: ‘[I have] been sacrificed to ego of the lion tamer. Brad most sympathetic.’ Next day (7 April) after he had seen Eisenhower, who was ‘most agreeable,’ the penny dropped. ‘I am not mean enough. The British think the 1st AD is not a good combat unit. Failure to take hills. HINDSIGHT ALEXANDER AND HIS C OF STAFF BEHIND IT ALL. They failed to give corps information of the enemy, who did not and could not tell me. Will be sent home…’

Eisenhower agreed entirely with Patton’s decision to remove Ward, believing him ‘too sensitive, both to criticism from his immediate superiors and to the loss of his friends and subordinates on the battlefield’, but arranged, through Marshall, that no stigma be attached to his relief. Instead, like Fredendall, his return to the United States was put about as a, ‘routine inter-exchange of officers.’

On his departure to what he termed, ‘a big and interesting job’, as commander of the Tank Destroyer Center at Camp Hood, Texas, Ward’s staff was dispersed too. The new commander was Major-General Ernest Harmon who was called by Patton from 2nd US Armored Division in Morocco. He arrived on 5 April to find Patton, in a foul temper: ‘The party is all yours Harmon,’ Ward told him at 1st US Armored Division HQ.

That same day, a letter for Patton arrived from Eisenhower: ‘General Alexander has told me that your Corps is not to be pinched out of the coming campaign. I therefore assume that when we have gotten 8th Army into the open, your entire Corps, less the 9th Division, will be given a definite sector and mission.’ This was no more than a sop to Patton’s driving ambition but he had more immediate worries. The mepacrine swallowed against malaria always made him ill; he felt at present ‘like hell.’

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Tunisia January March 1943

Before the Axis troops facing Eighth Army were forced onto the Tunis plain one last natural barrier was defensible, the Wadi Akarit, cutting deeply inland for four of the 18 miles of the Gabès Gap between the coast and cliffs of Djebel Haidoudi to the west, standing sentinel over a metalled road linking Gabès to El Guettar and Gafsa. The far west of the Gap was anchored in the huge and desolate salt marshes of the Ghott el Fedjadj, extending 120 miles inland. Allied intelligence had not grasped that these dried up quickly in April and might be by-passed. Close behind the western end of the Wadi, five miles inland, lay the saddleback of Djebel Roumana, running northwest roughly parallel to the coast road, from where the defenders, perched 500 feet up and unreachable by wheeled or tracked vehicle, had a perfect field of fire. Further west was Djebel Fatnassa, nearly 900 feet of shattered rock hewn into a labyrinth of gullies, pinnacles, chimneys and escarpments. A series of hills stretched onwards to Djebel Haidoudi, providing a natural obstacle to Eighth Army’s progress. Anti-tank ditches guarded the approaches to Djebels Roumana and Fatnassa and in front was laid the usual tangle of wire and about 4,000 mines. In comparison with the Mareth Line, however, wire obstacles were thin, the position had little depth and could be contained and destroyed by artillery.

On von Arnim’s birthday (4 April) he entertained Kesselring and Messe to a sparse lunch, cauliflower cooked in oil and decent Tunisian red wine – most of the rougher stuff had been distilled into alcohol to supplement the desperately low stocks of fuel. Kesselring was optimistic that the Wadi Akarit could be held but von Arnim told him: ‘I have confidence only in our German units… the badly armed Italian units are tired of war and have no longer much combat value.’ Equally doubtful, Ambrosio and Messe were determined to save First Italian Army from complete destruction by a timely withdrawal further north to Enfidaville if the Wadi Akarit was about to be breached. A message from von Arnim to Jodi (the operations chief at OKW) sent on 29 March revealed the precarious position of Heeresgruppe Afrika: ‘Supplies shattering,’ he signalled. ‘Ammunition only available for 1–2 more days, no more stocks for some weapons such as the medium field howitzers. Fuel situation similar, large-scale movement no longer possible.’

Owing to Allied bombing and, as some Germans claimed, the incompetence of Italian officials, much desperately needed supply tonnage could not be unloaded. On 1 April, the sinking of Italian supply ships Nuoro and Crema ended use of the route across the Sicilian Straits; thereafter only small craft that could complete the journey in one night ferried essential goods from Palermo, Marsala and Trapani. Knowing the vehicle situation was now ‘catastrophic,’ having heard nothing from Jodi and convinced that the Wadi Akarit defences were ‘nothing special,’ von Arnim began secretly to prepare plans for withdrawing static units. Word of this leaked out to the troops and, on 5 April, Comando Supremo warned First Italian Army that the position was to be held though it was common knowledge among 90th German Light Division that a final defence line was being prepared further north.

Wadi Akarit 4

Facing the Wadi Akarit, Montgomery did not enjoy many advantages as claimed later that he always had numbers and material build up. He intended using 10th and 30th Corps which pitched 44 battalions against the enemy’s 38 battalions, 400 field and medium guns against his estimated 200. The greatest disparity was in armor , 462 tanks against his 25. In the skies, too, the Allies were close to obtaining absolute supremacy – the Luftwaffe could now muster only 178 serviceable aircraft out of 324 and the Italians about 65. The Ju-87 Stuka ground attack aircraft and equally obsolescent medium bombers had to be withdrawn and the Me-110s and Me-210s, used for escorting sea and air convoys, were no match for the Allied fighters. Day after day, A-20B Bostons carried out intermediate altitude daylight attacks on enemy airfields, tank and motor transport formations – the famous ‘Boston Tea Parties’ – while B-25 Mitchells of the North African Strategic Air Force devastated enemy installations, airfields, bridges, marshalling yards, troop concentrations and the port areas of Sfax, Sousse, Tunis, La Goulette and Bizerte. By night Wellingtons maintained the assault. Montgomery planned his attack as an uninspired repetition of the way he had fought on the Mareth Line, using two infantry divisions from Leese’s 30th Corps, 51st Highland Division on the right and 4th Indian Division on the left. Horrocks’ 10th Corps was to be held in reserve ready to take advantage of a breakthrough. After learning that enemy forces were stronger than expected, Leese obtained Montgomery’s permission to add a third infantry division, 50th Northumbrian Division, to attack the centre between Djebels Roumana and Fatnassa. The final plan hinged upon Tuker’s enormous promise that 4th Indian Division could take the Fatnassa heights at night, including Djebels Rass ez Zouai and El Meida, before 51st Highland Division attacked Djebel Roumana. This was intended to outmanoeuvre the enemy’s central defences and protect the exposed left flank of 50th Northumbrian and 51st Highland Divisions.

Opposing them were the Young Fascist Division holding the most easterly positions from the coast along the Wadi Akarit, then two battalions of 90th German Light Division, sitting astride the coast road. Next in line the Trieste and Spezia Divisions defended Djebel Roumana and as far west as Djebel Meida. On the western flank, 21st Italian Corps’ Pistoia Division protected Djebels Zouai and Fatnassa, a detachment of 15th Panzer Division was astride Haidoudi Pass on the Gabès-Gafsa road and, further still to the west, the remains of 164th German Light Division were lodged in the hills, their commander, von Liebenstein, complaining to no effect that his forces were isolated and useless there. Of greatest concern to Eighth Army was the bulk of 15th Panzer Division, held in reserve behind 20th Italian Corps, 10th Panzer Division opposing American troops at Maknassy and 21st Panzer Division at El Guettar; they were within a night’s travel of any part of the front. All in all, the strength of First Italian Army, including German elements, was about 106,000 troops.

Wadi Akarit

Under a sickle moon on the night of 5 April, Tuker watched 7th Brigade, heavily laden, trudge forward through a slight ground mist. Stealthily, 1st Battalion, 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles, infiltrated jagged cliffs. Stealing upon the unwary Italians, their kukris unsheathed, these superb mountain troops swarmed over the crests, smashing into the enemy’s positions. There was some confusion on the approach to Djebel Zouai when a curtain of fire hit 7th Brigade HQ, wounding Brigadier Lovett and upsetting communications with his leading troops, but the pace never slackened. Led by Subedar Lalbahadur Thapa, two sections of Gurkhas forced their way through a jagged ravine which carried them on a critical path between twin escarpments and over a narrow cleft commanding the outlying and dominant features of the Fatnassa massif.

The 2nd Battalion, 36th Pistoia Regiment, barred the way with anti-tank and machine-guns, mortars, grenades and small-arms fire but Subedar Thapa took out the machine-gun nests one by one and charged over the crest of the escarpment to attack a position covering the pathway. As two defenders fell under his kukri the others fled screaming. Immediately afterwards, Subedar Thapa was recommended for an immediate MG; on reading the citation, Montgomery raised the recommendation to a VC which was duly awarded.

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Subedar Lalbahadur Thapa

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Gurkhas with Kukri blades

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Gurkha troops attacking Wadi Akarit

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4th Indian Division breakout , Operation Scipio , Wadi Akarit

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The way was now clear for Bateman’s 5th Brigade to come up shortly before dawn, led by the wiry hillmen of Lieutenant-Colonel Roche’s l/9th Gurkhas. They penetrated 3,000 yards into the Fatnassa defences, storming ridge after ridge, taking over 2,000 Italian prisoners and only halting to allow Lieutenant-Colonel Scott’s 4th Battalion, (Outram’s) 6th Rajputana Rifle Regiment, to pass through and swing right, into the rear of the German forces facing 50th Northumbrian Division.

When l/2nd Gurkhas cleared a way into the foothills of the Fatnassa complex, they had been closely followed by 1st Battalion, the Royal Sussex Regiment which attacked Djebel Meida. Many were hit by mortar fire from the 3rd Battalion, 125th Regiment. Within 1,000 yards of their objective, their adjutant wounded, the attack faltered but concentrated artillery fire from two divisions enabled the Sussexmen to capture Djebel Meida by daybreak, together with 600 yards of the left-hand end of the western anti-tank ditch at its foot, taking numerous prisoners and four 75mm guns which were immediately swung on the enemy.

While these hard-fought actions had been taking place, 4/16th Punjabis were held impatiently below the main ridges and when the crash of mortar and machine-gun fire was heard soon after midnight Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes released them to seize low ridges to the left of the main battle position. Throughout the night of 5/6 April could be heard the age-old cry, ‘Allah Ho Akbar,’ as the Punjabis fought their way over successive ridges, sweeping terrified defenders of the Pistoia Division before them and taking some 800 prisoners. Watching the action from 4th Indian’s artillery positions far below, Captain Jephson, one of the artillery officers, was startled when a small armour piercing shot passed clean between his legs, smashing a headlight on the vehicle behind.

At 0415 hours the attack by 50th Northumbrian and 51st Highland Divisions jumped off, preceded by what Messe called, ‘an apocalyptic hurricane of steel and fire’, laid down on Djebel Roumana and the surrounding area by over 300 field and medium guns. ‘Started barraging at 0400 and continued until 0540,’ recorded Sergeant Caffell. ‘During this time we are attacked in moonlight by enemy aircraft with butterfly bombs putting one of our guns out of action, killing Bombardier Neil —, and wounding… others. A nasty interlude but we kept the other guns in action, and I was glad when daylight came. We hear that the Gurkhas and Camerons have taken their objectives. Thousands of POWs coming through this way.’

On the right of the attack, 5th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and 5th Seaforth Highlanders (both of 152nd Brigade, 51st Highland Division) had begun to move forward early from their start tapes towards the Roumana ridge in order to cross minefields and an anti-tank ditch, hoping to catch the enemy by surprise. Watching them come up through the lines of 5/7th Gordon Highlanders, Private John Bain heard someone call out, ‘Here they come. Poor bastards!’ followed softly by, ‘All the best mate!’ One of the Seaforths answered, ‘It’s all right for you Jimmy… Lucky bastard!’ but, as Bain remarked, ‘the tone of his voice did not carry true resentment: it was rueful, resigned.’

By full daylight the Camerons and 5th Seaforths had taken the ridge and 2nd Seaforths passed through, forcing a passage along the top. An hour later they had captured Point 112 at the north-eastern end while, at the base of the hills, two crossings on 152nd Brigade’s front had been established through which rumbled Valentines of 50th RTR. Italian troops of 1st and 2nd Battalions, 126th Spezia Infantry Regiment, were reported dazed and surrendering in large numbers.

On the far right, 154th Brigade had made equally good progress. The 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders advanced carefully through a minefield and crossed an offshoot of the Wadi Akarit. Finding their way barred by the eastern anti-tank ditch, but brilliantly led by their CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Lorne Campbell, they used rope ladders and the backs of captured Italians to scale its ten-foot sides. From there, 7th Battalion, the Black Watch, moved under shellfire left up the antitank ditch towards Roumana.

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51st Highlander Division soldiers , before Operation Scipio , Battle of Wadi Akarit

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51st Highland Division breakthrough

Wadi Akarit 3

The only real setback was in the centre, where 69th Brigade of 50th Northumbrian Division was having a difficult time. The 7th Green Howards, on the right, managed to take an enemy outpost on Point 85 but in tandem with 5th East Yorkshires failed to reach an anti-tank ditch below the hog’s back. Hit by concentrated artillery, mortar and small-arms fire from the Italian Tobruk and 39th Bersaglieri Regiments which wounded both COs, they dug in amidst mounting casualties. Private E. Anderson, a stretcher-bearer of the East Yorkshires, completely disregarding his own safety, carried back three wounded men and was killed attempting to bring in a fourth. He was awarded a posthumous VC. Following the stalled attack, l/4th Essex, detached from 5th Indian Infantry Brigade for this operation, was ordered back again. Moving smartly, they marched along the line of battle, clambered over the escarpment at the western end of the anti-tank ditch and joined in the push on Roumana.

Apprehensive over these developments, early on 6 April Messe ordered 200th Panzer Grenadier Regiment to recapture the hill and 361st Panzer Grenadier Regiment, accompanied by a battalion from the Pistoia Division, to retake Djebel Zouai. Additionally, 15th Panzer Division and two batteries of 88mm guns were ordered into Spezia Division’s sector. All First Italian Army’s reserves were now committed and nearly 80 tanks were on their way to support from El Guettar.

Montgomery claimed later that the enemy’s ‘immense endeavours’ prevented Horrocks punching through the hole torn in the Wadi Akarit defences until after dark on 6 April. This is unconvincing. With his immense experience, versatile mind and intuitive understanding of the ebb and flow of battle, Tuker knew that the time had come to put through Horrocks’ corps de chasse, either on the route established across the Wadi Akarit at its western end by his sappers, possibly on a line south-west of Roumana, or both. Accordingly, when Horrocks arrived at his HQ, at 0845 hours that day Tuker had reports from all his units and urged him to pass 10th Corps through in pursuit of a broken enemy. He added that, ‘immediate offensive action would finish the campaign in North Africa. Now was the time to get the whips out and spare neither men nor machines.’ Apparently convinced, Horrocks telephoned Montgomery for permission to put in 10th Corps, so retaining the momentum of his attack.

One of the problems about Monty’s overbearing personality was that, unless they were old and experienced hands like Tuker and Freyberg, it restricted the initiative of his subordinate commanders as Tuker’s GS02, Alfred Cocksedge, discovered. ‘I think General Monty had, to all intents and purposes, handed over comd of the battle [of Akarit] to General Leese… The final plan was drawn up by Gen Leese in consultation with Div Commanders but he felt compelled to obtain Monty’s approval before acting on it. In the same way, Gen Horrocks hesitated to commit his Corps without first consulting the Army Commander…’

This proved fatal to the whole plan of cutting off Messe’s army but at first to his credit Horrocks said he was going to put his armour through at once, using the routes made possible by 4th Indian Division’s rapid success. At 1045 hours, Leese ordered forward 2nd New Zealand Division, which, nearly 30 minutes later, passed under command of 10th Corps. Freyberg seemed unsure whether he was to go east or west of Roumana. At noon he met Horrocks and shortly after the Staffordshire Yeomanry and 3rd RTR (both 8th Armoured Brigade) began to work their way through gaps at either end of the western anti-tank ditch. Very soon, however, the Staffordshires came under fire from German 88mm guns, cleverly sighted behind the lower slopes of Djebel Roumana and were badly held up by extensive minefields. The 3rd RTR met equally determined resistance from anti-tank guns at the exits from the Fatnassa massif.

On Djebel Roumana, a tremendous counterattack by 200th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, supported by tanks of 15th Panzer Division, shoved the Highlanders off the crest but 5th Seaforths clung on to the lower rocky slopes. They were joined in a bitter struggle to regain the ridge by 2nd Seaforths – driven off Point 112 – and by machine-gunners of D Company, 1/7th Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment. Throughout the day the fight continued unabated, sucking in 5th Black Watch, while, on the right, 154th Brigade battled to final objectives beyond the eastern anti-tank ditch but could not close the gap of just over a mile between its two battalions, 7th Argylls and 7th Black Watch. Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, laboured throughout with grenade and bayonet to repel counter-attacks by two battalions (1st and 2nd) of 90th German Light Division and tanks from 15th Panzer Division, winning a VC for his conspicuous bravery.

So fierce was the shelling that tank commanders of supporting Valentines from 40th RTR, some of them towing anti-tank guns, could not even put their heads out of their turrets. Once they crossed the anti-tank ditch they were all picked off by German 88s, their places filled by a squadron of Shermans from 4th County of London Yeomanry. Without full possession of Roumana, Leese’s troops could do little more than hold on to their bridgehead, strengthened towards evening by the arrival of 1st Black Watch.

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After a difficult start, the advance had picked up in 50th Northumbrian Division’s sector. Sherman tanks got through the minefields west of Roumana and 6th Green Howards captured 400 Italians on the far side of the anti-tank ditch. They created space for the sappers to cut a path in order to bring up the anti-tank guns, but a group of German guns had ranged the ditch to a yard and was firing obliquely to the west from behind Roumana. At 1600 hours one shell struck a group of officers supervising the Indian engineers. Among them was the imperturbable Lieutenant-Colonel Blundell, who died later in a dressing station from his wounds. On the Green Howards’ left the battle had ended for all but Lieutenant-Colonel Showers’ l/2nd Gurkhas who clung on to the crest and pinnacles of Djebel Zouai and outlying peaks of the Fatnassa complex.

‘Crasher’ Nichols, commanding 50th Northumbrian Division, was about to be replaced by Major-General Kirkman for his poor showing at the Mareth Line: ‘He has no brains and is really stupid,’ complained Montgomery. But Nichols wasted no time in this battle and reported at 1225 hours that resistance on 50th Northumbrian Division’s front was ‘definitely broken.’ Brigadier Bateman of 5th Indian Brigade also believed that the armour could have gone through immediately behind the 50th: ‘About midday… I got reports that 4th Raj Rifles were operating down onto the plain… at one time we tried to shame the armour to action by offering to lead with our carriers!… As regards the subsequent “legends” of counter-attacks… not one materialised and 5 Brigade in its foremost positions overlooking the plain was never seriously threatened from the start. If the day had been one of… counter-attacks or heavy opposition, we would certainly have been the first to know all about it.’

Others were equally adamant. ‘When I got there [Point 152] with C Coy I could see a good deal of activity on the plain beyond,’ wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Roche of the l/9th Gurkhas, and ‘the impression I had was of the enemy artillery hastily pulling out… I have no recollection of any heavy fighting on my right flank.’

Nor had Lieutenant-Colonel Scott of 4/6th Rajputs: ‘I do not remember any heavy fighting at Wadi Akarit on our right flank during the daytime of 6 April. In fact, we were wondering at the time what was holding the armour up as things seemed fairly quiet and well in hand.’

Among those in 4th Indian who had a grandstand seat, Lieutenant-Colonel Noble of 1/4 Essex was at a loss to understand, ‘why 10th Corps did not get on with the breakthrough… the only fighting I can recollect on our right was by 51st Highland Division completing the job. My impression is that our armour sat back and provoked nothing but exasperation.’

On the morning of 6 April there was therefore a fabulous opportunity to cut off much of First Italian Army. Montgomery signalled Alexander at noon that day, ‘all main objectives captured according to plan. 10th Corps now in movement to pass through the hole blown by 30th Corps.’ Then why did Horrocks not put through the armour as expected? Humane but not a ruthless finisher, perhaps he was unwilling to sustain casualties on the scale which would have been required. Had 4th Indian Division possessed its third brigade, lost after El Alamein, and a reconnaissance unit, Tuker would undoubtedly have committed his troops to a thrust through 4/6 Rajputana Rifles, throwing the reconnaissance unit out to the Gabès–Sfax road and blocking the enemy’s supply line and withdrawal. Pleased as he was at the division’s prowess which had cost 400 casualties and put the Indian Army on the map again, he nevertheless reflected on the armour’s failure to seize the initiative, delaying its thrust for 24 hours, unable to take open desert nor a large bag of prisoners: ‘Here, in this spot, the whole of Rommel’s [sic] army should have been destroyed and Tunis should have been ours for the taking. Again the final opportunity and the fruits of our victory have been lost.’

Eighth Army HQ was given good notice by Y intelligence of the counter-attacks by 90th German Light and 15th Panzer Divisions. Messe was unsure what was happening to his Italian troops and the Germans were fully occupied at Djebel Roumana. Their bitter criticism of the Italians’ lack of resolve was confirmed at least by one battalion which lined up with its colonel to surrender, ‘Saved both them and us a lot of trouble,’ commented Leese.

Wadi Akarit Italian POW

Italian prisoner captured at Wadi Akarit

For over three hours on 6 April at HQ, First Italian Army, von Arnim, Gause (Arnim’s chief of staff), Cramer (CO, Deutsche Afrika Korps), Messe and Bayerlein discussed the situation. Greatly pessimistic, von Arnim thought the time had come to retreat; Messe said he could hold until next evening and even longer if they were to throw, ‘the last man into the furnace.’ In the meantime, reports were coming in that Italian Spezia and Trieste Divisions had been largely destroyed and that the enemy was advancing into their rear positions. By late afternoon the commanders of 15th Panzer and 90th German Light Divisions were convinced that retreat was their only option in order to avoid annihilation next day. ‘The enemy has captured all the commanding features of the Akarit Line and thus has brought about its collapse,’ read a gloomy appreciation by 90th German Light Division that evening. ‘All the troops have been thrown into the Italian divisions’ sectors and there are no more reserves. But the Army cannot make up its mind to retreat. By tomorrow this will be impossible.’ Within an hour Bayerlein received orders to move First Italian Army back behind a gun screen; Messe had already ordered the remnants of the Trieste and Spezia Divisions straight back to Enfidaville, 140 miles further north, and the Young Fascist Division to El Djem.

That morning Private Bain had climbed to Roumana past the bodies of Seaforth Highlanders, ‘scattered like big broken dolls’, on the hillside. When he reached the abandoned enemy slit-trenches there were many more corpses, littering the ground, their flesh beginning to turn waxy from a film of dust and sand and the, ‘sly beginnings of decay’, in which he smelt the fetid sweetness of the newly dead.

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Chapter 15

Go On At All Costs

‘Where are you Eighth Army people going?’

‘Tunis.’

‘Where then?’

‘Berlin.’

Exchange between Brigadier Kippenberger and a captured German officer at the Wadi Akarit, April 1943.

Advancing through the Wadi Akarit position on 7 April, Sergeant Caffell saw for himself the grim cost of its capture: ‘Some of our own dead infantry boys still lying unburied face down on the battlefield. I had to keep wrenching the steering wheel to avoid driving over them.’ Eighth Army’s casualties had been higher than at any time since El Alamein. In 24 hours 1,289 men had been killed or wounded, 51st Highland Division suffering most heavily. Among them was Brigadier Kisch, Eighth Army’s chief engineer, blown up when someone stepped on a mine. ‘He had an eye like a hawk for mines and was our great anti-mine expert,’ observed Leese, ‘and would never have made a mistake. He is a terrible loss.’

Still , Montgomery was triumphant. First Italian Army had lost further 7.600 men in Wadi Akarit and thrown away from its defenses. RAF air reconnaissance and Y Intelligence reported early on 7 April that, ‘all elements’ were withdrawing from the Wadi Akarit, as well as 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions from in front of Patton in the El Guettar-Maknassa area. ‘Violent enemy gunfire and bombing. The enemy is attacking and is beaten back,’ recorded the Gefreiter for the last time (4–6 April) in the diary he had kept during the long retreat. Whether he was killed or was among the 125 Germans taken prisoner – together with 5,211 Italians – is not known. In all, First Italian Army had lost about six battalions.

That same morning Patton sent Benson’s armoured column ahead from El Guettar, meeting with little resistance except some long-range fire. At about lunchtime, Patton moved up to join Benson and came upon his tanks held up in front of a minefield; ignoring the mortal danger he drove on while they followed and then told Benson, ‘keep pushing for a fight or a bath [in the sea].’ Turning back when only 40 miles from Gabès, Patton came across, ‘quite a few prisoners, including Germans of a low type.’ Shortly after, a British patrol met what Tuker termed, ‘the Yanks… right hand tank’. Lieutenant Richardson’s No. 5 Troop, B Squadron, 12th Lancers, came across Benson’s armour south-west of Sebkret en Noual at 1530 hours and the junction between Eighth Army and 2nd US Corps had at last been accomplished. ‘I am glad I was not there,’ noted Patton, ‘It would have been too spectacular.’

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The encounter was anything but that. ‘Say, where’s the booty?,’ was the first question asked by the Americans. Brisk and unemotional, representatives of two armies which had started out from opposite sides of a continent shook hands for the movie cameras. ‘Seems to be end of [one] phase & start of another,’ commented Hansen. The meeting effectively ended the battles around El Guettar and Gafsa; much to Patton’s annoyance he was ordered that evening by 18th Army Group to recall Benson’s armour.

First and Eighth Army meet

Alexander’s intention now was to cut off the retreating Axis troops further north by striking eastwards with Crocker’s 9th British Corps through the Fondouk Pass, between Djebels Haouareb and Rhorab. In the south the hunt was on as Eighth Army began to move forward over the network of roads dividing the great central Tunisian plain. Nearest the coast, 51st Highland Division was held up by the antitank ditch east of Roumana where Major Rainier saw a bulldozer burying heaps of enemy dead. On the Highlander’s left, 7th Armoured raced ahead accompanied by the New Zealanders, with 8th Armoured Brigade under command spreading westward and linking with 1st British Armoured furthest inland.

Delaying actions were fought by 361st Panzer Grenadier Regiment, and tanks moving north-east from Gafsa and El Guettar, though they were heavily strafed by the Desert Air Force. Meanwhile, Bostons, Mitchell bombers and Kittyhawk fighter bombers cratered the Luftwaffe’s landing grounds. Fritz Bayerlein reported heavy casualties and unsettled morale. But, to general dismay, Eighth Army soon discovered that the great bulk of the enemy forces had carried out a remarkable retreat to new positions and that its own logistical difficulties prevented a rapid advance.The last remnants of First Italian Army quickened their retreat on 8 April as Crocker ordered Brigadier James’ 128th Infantry Brigade, whose Churchill tanks had arrived in a great hurry only 36 hours earlier, to attack across the Wadi Marguellil, which winds through the Fondouk Pass and stretches to the south-west of Pichon. Taking the village they advanced further eastwards to smash the enemy’s Algeria Battalion and then, lacking any clear orders, they turned south towards Djebel Rhorab, four miles away, with a force consisting of 5th Hampshires and a squadron of tanks from 51st Battalion, RTR. They were stopped by increasing resistance from 1st Battalion, 961st Regiment.

Crocker’s basic plan of attack at Fondouk was inept because Djebel Rhorab, threatening his right flank, was not included as a definite objective for 128th Brigade. Brigadier James had been told to deny its use to the enemy – not quite the same thing as capturing it. Meanwhile, 133rd and 135th Infantry Regiments (Ryder’s 34th US Infantry Division, not yet fully trained), supported by Shermans of the 751st Tank Battalion and two companies of the 831st Tank Destroyer Battalion, were to capture the heights south of Fondouk between Djebels Haouareb and el Jedira. ‘Once more our infantry doggies went up against that damned saw-toothed ridge,’ commented one officer.

Understandably anxious that Rliorab would not be taken by the time his troops left their start line, Ryder managed to get Crocker’s agreement for his attack to go in at first light, after bombing and shelling had softened up the Germans. Crucially, he then changed his mind. Still overwhelmingly concerned about the danger on his right he ordered a night approach when the troops were already past the 2,000 yard bombline. Corps HQ cancelled the bombing for fear of hitting 135th Regiment as it advanced and, while the inexperienced troops milled about trying to find their bearings, the American artillery opened up on Djebel Haouareb. Far too soon, their shelling simply awakened the Germans and gave no cover to the infantry who had barely started to move forward.

After further delay and asked to advance four miles over open ground in broad daylight against withering fire from the 961st’s 2nd Battalion on their front and left flank, the attack units refused to leave their start line, dug shallow trenches, hid in the beds of dry wadis or lay full length behind sand hummocks. While their courage was not in doubt they lacked experience and leadership in such a daunting situation. Many had served mainly on line of communication duties and, when others had previously been committed to battle, their losses had been made up by replacements who, ‘generally seemed to be below average in physical fitness, training and mentality. Quite a number of them had never had the benefit of a field manoeuvre and were not accustomed to overhead artillery fire which further decreased their efficiency temporarily. An excessive number of over-age and physically unfit men who could not stand the rigours of battle were received as replacements.’ These were men sent to assault units within 48 hours of arriving at the front.Crocker was under great pressure to cut off First Italian Army as it streamed north but badly underestimated its strength at the Fondouk Pass. Intelligence sources had rightly located part of 999th German Division and Marsch Bataillon 27, though estimates of their fighting potential – particularly of the ex-convicts – were low. As a tank expert, who fought in the battle of France and founded and trained 6th British Armoured Division, John Crocker possessed a near-obsessive drive for perfection amongst his tank crews but demonstrated little understanding of infantry. Neither could operate successfully without the other but he believed that putting Keightley’s armour through the Fondouk Pass and on 14 miles to Sidi Abdullah Mengoub – where 1st Guards Brigade would establish a solid base from which marauding tanks could cut off the retreating enemy – was relatively an easy task and one in which the infantry, on both sides, would play a minor role.

Keen to exploit as soon a possible he ordered Brigadier ‘Pip’ Roberts, switched from Eighth Army to command 26th Armoured Brigade, to send his Shermans off on a powerful reconnaissance. At about midday leading elements from 17/21st Lancers cut across the Americans at Fondouk just as they were beginning a reorganized attack, creating massive confusion and drawing more devastating fire which destroyed four tanks before the probing Lancers hastily withdrew. To their credit the shaken Americans sent in their own armour again which reached the foot of Djebel Haouareb. There, unsupported by infantry, they were easy meat for the cleverly sited German anti-tank guns and dual purpose 88s.Intensely frustrated by the previous day’s events, Alexander told Crocker on 9 April to smash through with 6th British Armoured Division and trap the Panzers hurrying towards Enfidaville, irrespective of whether or not the Americans had cleared the ridge south of Fondouk. Still unable to comprehend that the enemy held Djebel Rhorab in force, Crocker by-passed Keightley and ordered the capable and experienced Roberts to force the pass with 26th British Armoured Brigade, whatever it cost. At the same time the Welsh Guards, from 1st Guards Brigade (transferred from 78th Division to 6th Armoured on 24 March), unsupported by prior artillery bombardment or tanks would attack up the steep slopes of Rhorab.

The colossal task of grinding through the enemy’s double minefield and piercing his anti-tank screen was revealed to the squadron leaders of 17/21st Lancers at 0930 hours. ‘Goodbye – I shall never see you again, we shall all be killed,’ said young Major Nix to his tank commanders before leading the attack. Nevertheless, they advanced almost a mile over heavy sand before he radioed: ‘There’s a hell of a minefield in front. It looks about three hundred yards deep. Shall I go on?’ ‘Go on,’ he was told. ‘Go on at all costs.’

Only a few advanced with the gallant Nix beyond the village of Fondouk where he was killed by a shell which punched into his Sherman. All but two of his squadron’s tanks were disabled or destroyed and a second squadron, seeking a path through the deadly minefield, fared almost as badly, becoming bogged down and then shot to pieces.

Probing to the left of the pass, 16/5th Lancers at last discovered a safe route for the advance by running its tanks down into the bed of a wadi which was now firm enough to support their weight but had been too wet to allow the Germans to lay mines. Behind came 10th Rifle Brigade and 2nd Lothians, passing on either side derelict tanks, broken tracks hanging limply over top rollers, bogies and suspension units blown off.

The Welsh Guards had meanwhile suffered heavy casualties in their struggle to take Djebel Rhorab. After three hours all four rifle companies were pinned down and in intermittent wireless contact only; most of their senior officers and NCOs were dead or wounded. Just when everything seemed lost, the adjutant, Captain G.D. Rhys-Williams, rallied the shaken Guards and led them in a new attack at 1300 hours. As they closed in for the kill he was heard calling, ‘Keep your distance, not too fast. Come on boys, we can do it.’ Disappearing over a final crest he was discovered only minutes later, kneeling in the act of re-loading. He was quite dead, shot by a German sniper. But his outstanding heroism drove home the attack: Djebel Rhorab was finally taken and down from the peak came over 100 dishevelled German prisoners.

Batle of Fondouk gap

Battle of Fondouk gap

Having reached a point from where they could break out beyond the Eastern Dorsale, 16/5th Lancers and the Lothians lay immobile during the hours of darkness on 9/10 April. This delay was crucial in allowing further units of Messe’s army to retreat northwards; it resulted from a simple misunderstanding. Word had been received that 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions had left Eighth Army’s front and were on their way to parry 26th British Armoured Brigade’s thrust. What had actually been sighted east of Fondouk, at about 1730 hours on the 9th, was Bayerlein’s flank guard protecting the main German forces as they passed along the Kairouan plain, following the tracks of Italian elements left the previous evening. A few German tanks which approached Crocker’s force were quickly seen off and four German self-propelled guns abandoned and captured by British infantry, but he remained worried about the enemy on Djebel Haouareb who had not been completely subdued.

As Crocker hesitated his opposite number, Oberstleutnant Fritz Fullriede, was reporting to Heeresgruppe Afrika that his right flank (where the Guards had broken through) had ceased to exist and his left was becoming very insecure as a result of a renewed attack by 34th US Infantry Division and Coldstream Guards. At first light on the 10th Aprik , 34th US Division finally captured the Djebel Haouareb ridge. During the protracted fighting 34th US Division’s casualties, surprisingly, were not so heavy as in their previous action at Fondouk. Taking both together, however, the division lost 36 men and suffered 733 wounded – more than at any other time during the Tunisian campaign. Most of the casualties had shrapnel wounds and some senior officers fought on for hours in the front line after being hit. ‘We had some British tank casualties,’ reported the medical staff, ‘the heroism of these boys was amazing. You couldn’t make them complain even when you had to strip the burned skin off their hands and faces.’

By morning on 10 April, when ‘Pip’ Roberts drove elements of 6th British Armoured Brigade through heavy dust storms onto the Kairouan plain, most of the enemy had slipped away through the Fondouk Pass apart from a rearguard set to delay the pursuit, sometimes using captured Russian anti-tank guns. Late in the afternoon the Lothians and 16/5th Lancers were sweeping along the southern side of the main Fondouk-Kairouan highway when they caught up with the stragglers. In failing light they shot up an anti-tank screen, killing many of the gun crews and leaving the wrecked muzzles of four German 88 mm guns and 16 lighter anti-tank guns pointing aimlessly skywards. Out on the vast plain glared the fiery torches of seven burning M13/40 Italian tanks.

Back at the Fondouk Pass, McQuillin arrived from the south with 1st US Armored CC A, where he met units of the 168th US Infantry Regiment, both 24 hours too late to intercept the enemy’s retreat which went on all next day. Following close behind under the cloudless sky, a scout car, two Jeeps and a photographer of 1st Derbyshire Yeomanry entered Kairouan unopposed at 1100 hours.

Seen from a distance the white velvet of the town’s beautiful fluted domes seemingly floated over a scarlet carpet of poppies, but many Eighth Army troops were less than overwhelmed: ‘Today we pass through the holy city of Kairouan, the City of a Hundred Mosques, but to us it looked just the usual w… town,’ commented Sergeant Harris of a 22nd Armoured Brigade tank unit. The last truck out was crammed with Italians. Before leaving the Germans systematically booby-trapped many buildings, blew up the water supply and destroyed an electric power station.

Earlier on the 11th, C Squadron of 1st Derbyshire Yeomanry, ranging 20 miles south-east of the town, met Lieutenant Richardson’s troop of 12th Lancers, which seemed to specialize in these things. Again the encounter between First and Eighth Armies was downbeat, marked only by a few jokes and good-natured oaths on each side.

Advancing north and north-west the next day with orders to cut off the enemy on the Eastern Dorsale, Keightley’s mass of tanks missed out until late that evening when the Lothians’ B Squadron and 16/5th Lancers caught up with a fleeing German truck column. ‘Of the lorries all that remained was twisted metal, shattered windscreens, charred woodwork and tyres burnt to a fine ash. Both sides of the road and the road itself was littered with parts of vehicles, equipment, burnt-out ammunition cases and all the medley of burnt clothing, discarded arms, steel helmets and occasional dead that accompany a rout.’ Beside the roadside were German prisoners , more than 200 were captured. One badly-wounded youngster was, ‘crying piteously behind his thick-lensed spectacles.’

The failure to encircle and destroy First Italian Army before it settled behind the Enfidaville position exacerbated swelling resentment between the Allies. Opinion at 18th Army Group was extremely critical of the Americans’ recent performance. Alexander talked about their ‘Blah-Blah,’ thought them ‘crashing bores,’ and, while their hospitality and generosity were boundless, considered their supposed business efficiency and hustle to be ‘pure baloney.’ Lieutenant-General McCreery dismissed the ‘Fondouk fighters’ who in a week would be claiming they had taken Fondouk and Kairouan whereas all they had done was retreat. 1st US Armored Division consisted of ‘Ward’s Warriors’ who had captured nothing.

Such criticism was common throughout Eighth Army, from Montgomery down to the lowest ranks. Alan Moorehead, meeting the Eighth Army’s vanguard, saw a sergeant lean from the turret of his sand-coloured armoured car: ‘Who are you?’

‘The First Army’

‘Then you can go home now,’ was the response. More typical was a gunner’s shouted comeback when passed by American troops giving the Eighth Army men a two-fingered salute: ‘Going to f…k up another front, I suppose.’

Unfortunately, when Crocker gave what he thought was a strictly private and off-the-record analysis of recent fighting and the part played by Ryder’s division to a group of visiting Americans, his comments leaked out to press correspondents. The news soon got back to the United States and was magnified into blanket condemnation which accused the 34th US Division of such poor training and inefficiency that its troops had been late on their start line and unable to take their objectives; indeed, they could only be trusted to clean up battlefields.

Ryder protested loudly that Crocker’s plan had been badly flawed. Deeply suspicious of the British at Fondouk, he maintained his troops had not been expendable merely to allow 6th Armoured through the pass unscathed. Having ordered that any criticism of his own performance was not to be suppressed, Eisenhower was enraged to discover his censors had extended this to all units and allowed Crocker’s scathing indictment of the 34th’s shortcomings to become public. Firing his chief ‘fool censor’ (General McClure) the C-in-C immediately began a publicity counter-offensive to restore to the public an image of Allied unity before the final push for Tunisia.

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That could not be long delayed. In the north Koeltz’s French 19th Corps had broken through the Eastern Dorsale after heavy fighting, losing the inspirational General Welvert, commander of the Constantine Division, killed on the last day (10 April) before the Germans withdrew. The French moved north-east from Pichon with the object of taking Djebel Mansour and dominating high ground around Pont du Fahs. On the 13th they linked up with the most westerly units of Horrocks’ 10th Corps. By then Anderson had pressed forward on the front extending from Sedjenane southwards to the road running from Oued Zarga to Medjez. The task of forcing that road open as a preliminary to the final drive on Tunis fell to Evelegh’s 78th Division.

Before undertaking that, however, Evelegh was also ordered to mount a limited offensive and regain Sedjenane. Brigadier Flavell’s 1st Battalion (1st Parachute Brigade) had been left holding ‘Bowler Hat’, near Tamera. He was to help free the main coastal road axis running from Tabarka through Sedjenane to Mateur – and thence either to Bizerte or Tunis – by diverting attention from the attack put in by two of Evelegh’s infantry brigades, the 36th and 138th, on his right, just south of the road. The whole of Freeman-Attwood’s 46th (North Midland) Infantry Division’s artillery and a tabour of Goums were in support.

At 2200 hours on 27 March, a massive barrage of shells shrieked and moaned over the heads of the advancing paratroopers. 1st Battalion, passing 3rd Battalion on Bowler Hat, made good progress against moderate opposition from the 10th Bersaglieri Regiment, whom the Goums slaughtered in great numbers. An Italian colonel hastily surrendered, willingly handing over his sword but insisting on keeping his little dog.

On the left, 2nd Parachute Battalion advanced into an unsuspected minefield and ran into Witzig’s Fallschirmjägers, who held high, wooded and rocky ground. Frost’s men gradually worked their way onto a plateau, not far below the crest. An unfortunate German, blundering into their positions, screamed in pain when seized in a powerful arm-lock by Frost’s signal sergeant. ‘Put that man down will you Sergeant,’ called Frost. Back came the instant reply: ‘Oh, I can’t do that sir, I’ve never had one before!’

When daylight came the paratroopers discovered they were on a false crest, well short of their objective. Clinging on to prevent the brigade’s entire position being lost, they were plastered with concentrated machine-gun fire, artillery and mortar shells making it impossible to evacuate the wounded. Ordering fixed bayonets, Frost sounded a blast on his hunting horn. ‘Waho Mohammed’ (British paratroopers battle cry) they shouted as supporting guns and mortars suddenly poured fire into the enemy while the paratroopers broke cover. At the same moment B Company and part of 1st Battalion caught the Germans in a pincer-grip higher up the hill, just missing the redoubtable Major Witzig himself.

Doused by ‘friendly’ artillery fire, B Company suffered further casualties. Dazed and heavily depleted, the remaining 150 survivors had to be strengthened by a company from 3rd Battalion. That night, in pelting rain and pitch darkness, the ‘Red Devils’ clawed their way up again through a hail of fire while the Germans pulled back to their positions on Green and Bald Hills, which they had held in February. By 1145 hours next day, the Parachute Brigade was astride the main road near Tamera and 16 days later was relieved by troops of the 9th US Division.

They arrived to take over with much swagger and fuss. Inquiring if it were necessary for the Americans to wear helmets in what was now virtually a rest area, Lieutenant-Colonel Pearson of 1st Parachute Battalion was told by their CO: ‘If George S. Patton says you wear your steel helmet, you wear it. If George S. Patton says attack, we attack, and that’s where the goddamn fuck-up begins.’ Pearson was inclined to agree.

The corps commander, 5th British Corps General Allfrey, came to see the paratroopers before they set off for Bou Farik, there to rest and re-organize before the invasion of Sicily. In five months, the brigade had suffered 1,700 wounded, killed and missing. As their train passed the biggest prisoner-of-war camp in North Africa there came flocking to the wire thousands of Germans who, seeing the red berets, cheered and cheered. ‘It was our nicest tribute,’ commented John Frost.

These were few in number. Most paratroopers were furious at their treatment, used as infantry without adequate equipment and in the line continually since 26 January. Again and again they had fought off superior numbers and received no credit at all. Several war correspondents who knew the truth wrote to Alexander asking for the ban on reporting their activities to be lifted. The last thing the Army authorities wanted – or Churchill for that matter – was a decline in recruiting and questions in the House of Commons. The ban remained.

Resistance to the other prong of Evelegh’s attack had been patchy. ‘Swifty’ Howlett’s 36th Brigade, led by 5th Buffs, broke through the German defences to threaten the Fallschirmjäger left flank. On a wider sweep to the south, Brigadier G.P. Harding’s 138th Brigade advanced behind 6th Lincolns until dense scrub became too thick even for the supporting Churchills from the North Irish Horse. Nothing daunted, a violent series of bayonet attacks by 6th Battalion, York and Lancs, resulted in the capture of the ore mine at Sedjenane. They became instant heroes in the British Press, including Lieutenant-Colonel Joe Kendrew, former England rugby forward, who got the first of his four DSOs for outstanding leadership.

By the last day of March, 46th Reconnaissance Regiment (46th Infantry Division) had re-taken Sedjenane after 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders battered their way to the outskirts of the village. Around them was a world of untidy and pitted earth, smashed and burned vehicles littering the roadside, thousands upon thousands of shell cases, petrol tins and mines in the growing fields of corn and over everything the heavy smell of dead flesh.

Having recaptured the ground lost during Operation Ausladung, First Army was beginning to show its mettle. The 78th British Division was concentrating at Teboursouk, ready to secure the second part of Anderson’s limited objectives. Coming down from the north, 36th Brigade was united with ‘Copper’ Cass’s 11th Brigade, which had been holding Oued Zarga, and the newly-arrived 38th Irish Brigade. They were to attack ridges and peaks of the jumbled mass of high land running almost due east to west on the north side of the Béja-Medjez highway and take the villages of Toukabeur, Chaouach and Heidous as well as the hills, some of them rising to 3,000ft, including Djebels Ang, el Mahdi and Tanngoucha.

Evelegh used a model of the mountains to brief his COs with the First Army commander also present. ‘The plan’s all right but will the troops fight?,’ asked Anderson. ‘Well, sir,’ replied Evelegh, ‘one can only plan in the expectation that they will.’

Major-General Hawkesworth’s 4th British Infantry (Mixed) Division had recently arrived in North Africa and was sent straight to the front to relieve 46th Infantry Division at Hunt’s Gap. Its task was to put in a noisy diversion while Evelegh’s brigades pushed ahead in a 12-mile arc, supported by 184 guns extending over a five-mile front south of the Medjez road. At 0345 hours on 7 April they suddenly opened their barrage and as soon as this lifted, the infantry rose from their start lines and began climbing, on the left men of 38th Brigade, in the centre the 36th and 11th on the right.

The Irish Brigade’s first objective was Djebel el Mahdi, a whale-backed ridge 1,400ft high, four miles long and liberally strewn with mines. By dawn the senior regiment, the Inniskillings, had driven the enemy off the southern end, losing their CO in the process. Following up in daylight, the Royal Irish got through unpleasant thorn scrub at the footings of Djebel Mahdi and discovered strewn bodies of ‘Skins’ who had charged straight over the top of a minefield in their preliminary attack. Carefully making their way through taped gaps they waited behind a boiling grey-black cloud of dust and flame as the gunners hit the crest of the ridge and, shortly after noon, went in with rifle and bayonet. Within three hours the Irish Fusiliers had cleared the rest of the hill. ‘The sense and the emotive feelings of triumph with a flying enemy before one are like nothing I have known on any other occasion in this world,’ remarked John Horsfall. Four miles or so inside the enemy positions, with the opposition not yet cleared from their flanks, they dug in as the enemy hit back with self-propelled guns. Sweeping up in support, 2nd Hampshires and 16th Durham Light Infantry found the going difficult.

In the centre, 5th Buffs and 6th Queen’s Own Royal West Kents were on their objectives by evening despite suffering casualties from enemy artillery and dive-bombing. To their right 1st East Surreys was making good progress towards the village of Toukabeur. Much was made possible by the startling climbing ability of the Churchills of the North Irish Horse. Advancing up seemingly impossible gullies and crevices in the limestone cliffs they covered the infantry who inched forward until they could hurl grenades into the enemy’s gun positions. Next day they were crawling up 1,800 feet of Djebel Bech Chekaou while the infantry struggled to stay upright in a howling gale.

Ahead, to their left, in failing light and still lashed by raging winds, 5th Buffs managed to advance onto Point 667 (2,188ft) dominating the western range whose last several hundred feet were too precipitous even for the tanks. Already a message had flashed from the East Surreys: ‘Touk is took’ – they were in the village of Toukabeur. The following day, the West Kents forced a passage along the mountain ridges and Chaouach – ‘Charwash’ to the troops – was taken by a combination of East Surreys, Lancashire Fusiliers and tanks of 142nd Royal Armoured Corps.

Outnumbered and poorly-supported the Germans hardly stood a chance in these western peaks but troops from 1st Battalion, 962nd German Regiment, and 3rd Battalion, 756th German Mountain Infantry Regiment, resisted with great courage, grudgingly giving space and fighting every step of the way.

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Far away in the castle of Klessheim near Salzburg, their fate was being decided by Hitler, pale-faced with dark pockets of tiredness beneath his eyes, and Mussolini who was racked by stomach cramps. Between 7 and 10 April they agreed that Tunisia should be held at all costs.

Kesselring informed Heeresgruppe Afrika of this decision, taken in order to tie down Anglo-American forces by land, sea and air, bleed off tonnage which otherwise would be used in attacking southern Europe, maintain the blockade of the Straits of Sicily and force the enemy to ship supplies by routes open to U-boat attack. But on the matter of improving Axis supplies there was little apart from a few grandiose comments by Mussolini who promised, no matter what, to send his last ship to supply the hard-pressed troops.

By mid-April, General von Arnim was warning his men against defeatism and scare-mongering. They were pinned back in a final redoubt with the von Manteuffel Division in the far north, from the coast east of Sedjenane southwards to a junction with the 334th German Division which, stiffened with a regiment of 999th German Division, was holding north of Medjez. Next in line was the Hermann Goring Division, defending the south-western edge of von Vaerst’s Fifth Panzer Army where it connected with Messe’s First Italian Army on a boundary defined as running west of Bou Arada to the mouth of the River Miliane which flows past Pont du Fahs north-east to the coast in the Gulf of Tunis. The southern front was defended by Messe with 90th German Light Division on the coast, astride the Enfidaville-Grombalia road, and the Young Fascists next inland (both 20th Italian Corps). In the centre, Trieste and Pistoia Divisions with 164th German Light Division blocked the Pont du Fahs highway and, on the extreme right (or west), lay Italian Spezia Division. Mobile reserves consisted of 15th and 10th Panzer Divisions.

Where the coastal road from Sousse ran through to Bou Ficha and Hammamet it passed between the jaws of mountain ranges narrowing the rough, dark plain to no more than 7,000 yards. At the southern extremity is Djebel Takrouna, 500 feet of unrelenting rock and opposite, on the western side, Djebel Garci, an awful mass of jagged pinnacles and steep pitches, 1,000 feet high. Other obstacles combined to provide a truly formidable defensive position at Enfidaville. The Germans and Italians had given the area a cursory reconnaissance at the beginning of March and several construction staffs planned mine blocks and tank traps. Work began on a 60-mile front with labour provided mostly by the German-Arab Lehrabteilung assisted by some Italian troops. By 13 April an incomplete antitank ditch had been added and 3,000 mines sewn at the valley entrance. Positions had been selected on the map for artillery and heavy weapons which were to be manned as the retreating troops arrived.

The strength of this position partly compensated for the Axis’ lack of firepower. First Italian Army had only 260 guns (177 of them Italian) and the Deutsche Afrika Korps 104 (60 Italian); they were also deficient in tanks, fuel, ammunition and air cover but this did not always correspond to reduced morale, as one officer observed: ‘On 11 April in the burning sun of mid-morning I saw eight men… marching along the Kairouan-Enfidaville road in full equipment carrying arms and extra ammunition. They had had no food and had already marched for 25 miles before I met them. They… refused my offer of a lift to any wounded saying that they would do the “little bit” of a march to Zaghouan. They arrived at battalion before nightfall.’

Montgomery was in no doubt that he could crack open the position. In the popular press there was much speculation that he had shouldered the Americans out of the fight for North Africa and would have nothing to do with them. ‘I suggest a certain modicum of truth [in this],’ noted Major-General Penney, Alexander’s signals chief, ‘and illustrative of the disasters that may be caused by individuals and by speaking out too loudly and too soon.’

Alexander outlined his plan on 27 March for the final offensive, punching here and there with only poorly-coordinated attacks by First Army; Montgomery contemptuously dismissed it as, ‘a partridge drive.’ Early in April he certainly appeared to be thinking of his own thrust on Tunis though problems with Husky and the dangers of dissipating Allied energies in a two-pronged final attack prompted him to ask Alexander on 10 April whether Eighth or First Army was to carry it out.

The most suitable area for employment of armour lay west of Tunis and so Alexander required 1st British Armoured Division and 1st King’s Dragoon Guards armoured reconnaissance regiment to be sent from Eighth Army to join 9th British Corps. Meanwhile, Montgomery again told Alexander that he intended to ‘gate crash’ the Enfidaville position and asked for 6th British Armoured Division to join his command. When it became clear, however, that First Army was to launch the main effort on 22 April he at once arranged for 1st British Armoured Division and the King’s Dragoon Guards to join Anderson.

From now on Eighth Army was to play only a minor part in Tunisia and Montgomery clearly lost interest in the whole affair. As Penney observed later in the month: ‘Eighth Army attitude odd and a little childish. Trying to pull out and just pass the baby to someone else without fulfilling obligations [maintaining pressure in the south]. Impression gained was that as they were not going through to TUNIS they were tired of that battle and could go.’ Nevertheless, Montgomery told Alexander he would face up to the Enfidaville position and would make things, ‘very unpleasant there for the Boche’, so as to get him looking the wrong way when First Army went in. His colossal lack of tact, however, caused much friction between the Allies when 11th Hussars took the devastated town of Sfax on 10 April.

Flying into Gabès from Cairo five days later, Major Noble of the Cameron Highlanders saw a B-17 Flying Fortress taxi in, complete with American crew. They were on their way to Sfax, ‘the Americans paying up their debts as he [Monty] had reached… [the town] when he said he would!’ A lighthearted bet had been struck by Bedell Smith and Montgomery back in February, who boasted he would be in Sfax by mid-April. Montgomery had a betting book in his mobile HQ to record these wagers since he took them quite seriously. The wager was a Fortress for Monty’s own use; to general amazement he took the matter literally so that his first act on getting there was to send off a message to Eisenhower: ‘Captured SFAX early this morning. Please send Fortress to report for duty to Western Desert Air Force and the Captain to report personally to me.’

Coming at a time of renewed criticism of American troops, this reminder of Eighth Army’s success greatly embarrassed the C-in-C. Alan Brooke was in no doubt that Montgomery was wrong. Attempting to postpone or avoid the problem altogether, Eisenhower wired his sincere congratulations and suggested that, ‘your Fortress will operate much better from landing fields at Tunis’, still some weeks away.

Montgomery typically would not allow the matter to rest. ‘Am urgently in need of this Fortress,’ he sent a signal to Eisenhower on the 15th, asking for the Flying Fortress to be flown directly to Gabès. Eisenhower eventually informed Spaatz that, ‘Bedell Smith had spoken out of turn in promising a B-17 to General Montgomery, but that the matter had become so complicated, with General Montgomery insisting that it was a more or less an official promise and the promise had been broadcast to the 8th Army.’ Spaatz was instructed to, ‘write a letter to Montgomery which would give the air-plane to him as a token from the NAAF.’ Furthermore, as Monty’s superior officer and, ‘in order to avoid professional jealousy’, Alexander had to be offered a transport DC-3. Alexander had the good sense to refuse the offer realising, as he put it, ‘the full military value of large aircraft cannot be fully exploited when they are assigned to individuals or for restrictive use…’

Montgomery took possession of his Fortress and flew into Algiers on 19 April to pay his respects to Eisenhower, untroubled by having caused so much difficulty: ‘He paid up willingly.’ Meanwhile, the King’s Dragoon Guards had entered the empty bomb-shattered port of Sousse (12 April) and, next day, the New Zealanders pushed in Messe’s light rearguards and drove forward 30 miles to Enfidaville.

Hoping the enemy had not had time to get established, Freyberg ordered Kippenberger to take Djebel Garci and swing around eastwards into the village of Enfidaville. One look at the towering peaks before him convinced Kippenberger this was not on, and so he put in a cautious probing attack, led by 23rd Battalion along dusty tracks between high cactus hedges and olive trees. Finding Djebel Garci to be at least a divisional objective he went instead for the lower Djebel Takrouna. The division’s artillery was strung out for miles when enemy fire began bursting among his trucks and, realizing there was no chance of his gamble paying off, Kippenberger turned about as a German self-propelled gun trundled down the road in front of Takrouna and began blazing away with high-velocity shells. At this moment the BBG announced that Enfidaville had fallen. Two brigade dispatch riders rode off to the village and returned from German captivity two years later. Also lost were the quartermaster of the divisional cavalry and two senior British sapper officers, misled by a careless radio correspondent.

Garci and Takrouna were only to be won by some serious mountain fighting. Unfortunately the special skills required were not something which Eighth Army possessed. Apart from the Gurkhas there were few experienced hillmen and the difficulty of supplying mountain troops with mules was only slowly being solved. For men used to wide open desert spaces, Enfidaville was claustrophobic and filled with a brooding sense of trouble.

Many similar problems beset First Army which Anderson had ordered to advance again in mountainous country to reach a line from Sidi Nsir south-east to Heidous, squatting below the bulk of Djebel Tanngoucha. The West Kents opened this second phase on the night of 13/14 April by attacking Djebel Bou Diss, an outlying mass barring the way to the long ridge of Djebel Ang, beyond which a saddle connected to Tanngoucha. After cautious probing the previous day revealed the strength of the opposition, an artillery barrage preceded an infantry advance to the top of the hill under heavy mortar and machine-gun fire. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting drove off the enemy and the following afternoon a strong counter-attack was beaten back, inflicting severe casualties.

The 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers stormed Djebel Ang and took the heights where they were reinforced by the East Surreys. However, when a combined group of Fusiliers and 5th Northamptons tried to advance on Tanngoucha they were very badly knocked about. A determined counter-attack by 1st Battalion, 962nd Afrika Regiment and Brandenburg Battalion (attached to 334th German Division) wiped out the best part of two companies. Amid dank slabs and fissures of echoing rock a desperate struggle lasted throughout 15 April for Djebel Ang, pitting the East Surreys, Lancashire Fusiliers and Irish Brigade against 3rd Battalion, 756th German Mountain Infantry Reg. and 1st Battalion, 962nd German Regiment. The Irish had only just arrived after being relieved at Djebels Mahdi and Gerinat nearby by 6th Black Watch. Private Framp of the Highlanders met their ghost-like figures trudging back covered in white dust, out on their feet with utter fatigue.

A determined onslaught took the Irish Fusiliers back on to the ridge. They were assisted by Churchills and that evening went on to attack nearby Djebel Bettiour just as the Germans staged their own effort. The two sides passed in the dark until the Germans ran into a mixed bag of mule teams, cooks and the Irish Brigade HQ. In fierce fighting the Germans were beaten off with grenades and small arms, German wounded sent tumbling over 100 feet down the screes. Retreating, they stumbled unexpectedly into the main body of the Fusiliers who picked most of the remaining Germans off. This savage experience only hardened the resolve of the survivors for they fought on with great bravery, defying all logic.

At a critical stage in the battle for Djebel Ang, on 16 April, Brigadier Russell was badly shocked when a mortar killed his signals officer standing beside him which may explain some loss of control over the next few days in the brigade. The Inniskillings went in to attack Tanngoucha that night after the Buffs had mounted an attack on the prehistoric caves of Heidous and been bloodily repulsed. They took the peak but were forced to retreat by severe mortar and machine-gun fire which bolted the Arab drivers and their mules, carrying ammunition and ‘beehive’ charges – used to blast holes to build defences in the solid rock.

Hawkesworth’s 4th British Division was meanwhile struggling to advance from Sidi Nsir. On 12 April, 6th Black Watch was badly cut up by mortars and shells which killed the GO, adjutant, six other officers and over 50 men. Next day the division ground to a halt against implacable opposition and remained stuck for 72 hours. Then it advanced only eight miles, at very considerable cost to 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, before being relieved on 16 April by 1st US Infantry Division which had been cleaning up the battlefield around El Guettar. As 4th British Division moved south-east to Medjez, 9th US Infantry Division also replaced Freeman – Attwood’s 46th British Division in the lush green wheatfields and rolling hills of the far northern sector.

These changes were part of a massive logistical switch on First Army’s front, brilliantly executed preparatory to Alexander’s final drive on Tunis. The decision to include 2nd US Corps was taken as much for political as military reasons. ‘I have made Alexander agree as to the necessity of keeping all four American divisions together as a powerful Corps,’ Eisenhower told Marshall, ‘even if the logistical situation should make the arrangement seem somewhat unwise or risky.’ This was actually Bradley’s brainchild following a visit by General McCreery (Alexander’s operations officer in 18th Army Group HQ) to Patton’s CP, on 17 March, when McCreery explained Alexander’s plans for the destruction of all Axis forces in Tunisia. When Patton and Bradley heard that the only American troops to be included were those of 9th US Infantry – under British control – they were speechless with rage.

Sensibly, Patton maintained that battle experience was essential for American troops and then produced an argument, ‘of great political significance’, for retaining the 34th US ‘Red Bull’ Infantry which Alexander wanted to send back for retraining. Ryder’s was a National Guard Division of men from the Middle West where isolationism was deeply ingrained. Should they be left out in the cold, the whole National Guard system might be discredited and American public opinion swing further against the strategy of defeating Hitler before concentrating on Japan.

Armed with this, Bradley went to 18th Army Group at Haidra on the 13th, where he successfully pleaded the 34th’s case. Against Alexander’s wishes Eisenhower insisted on the vital importance of keeping 2nd US Corps together, with Bizerte as its objective, but Patton and Bradley would not be allowed to shift their forces from Anderson’s command. Patton, still disgruntled, quickly accepted Eisenhower’s suggestion that he should step aside and go to work on Operation Husky (invasion of Sicily slated for July) thereby leaving Bradley commanding 2nd US Corps, and the order was written immediately

In order to smooth ruffled feathers Alexander, quite improperly, gave Bradley the right of appeal to him over Anderson’s head on any order which he doubted. Fortunately, this worked out well enough because the eminently sensible Bradley only once used this device when questioning a demand for a US combat team when the British were badly held up, at the end of April, in trying to take Longstop Hill. The replacement of Patton by Bradley was kept secret in order to prevent the enemy suspecting anything about the Allies’ future plans. While 2nd US Corps moved north, Patton and his staff drove back to Constantine. On the way, lunch with his friend Brigadier-General Everett Hughes, a staff officer in Algiers, provided an opportunity to let off steam: ‘Says Ike is crazy. Too pro-British,’ noted Hughes – who agreed.

Apart from this Patton was inclined to be positive about his spell at the front. ‘I have been gone 43 days, fought several successful battles, commanded 95,800 men, lost about ten pounds, gained a third star and a hell of a lot of poise and confidence, and am otherwise the same.’

His replacement, who assumed command of 2nd US Corps on 16 April, was different in temperament and manner. Fifty years old, undemonstrative, almost diffident by nature, Omar N. Bradley habitually wore an old field jacket –in Tunisia a cast-off from one of Eisenhower’s aides – earning him the title of the ‘GI General’. This modest exterior, however, masked a rational and incisive mind. Before his briefing each morning by his G.2 (‘Monk’ Dickson) and G.3 (Bob Hewitt) he quietly called up his divisional commanders (Harmon, Allen, Ryder and Eddy), asking them precise questions. It was some time before his staff officers, ruled with a rod of iron by Bradley’s chief of staff, Bill Kean (known behind his back as Captain Bligh), knew this information was why he was able to put them on the spot so easily.

When the move order arrived 2nd US Corps HQ was under canvas on a hillside outside Béja – the town was largely destroyed and typhus was raging. In four days the corps’ four divisions, well over 100,000 men, with guns, tanks, vehicles and supplies, had moved 200 miles and spread themselves northwards to Cap Serrat, crossing the lines of communication of the entire British First Army. For one force to move behind another like this demanded superlative planning and remarkably tight traffic control, though there were delays along the way, especially among the British 1st Armoured Division and King’s Dragoon Guards which had been inserted as stiffeners into 9th Corps’ sector.

The various units had been scheduled to move only at night but, as Bombardier Challoner, one of 1st Armoured Division’s gunners, soon discovered, ‘because the plan had been so frittered away… we were moving by fits and starts all day to reach the French town of Le Kef at dusk [on 16 April]… French and American Women’s Services were about and we saw the first public cafés since Cairo. Most of the Americans were wearing their Egypt medal! More food for thought.’ To Monty’s veterans their First Army comrades appeared at first sight ‘neat and regimental… pale and earnest, as they sit bold upright, rifles in hand, in their new grey-camouflaged vehicles! And what a motley bunch we Desert Rats must look,’ commented Private Crimp, ‘tanned and weatherstained, sprawling over our sandblown trucks, breweans bobbing on the side.’

After four days’ travelling around First Army’s sector 30th Corps commander General Oliver Leese was venomously angry: ‘They are jealous as hell of us and our reputation and achievements. It’s a pity but then… [Anderson] has no personality and puts nothing across – so what can you expect… I had the most extraordinary interview with… [him]… He was quite f——g about the 8th Army… I said nothing and listened in frank astonishment to a tirade of a mixture of jealousy and inferiority complex. It gave me no feeling of confidence – in fact only contempt… At one time, I hoped [Montgomery] would be merciful and considerate. I hope now he rams the 8th Army down their throat to the last drop. They are ignorant and untrustworthy in comparison and they must be forced to learn.’

Alexander ought to have brought together Anderson and Montgomery to clear the air. Now it was truly poisonous and Leese took great offence at Anderson’s recital of the difficulties faced by First Army and his dismissal of Eighth Army’s easy achievements against ‘mere’ Italians. In addition, disaffection was rife among troops sent to join First Army: ‘They all terribly miss [Montgomery] and his drive and decision and the confidence which he has inspired in us all.’ This was a big claim but newly-arrived Eighth Army units did openly consider themselves a cut above others. All men of 1st British Armoured Division were warned by 18th Army Group HQ that the 6th British Armoured Division and the 46th Division had fought very hard and that formations within the First Army were very sensitive.

Settling in near the pretty village of Bou Arada, however, Bombardier Challoner heard widespread rumours that in recent fighting for high ground in the Oued Zarga-Medjez area the Hampshires, ‘after having a bashing are reported to have given themselves up in droves and the DLIs [Durham Light Infantry] from Eighth Army who put up a better show had heavy casualties.’ Such stories inspired little confidence in First Army’s abilities.

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Chapter 16

Only a Question of Time

‘I’ve had enough of this particular part of the world, you know I don’t like hills, well I’ve been a bloody mountain goat lately.’

Lieutenant D.E. Brown, 17th Field Regiment RA, to his wife, 20 April 1943. Brown was shot through the head and killed in action on Longstop Hill on Good Friday, 27 April 1943.

The transfer of units from Eighth to First Army and 2nd Corps’ switch to the northern flank was possible only through total mastery of the air. In one spectacular raid on 22 March, 24 B-17s of the 301st US Bombardment Group blew up 30 acres of dock area at Palermo in an explosion whose shock waves buffeted the bombers at 24,000ft. Six Italian cargo ships were written off and two coasters lifted bodily onto the damaged pier.

Operation Flax began at 0600 hours on 5 April 1943, when 1st Fighter Group (North West Africa Strategic Air Force) sent out 26 P-38s on an independent fighter sweep of the Sicilian Straits. They shot down 16 enemy aircraft for the loss of two Lightnings while US Fortresses and Mitchells caused havoc amongst staging posts, transports and terminal airfields.Repeated operations during the next two-and-a-half weeks culminated in two savage attacks, the first known as the ‘Palm Sunday massacre’ when four P-40 squadrons, with Spitfires flying top cover, caught a huge gaggle of enemy aircraft returning from a fleeting visit to the shrinking Tunisian bridgehead. Between 50 and 70 transport Ju-52s and 16 escorting aircraft were destroyed. ‘The big thing in this… battle was to avoid collision,’ reported a Spitfire pilot. ‘The sky just above the sea was a mass of whirling propellers and burning aircraft.’ Allied losses were light; six P-40s and one Spitfire.

The second attack on 22 April brought the Axis system to the point of collapse. This time squadrons of Spitfires and Kitty hawks from the South African Air Force, Polish Flight, and 79th US Fighter Group pounced on 21 Me-323s, each capable of carrying 130 troops or ten tons of petrol (their cargo that fateful day). Over the Gulf of Tunis 16 fell like burning torches and ten escorting fighters were destroyed for the loss of only four Kitty hawks. Göring immediately banned all transport flights to North Africa though, under pressure of events, he had to allow Ulrich Buchholz to resume night flights soon afterwards.

The daily average of arriving supplies now dropped to less than ten per cent of that needed to support two armies. Yet German troop reinforcements and replacements kept arriving right up to the capitulation; 12,000 Germans by air in March, 9,000 in April and 300 in May. Others came by sea; in March 8,400 Germans and 11,000 Italians; in April 2,800 Germans and unknown numbers of Italians conveyed in destroyers pressed into service as troop-carriers, Siebel ferries, landing craft, barges and anything else which could float under the general command of Kapitän-zur-See Paul Meixner, an efficient Austrian and U-boat captain in the First World War. They ran the gauntlet of the Royal Navy, sweeping the seas with cruisers and destroyers operating out of Malta and Bone, and motor torpedo boats from an advanced base at Sousse. Heavily reinforced, the British 8th and 10th Submarine Flotillas intensified their patrols off the main ports of departure for Axis shipping , and inflicting heavy losses on Italian and German shipping traffic despite serious casualties they themselves suffered: Royal Navy submarines HMS Tigris, HMS Thunderbolt and HMS Turbulent all lost with their valiant crews in March, HMS Sahib and HMS Splendid in April.

While the Axis supply position worsened daily, the Allies at last had adequate logistical reserves as troops and stores of every kind were sent from the main ports of arrival at Algiers, Oran and Tripoli to the front via Philippeville, Bougie and Bone. Transports sailing under the Levant Command between Alexandria and Tripoli were protected by Force H (commanded now by Vice-Admiral A.U. Willis) and ports in forward areas at Gabès, Sfax and Sousse were heavily exploited; 14,000 tons of army stores were landed at Sousse alone between its capture and the end of April.

The line of communication for 2nd US Corps shifted from Tébessa – supplied by road and rail from Constantine – to Bône, shared with First Army. Major-General Miller’s (Major-General, Administration, at 18th Army Group) only anxiety was whether the enemy would stand and fight. ‘Personally,’ he wrote, ‘I feel that the right course from his point of view would be to start now to evacuate his good personnel and best troops in anticipation of the final blow when it may be too late.’

The same idea had occurred to Kesselring and von Arnim, but time for a general withdrawal from Tunisia, possible earlier in the year and supported by Warlimont and Vice-Admiral Weichold, head of the German naval mission in Rome, had slipped away. Nevertheless, some thought was given to evacuating key personnel and, on 18 April, the Panzer Regiment Hermann Göring returned to Sicily, leaving behind its tanks. In Tunis, remaining families of the Frenchmen who had gone over to the Allies were ordered to France. Owing to heavy losses of shipping French officials vetoed any sort of movement by sea while the Italian Navy refused to take them on its destroyers. A first attempt to evacuate them by air nearly ended in disaster over Gap Bon when Allied fighters intercepted and shot down one aircraft before the others turned back. Most were eventually got away, Admiral Estèva among them. British intelligence estimated early in April that a number of jetties being constructed by the enemy along the eastern shore of Tunisia might be intended for evacuation purposes using self-propelled lighters, small coasters and light naval craft, such as E-boats. It was, remarked the British Chiefs of Staff, of ‘capital importance’ that any large-scale attempt to escape should be thwarted and, whatever naval and air forces might achieve, the best means of preventing this would be for First Army to storm Tunis and Bizerte at an early date.

By mid-April von Vaerst knew the final offensive would not be long delayed but estimated it would fall either on First Italian Army around Enfidaville – because of the enemy’s superior forces there – or Fifth Panzer Army in the Medjerda Valley where the terrain was more favourable. Their morale still high, having been told nothing about evacuation, the German troops’ allegiance was reaffirmed by von Arnim in a sycophantic message to the Führer on his birthday (19 April). Von Arnim, however, had already written them off but no one had the courage to tell Hitler of the impending catastrophe.

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Awesome, Monty winning a crewed B-17 in a bet :thinking::joy::joy::joy::joy::sunglasses:there must be some more stories there. I want to win a Sally B as well.:innocent:

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Alexander’s plans for the final attack on Tunis and Bizerte, approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff and subsequently by Eisenhower, were issued from 18th Army Group HQ on 16 April. Operation Vulcan primarily involved First Army, which was scheduled to capture Tunis. 2nd US Corps, in Anderson’s estimation capable of no more than a diversionary role, was ordered to cover the left flank while securing suitable positions to take Bizerte. In the meantime Alexander ordered Montgomery to distract enemy forces by exerting continuous pressure and advance on the route Enfidaville-Hammamet-Tunis while preventing the enemy scurrying into the Cap Bon peninsula.

Bradley’s four divisions faced a stiff task in attacking well-defended enemy positions in a belt of rugged hill country stretching between 15 and 20 miles to Mateur, the key to unlocking the Bizerte area. He had trucks running day and night, lights blazing, to bring up ammunition: ‘We’re going to make it, General,’ said Colonel Robert W. Wilson, Bradley’s supply chief. ‘You can definitely plan to go with the British on April 23.’

From north of the Sidi Nsir-Mateur road to the coast near Cap Serrat, dense scrub in the valleys and on the lower slopes of a tumbling mass of hills and ridges made any movement difficult. Accordingly Bradley assigned a secondary role to Eddy’s 9th Infantry, Colonel Magnan’s three battalions of the Corps Franc d’Afrique, and 4th and 6th Tabors marocains commanded by Captain Verlet and Major Labataille in attacking along a 28 mile front. While Eddy’s 39th RCT struck at enemy strongpoints around Djebel Ainchouna north of Jefna, 60th RCT and the Corps d’Afrique were to drive eastward along both sides of the Sedjenane River, wiping out German fortresses dominating the approach to Mateur through the Sedjenane Valley. Jefna itself was to be bypassed to the north while 47th RCT put in a holding attack against Bald and Green Hills, slightly to the west of Jefna, commanding the Mateur road.

In the nine-mile gap between 9th and 34th US Division to the south, 91st Reconnaissance Troop was to mount vigorous patrols but Eddy was unhappy at this exposure on his right flank. ‘Manton,’ said Bradley when visiting his CP in the Sedjenane Valley, ‘nothing’s going to come through that gap. Why Bill Kean and I will go up with rifles to stop anything that might squeeze through.’ Eddy smiled but remained unconvinced.

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Bradley planned his main attack in the southern zone, on a front of 13 miles generally devoid of natural ground cover. The Germans had built a comprehensive linked defence system, blocking narrow valleys with minefields, placing machine-gun and mortar posts on high ground and bringing artillery to bear upon natural approaches through which the Americans would have to advance. ‘The enemy on his hill positions was constantly looking right down your throat,’ remarked one officer. The chief routes to Mateur ran through the Oued Tine and Djoumine Valleys, though the latter was entirely under enemy observation. An armoured force could be put through the broader Oued Tine but ran the risk of becoming confined in extensive minefields unless control of ridges and hills on both sides was assured. Consequently, 1st US Infantry Division’s three RCTs were detailed to clear hills north of this valley while 6th Armored Infantry (1st US Armored Division) attacked high ground on the southern edge. North of the Béja-Mateur road the left flank was to be covered by a combat team from Ryder’s 34th US Infantry Division; the rest and parts of 1st US Armored Division lay in support.

With a huge superiority in tanks, guns and shells (343,000 rounds were allotted to First Army) Anderson relied on strength rather than subtlety to shatter the enemy. He planned to attack the pivotal point of the Axis defence in the area bounded by Peter’s Corner, a location eight miles east of Medjez on the road to Tunis, further along the same road to Massicault thence north to El Bathan, as well as driving the enemy from high ground in the south-west, including Longstop Hill, where over 200 enemy weapon pits had been entered on Allied battle maps. This task fell to General Allfrey’s 5th Corps; Evelegh’s 78th British Infantry Division was detailed to take Djebel Ang and Longstop Hill while Major-General Glutterbuck’s 1st Infantry Division drove forward along the Medjerda River to Djebel bou Aoukaz and El Bathan. On the northern edge of the Goubellat Plain, Hawkesworth’s 4th British Infantry Division was to secure Peter’s Corner and push into high hills beyond Ksar Tyr.

Entrances to the Goubellat plain were to be seized by Crocker’s 9th Corps, using Freeman-Attwood’s 46th British Infantry Division. When the initial break-in had been made, Briggs’ 1st Armoured and Keightley’s 6th British ArmouredDivision were to swing north-east towards Massicault, smashing German armour which Anderson expected would be put in east of the Medjerda, and cut off any enemy still opposing 5th Corps’ advance on a line from El Bathan to Massicault. Further south still around Pont du Fahs, Koeltz’s 19th French Corps, with its three infantry divisions – Mathenet’s Maroc, Conne’s d’Alger and Boissau’s d’Oran – together with Le Coulteux’s Armoured Group and Lieutenant-Colonel Lindsay’s 1st King’s Dragoon Guards, was later to pinch out the enemy salient which bulged from Takrouna south-west towards Robaa before swinging north to the vicinity of Bou Arada.

Before Anderson could deploy his forces, von Arnim put in a spoiling attack to assess their strength, code-named Operation Fliederblüte (‘Lilac Blossom’), at Banana Ridge, five miles east of Medjez overlooking German positions on the plain below – one of the jumping off points for 1st British Division’s 3rd Brigade – and nearby Djebel Djaffa, where 4th British Infantry Division’s 10th Brigade was lodged.Under a cloudy sky and fitful moon on the night of 20/21 April, rapidly advancing armoured units of 10th Panzer Division, together with infantry from Generalmajor Schmid’s Hermann Goring Division supported by 80 tanks, overran artillery positions on Banana Ridge. At first light their main attack opened as Panzerabteilung 501’s Tigers, supported by 88s, began a pincer movement. They ran straight onto guns brought up ready for the opening stages of Operation Vulcan. Firing over open sights, the gunners knew from intelligence reports all about the weakest point of the Tigers – the traverse ring attaching turret to body. Losing many of their tanks, surviving crews from 10th Panzer Division fought on foot in the light of burning hulks which lit up the countryside. Behind their armour, the infantry suffered terribly from concentrated artillery fire while machine-gun bursts destroyed most of those still on their feet. A bayonet charge, supported by Churchill tanks, re-took the whole ridge.

At Djebel Djaffa, south-east of Medjez, the attackers came within half a mile of 4th Division’s HQ and neared Peter’s Corner but here again the combined weight of Churchills supported by 17-pounder anti-tank guns repulsed them. There was some anxiety lest the troops, readying themselves for the forthcoming attack, might have taken too much of a beating and suffered serious disruption to their gun lines. In fact, German casualties were roughly equal but their loss of tanks much greater; proportionately they could ill-afford either.

From press reports and signals traffic the Germans knew in detail of Montgomery’s dispositions as he faced the task of squeezing through the Enfidaville bottleneck. This was always going to be a very serious venture; the Germans’ foreknowledge made it even more so and Montgomery’s overconfidence ensured it. Acknowledging that there might be some ‘tough fighting’ ahead, Monty planned to burst through with Horrocks’ 10th Corps and advance 12 miles on Bou Ficha at the northern end of the coastal corridor. Leese’s HQ and 51st Highland Division were to take no part since they were preparing for Husky.

Horrocks instructed ‘Crasher’ Nichols’ successor, Major-General S.C. Kirkman, to hold and patrol the coastal sector of the Enfidaville front and Freyberg’s New Zealanders to take Takrouna. Tuker’s 4th Indian Division was to capture Djebel Garci and battle its way 12 miles north-east until it commanded the coast road. Erskine’s 7th British Armoured Division was to make a limited advance on the western flank while waiting for at least one brigade from Major-General E.G. Miles’ 56th (London) Infantry Division to come up from Kirkuk (Iraq) to relieve them. Then an armoured attack along the coast road towards Hammamet would bring the decisive breakthrough.Like Freyberg, Tuker was unimpressed with the plan, having been ‘rushed up’ on the left of the New Zealanders with a ‘stiff job ahead’ and placed back under 10th Corps – ‘worse luck’. Horrocks’ lack of imagination condemned the 4th Indian Division to capturing ‘a few million sq miles of hills to make up for N.Z.’s lack of troops,’ complained Tuker since Freyberg was insisting that he had put out all his strength in advancing 2,000 yards.

Freyberg had serious doubts about the enormity of climbing Takrouna though at the final conference before Operation Oration Horrocks was optimistic, seriously underestimating the enemy’s strength and morale despite reports from patrols sent out by both divisions and other intelligence information. Few shared his confidence: ‘That really was frightening,’ commented Major Jephson about the planned advance up tangled rock to the virtually inaccessible pinnacle and remains of a Berber fort above Takrouna’s ridge.

Tuker entrusted his Territorial battalion, 1/4th Essex with initial patrolling and the opening attack on Garci. Successive waves of 4/6th Rajputana Rifles and l/9th Gurkhas were to follow, supported by a fierce artillery bombardment. Two miles away, across the plain, formations of New Zealanders prepared for another operation like Supercharge which had been so successful at the Tebaga Gap, where infantry would attempt to smash through behind a creeping barrage. But the topography was entirely different and what had worked in the desert was not automatically appropriate for the mountains. Still, there was an air of quiet optimism: Kippenberger told Horrocks that he thought the attack might be ‘just on.’ He planned to attack with 5th Brigade in two phases, first with 21st and 28th (Maori) Battalions advancing on the left and right of Takrouna and then with 23rd Battalion moving through the Maoris and advancing behind a barrage to take a second objective, Djebels Foukr and Gherachir. Meanwhile, on the right, Gentry’s 6th Brigade was given the less demanding task of advancing north-east of Takrouna to capture several undulating ridges beyond Enfidaville.

Indians and New Zealanders were able to advance across the flat plain to their start positions with little trouble because von Sponeck (90th German Light Division) and von Liebenstein (164th German Light Division) had withdrawn their troops into the hills.

"First Italian Army hopelessly outnumbered,’ noted von Arnim after a conference on 14 April, ‘but held naturally strong defensive position which enormously valuable. Usual conflicts between Messe and Bayerlein but clear that now Messe really prepared to fight to [the] last.’ For once these two agreed; ‘Takrouna was the dominating point, flanking the enemy in both directions,’ recorded the 90th German Light Division War Diary, ‘and must be held as long as possible to keep up our OPs.’ Here the first attack was to be broken and diverted towards re-entrants in the coastal and central sectors.

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After a difficult approach to Djebel Garci, 4th Indian Division’s attack was scheduled to jump off first. Forming up on their start lines on 19 April, faces puffed and bloated from the attentions of mosquitoes which swarmed about the region, the infantry awaited on a beautiful and serene day the coming of darkness. Beneath a bright moon, at precisely 2100 hours, l/4th Essex troops arose and began wading through knee-high wet grass and spring crops as they approached their first objectives while the division’s guns blasted enemy concentrations on the mountains. Far out in front a long-range Essex patrol, attempting to reach and mine the alternative road which ran behind Garci to Pont du Fahs, was nearly hit by this barrage. ‘We continued until we came upon more enemy positions,’ reported Corporal Thompson of the patrol. ‘Lieut Hailes again ordered a frontal attack and while shots were being exchanged two enemy surrendered – we killed them.’

The Essex battalion quickly secured a jumping-off position for the main assault by taking Djebel Blida, lying to the front of Garci itself and capturing 50 prisoners. At 2200 hours, 4/6th Rajputana Rifles began the steep ascent of Garci. Almost at once, the leading companies were hit by a blizzard of mortar and rifle fire from the Pistoia Division and German troops. For four hours, in which the bayonet and kukri were freely used, the Rajputans inched there way forward through dust and smoke in bitter hand-to-hand fighting. Following the loss of all company commanders, the attack wavered and halted until Havildar-Major Chhelu Ram, already wounded and with no regard for his personal safety, began reorganizing for a further advance.

Far below in the valley 1/9th Gurhkas could hear the sounds of battle but their own position was becoming increasingly uncomfortable as shells and mortars soared over the crest above, bursting among them. When Brigadier Bateman of 5th Brigade arrived at 0300 hours, he immediately gave permission for them to advance on the highest feature on the approaches to Garci. Scrambling up the rocky slopes, they were hit by concentrated machine-gun fire and in desperate clashes, during which two company commanders were wounded, they drove the defenders from a series of stone sangars. Then, with their kukris flickering in the darkness, they slashed the enemy who fled with wild cries through the night.

As they secured Point 330, the Rajputans suffered a savage counterattack. Out of ammunition, they waited until the enemy loomed out of the darkness and let fly with a volley of stones. This was followed by the bayonet and kukri; amid the screams, shouts, exploding shells and rifle-fire Chhelu Ram rallied his men: ‘Jats and Mohammedans, no withdrawal! Forward! Forward!’ The line held but amongst the piles of huddled dead was the havildar-major. For his exceptional heroism he was awarded a posthumous VC, the second in the battalion. The Indian Order of Merit went to Jemadar Dwansing and there were many who thought he should also have received the supreme award.

While this frenzied struggle for Garci was taking place, the New Zealanders began their attack on Takrouna. Vast semicircles of light shimmered in the sky as the divisional artillery began its bombardment. At 2300 hours through the stubborn cactus groves went the troops, preceded by three Churchill tanks grinding forward on the front of each brigade, cutting through dense scrub. A planned advance of 100 yards in two minutes was much too fast, however, and threw out the whole programme. All three battalions on 5th Brigade front almost immediately began to take casualties.On the west side of Takrouna, 21st Battalion failed to take its objectives and was in deep trouble on open ground. On the east flank, 23rd Battalion was badly cut up as it followed up the hard-pressed 28th Maoris. ‘Sgts were promoting themselves to Platoon commanders,’ recalled one NCO*, ‘Corporals to Sgts and so on and in many cases they no sooner promoted themselves than they were wounded, but everyone stood their ground and there was no panic.’* With one forward company reduced to 20 unwounded men and another to 17, the 23rd eventually linked up with the badly disorganized 28th Battalion beyond the rear of Takrouna. Despite their heavy casualties, the Maoris set about scaling the mountain before dawn from the east and south-west. They shot, bayoneted and grenaded their way through a hail of mortar bombs hurled by Germans and 1st Battalion, 66th Valtellina Infantry Regiment. A German voice was heard shouting, ‘Let the bloody black bastards come.’

By breaking through a defensive pit system the Maoris secured a position above and behind the enemy and at daybreak some Italians began to surrender. There was still the problem of surmounting a perpendicular band of rock, too steep to climb, but this was solved by swarming hand-over-hand up telephone wires which had been strung by the enemy to the hovels sprawling down the western shoulder to the village of Takrouna near the road. Arriving at the pinnacle the Maoris threw grenades and after a wild firefight, killed 40 or 50 enemy and took 150 prisoners, among them an astonished German artillery observer and his radio operator. They were sent back down the hill while four survivors from the storming party, together with a few others who arrived later, set about defending the tiny garrison by blocking all approaches from the village. This was full of Italians, unaware of their presence until the Maoris began taking long-range pot shots.

By mid-morning on 20 April, 28th Battalion held the peak and had cleared nearby Djebel Bir, but nowhere was their hold secure and losses had been very heavy. Kippenberger decided to recall 21st Battalion which had also taken an awful hammering and put it into reserve to reinforce the fight for the eastern side of Takrouna. Under continuous mortar and small-arms fire the survivors struggled into battalion HQ while the most forward companies, out of contact, fought on for much of the day.

The disorganized companies of 23rd Battalion, though continuously mortared and shelled short of their final objectives, were well dug in beyond the road at the rear of Takrouna. They fought off repeated counter-attacks as a troop of Nottinghamshire Yeomanry tanks, which had lost touch with the infantry during the initial attack through the cactus hedges, withdrew and rejoined its squadron which was sent at first light to help force the enemy from the valley to the east. Gradually this was cleared, together with the hill’s lower slopes and contact made with 6th Brigade which had enjoyed greater success.

Advancing on a relatively quiet front, 24th Battalion was on its objectives in good time. To the right, 26th Battalion found the Italians dazed from the opening barrage and without fight. Digging was difficult in the hard limestone and many men simply used the enemy’s deep slit trenches which offered them good protection from much heavy shelling over the next four days. Meanwhile, on Djebel Garci, out of ammunition and having taken 30 per cent casualties in the night’s fighting, two leading companies of Rajputans retreated. In the belief that the attack had foundered the enemy renewed his assault, throwing a counterattack against l/9th Gurkhas and the Essex battalion.

Brigadier Dimoline’s (artillery commander of 4th Indian Division) response incorporated in his fire programme nearly 300 guns, capable of sending eight tons of shells onto a selected target within 60 seconds and able to switch to others in five minutes. ‘FOO [Forward Observation Officer] reported that enemy infantry had got within 300 yards of him, when the full weight of the Divisional Artillery came down,’ recorded Dimoline’s log. ‘The DF [defensive fire] he had called for fell slap amongst them. When the smoke and dust had cleared away nothing was seen of them afterwards. This was encouraging, and we hoped that Boche was getting a really bloody nose everywhere.’

Despite this barrage, however, there was every possibility that the toehold on Garci might be lost and Tuker was worried by the situation on his right wing where the New Zealanders were having a desperately hard time on Takrouna. To prevent their isolation by a sudden enemy thrust he moved up 7th (Armoured) and 23rd (Motor) Brigades. Supported by 40th and 50th RTR, 7th Brigade’s new commander, Brigadier Firth (who replaced Brigadier Lovett when he was wounded), was able to pass 4/16th Punjabis to Kippenberger. Shortly after midday on the 20th they were sent by 5th Brigade onto the plain south-west of Garci in full view of the enemy and took to the lower slopes of the mountain on their right. A boiling cloud of fire enveloped them but astonishingly, when the dust and smoke cleared, the Punjabis were still in impeccable formation, advancing steadily to relieve 1/9th Gurkhas.

Over on Takrouna, Kippenberger’s 21st Battalion had relieved the Maoris on the pinnacle that same afternoon. In an exceptionally ferocious engagement the Italians lobbed grenades into buildings sheltering the Maori wounded, probably unaware they were there. Those still on their feet went berserk, bayoneting and shooting the attackers, many of whom tried without success to surrender, and throwing others over the cliffs.

Accurate shooting next day by one of the new 17-pounder anti-tank guns sent solid shot ricocheting through the stone buildings of Takrouna village. A concerted rush by a Maori platoon suddenly saw paratroopers of the Folgore Division, together with a few Germans of 104th Panzer Grenadiers, stumbling out of the ruins to surrender; only about 350 survived. This opened the way to take Djebel Takrouna, though not before Italian troops near the pinnacle recovered the body of Sergeant Bressaniniche, found still clutching his rifle. With his own blood he had written on a scrap of paper: ‘Long live the King! Long live Italy! God save Italy!’

‘We Italians in Africa got better as the war went on,’ observed Paolo Colacicchi, ‘the Italians [were] very quick to learn, our units improved of course… The example of the Germans helped and by the time of Tunisia when the war in Africa as far as we were concerned [was] finished – I would have said we gave a pretty good account of ourselves…’ Tuker had witnessed their stubborn defensive abilities, both at Wadi Akarit and on Takrouna, and thought the sheer human cost of getting through the Enfidaville position too great. In two days’ fighting his men suffered over 500 casualties and Freyberg’s nearer 600. Some leading rifle companies of 5th Brigade on Garci lost nearly a third of their strength. No divisional commander could be expected to stand for such attrition in the cause of a faulty plan. Consequently, Tuker and Freyberg told Horrocks that further frontal attacks around Garci and Takrouna were simply not on.

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Montgomery had still not written off Eighth Army’s chances of rolling up the enemy along the coastal plane north of Enfidaville and being in at the kill. Under orders, Horrocks told Tuker and Freyberg that armour and lorried infantry would begin a push through the coastal plain on the night of 28/29 April while lower features on the western flank were occupied with light forces. They remained deeply worried and, as Horrocks admitted, ‘in my heart of hearts I sympathised with them… [but] I could see no other way out than a direct attack, and our losses were bound to be heavy.’ He could have gone back to Eighth Army HQ and argued his case but Montgomery had chosen this unlikely instant to leave for Cairo, as the BBC soon revealed, to immerse himself in planning for Husky. ‘Directly Monty realised he was really held up at Enfidaville… he rushed back to Cairo to plan for Sicily,’ commented McCreery.24 Brooke was equally caustic*: ‘It seems hardly a suitable moment for him to be absent from his Army,’* he told Alexander.

While Monty was away, plans for the new attack went ahead but divisional commanders were uneasy and their staffs quarrelsome as a general edginess spread throughout Eighth Army. Meanwhile, the relief of Tuker’s men on Garci was carried out as planned on the night of 22/23 April by Brigadier Graham’s 153rd Brigade. The battered Essex, Rajputans and Gurkhas moved to a well-earned rest in a reserve area south-west of Enfidaville. The ‘old hands,’ wrote Signalman Bradshaw (serving with 4th Indian’s artillery), ‘thought the attack on Garci to be the toughest in two-and-half years of fighting.’

On the following night (23/24 April) 5th Seaforth Highlanders relieved the Maoris on Takrouna and took turns with another battalion of Brigadier George Murray’s 152nd Brigade, 5th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, in holding what the troops soon nicknamed ‘Edinburgh Castle.’ Murray told Kippenberger, rather gloomily, that his men would have to stop taking their bagpipes into battle. Why, Kippenberger asked? Well, explained Murray, since the pipers were continually shot to pieces the British Army could not afford £80 to replace each set of pipes.

The brunt of attacking the high, crescent-shaped ridge of Djebels es Srafi and Terhouna, overlooking 4th Indian’s advance towards Tebaga five miles to the north of Enfidaville, fell upon the New Zealander’s 26th Battalion flanked by 201st Guards Brigade. They managed to take Terhouna, against stiff resistance, by daylight on 25 April but those trying to capture Djebel Srafi were caught in savage gun and mortar fire and could make no progress. In the afternoon a second attack developed into a series of sharp, individual engagements as the Italians’ machine-gun posts were gradually annihilated with bayonet and rifle. By evening the New Zealanders had dug in on Srafi ridge and, anticipating a counter-attack, asked battalion HQ for urgent tank support. ‘Brewers [tanks] on their way,’ was the reply. Under intense enemy mortar and shell fire next morning another request went to HQ. Back came the curt response, ‘Brewers haven’t got wings.’ This was too much for the troops waiting anxiously on the ridge. ‘If Brewers haven’t we may soon have,’ they signalled.

An hour later the tanks arrived and the difficult task began of recovering the wounded, lying out in the open. Matters then quietened down until the night of 26/27 April when the New Zealanders were being relieved by Brigadier Lyne’s 169th Brigade (2/5th, 2/6th, 2/7th Queen’s Royal Regiment). This was the first of two brigades to arrive from Major-General Miles’ 56th Infantry which had covered 3,200 miles in 32 days from Kirkuk. As the changeover took place enemy gunners again ranged on Djebel Srafi, killing and wounding troops of 26th Battalion which lost one-third of those taking part in this small-scale operation.

Montgomery reappeared on 26 April, unwell with tonsillitis and in a foul temper. Horrocks was told to, ‘Stop bellyaching’, and get on with the battle. To Freyberg, who estimated a successful attack towards Hamammet along the coast could cost his division 4,000 casualties and a failure 1,000, he said, ‘the big issues are so vital that we have got to force this through here.’29 Horrocks also thought Operation Accomplish would involve excessive casualties and claimed he told Monty at the time: ‘We will break through but I doubt whether at the end there will be very much left of the 8th Army.’ Nevertheless, preparations went ahead for the offensive – whose success depended on First Army’s attack which, if successful, would make it redundant.

There was, however, small evidence of any advance in the north. Although Operation Vulcan was not delayed by Generalmajor Schmid’s spoiling effort, Anderson’s troops who attacked early in the morning of 22 April found the going hard everywhere.

In the southern sector Crocker’s 9th Corps sent in 46th British Division to strike at high ground west of the Sebkret el Kourzia (Sugar Lake) under cover of a very heavy artillery bombardment by over 200 guns. Behind waited 6th Armoured, ready to exploit deeper into the Goubellat Plain towards the tall twin peaks (‘Twin Tits’ to the troops) of Djebel bou Kournine. 2/4th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, badly disorganized by the earlier enemy assault, asked for the attack to be postponed but were committed nonetheless; a shell then grievously wounded their CO and killed the COs of 152nd Field Regiment and 6th Lincolns.

Supported by Churchills from A and B Squadrons of 51st RTR, 138th Brigade was on its objectives before noon. On the right 128th Brigade, supported by C Squadron, could make little headway against an enemy well positioned on and around Two Tree Hill. Not until daybreak next morning (24 April) did they discover the defenders had slipped away in the night.

6th British Armoured Division moved forward later than anticipated and was slowed by a maze of deep wadis, but 26th Armoured Brigade, led by 16/5th Queen’s Royal Lancers, scattered and destroyed the battalion HQs of 9th Battalion, 69th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, and 14th (Panzer Jäger) Battalion, 104th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, in successive days. During the attack’s second day, 17/21st Lancers ran into 7th Panzer Regiment and Panzerabteilung 501 and was unable to gain a major advantage in the horribly difficult terrain, under accurate gunfire and strafed by newly-introduced but unwieldy Henschel Hs-129Bs. On their left flank desert veterans of Briggs’ 1st Armoured Brigade moved across the green symmetry of the Goubellat Plain but quickly discovered a deadly profusion of mines amid the growing corn. Well-sited German 88s shot up the Shermans and Crusaders of the Queen’s Bays and 9th Lancers (both 2nd Armoured Brigade) as they groped their way among innumerable small wadis. Hours later burning tanks still littered the area.

Unable to make real progress, Crocker began to switch 6th British Armoured Division for 1st British Armoured Division on the night of 24/25 April and the following day, while the 1st Armored pushed hard forward, 6th Armoured swung south and attacked towards the summits of Djebel Kournine. This double-headed thrust on a narrow front against clever interlocking defensive fire from 10th Panzer and Hermann Göring Divisions failed to penetrate but fixed 10th Panzer Division and worsened the parlous ammunition and fuel situation of Fifth Panzer Army. Subsequently, Anderson ordered Crocker to send 6th British Armoured Division into Army reserve and grind on with 46th British Infantry (less 139th Infantry Brigade, also into reserve) and 1st British Armoured Divisions.

In the meantime, in Allfrey’s 5th Corps sector, 78th British Division had sent in two brigades, 36th against Longstop Hill – which could not be by-passed because from there the Germans could shell the two roads running into Tunis – and 38th against Heidous and Tanngoucha. Following a spectacular dry electric storm on 22 April, the opening barrage at 0100 hours from over 400 guns deluged Longs top’s crests and sloping ridges with 50,000 pounds of high explosive inside the first five minutes. Following up were the 6th West Kents – cooks, storemen and administrative troops pressed into the front line – accompanied on their right by 5th Buffs.

Before reaching the base of Longstop they were in trouble from mines, barbed wire and enemy machine-guns but fought their way up through boiling clouds of fumes and dust. German troops of the 756th Mountain Infantry Regiment (334th Infantry Division) were waiting, dug deep into their trenches. Safe here they waited until the barrage lifted and then rose up, checking the West Kent’s advance until after dawn, though the Buffs managed to clamber higher up the western shoulder. It was in broad daylight that ‘Swifty’ Howiett, commanding 36th Infantry Brigade, sent forward 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to storm the crest. They had been meant to pass through and capture the adjoining peak of Djebel el Rhar but the slowness of the original advance rendered this impossible. Advancing on that warm, sultry morning – the troops strung out in wheatfields to minimise casualties for the rifle companies were only about 50 strong – battalion HQ was suddenly swamped by shells, killing the CO, Colin McNabb, and key members of his staff.

Into the breach stepped young Major Jack Anderson. In an outstanding feat of leadership he shot and bayoneted his way to the top, supported by several tanks of the North Irish Horse. Of some 300 Argylls who had started out, only four officers and 30 men stood with him on the summit. For this feat of arms Anderson was awarded a VC and Bill Wilberforce the DSO for bringing up his 1st East Surreys (11th Brigade), in order to maintain a precarious hold on the mountain.

To reinforce the Argylls and East Surreys, Howlett sent the West Kents and next morning (24 April) 6th Battalion was ordered to take Djebel el Rhar, separated from Djebel el Ahmera by a deep gully. The troops had trouble forming up in the face of devastating mortaring from Heidous and fell short of their objective. When Howlett called off the attack only 80 men were left in four rifle companies and these had to be hastily re-organized into two, both pitifully under-strength.

Axis troops on Longstop held on under continuous mortar and artillery fire until mid-day on 26 April when the Buffs swept round the right flank of Djebel el Rhar and, supported by a squadron of North Irish Horse, drove off the enemy, capturing more than 300 Germans. At last the mountain was in British hands and the door to the Medjerda valley, where the final attack would be launched, lay ajar. Directly ahead was the prize of Tunis, barely 30 miles away. Profoundly moved by the feat Evelegh announced the award of an immediate DSO to Howlett, who celebrated in style with the battered remnants of the 6th West Kents as they rested and refitted at Chassart Teffana.

Not far away to the north-west, 38th Irish Brigade had somewhat recovered from the hard fighting of 16 April on Djebel Ang and Tanngoucha despite having to endure six days’ continuous mortaring, sniping and shelling. Then, in intermittent drizzle during the night of 22/23 April, the Royal Irish Fusiliers struggled through intense shelling to swarm up the solid slab of rock wall on Point 622, while the Inniskillings had another crack at Tanngoucha and the London Irish the village of Heidous. Despite reaching the ridge at both ends the Fusiliers failed to take the whole of their objective. Heidous and Tanngoucha were resolutely defended and it took a superhuman effort by the Northern Irish Horse to get three Churchills over Djebel Ang and hull down on The Kefs by 24 April. Next day, as von Arnim was rearranging his forces, the Fusiliers attacked with three tanks in support and crawled onto the crest of Point 622 which they held despite heavy casualties.

The defences on Heidous and Tanngoucha now began to crumble and it was on the latter that the Inniskillings came across the body of Lance-Corporal James Given of the Fusiliers who, a week earlier, had been treated by the MO for a splinter gash across his forehead. Having raided the medical rum rations, Given got fighting drunk and staggered off to wage a one-man-war. ‘He was a true Faugh, with simple tastes,’ commented a Fusilier, ‘rum and the regiment.’

Other formations from 5th Corps worked up from Medjez el Bab to villages on the right of the Medjerda as far as Crich el Oued (soon dubbed ‘Cricklewood’ by the troops) and, east of Peter’s Corner, Sidi Abdallah. To ease the path of 4th British Division towards Tunis, Major-General Clutterbuck’s 1st British Infantry Division attacked on 23 April towards the hills abandoned before Christmas. Opposition from 754th Infantry Regiment (334th Infantry) was stiff as ever. The defenders had turned some ancient dry wells into barracks and dug nearly two miles of trenches. Brigadier Colvin’s 24th Guards Brigade was forced to storm them in an old-fashioned infantry charge under cover of heavy artillery. Beyond was high ground above Crich el Oued which had to be taken against blistering counter-attacks; in hand-to-hand fighting both sides suffered heavy casualties but Grenadier, Scots and Irish Guards held their ground.

On their right flank Brigadier Moore’s 2nd Infantry Brigade also took severe losses. 2nd Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment and 1st Battalion, the Loyal Regiment supported by field, medium and heavy artillery were on their objectives quickly but could not dig in soon enough to prevent being thrown back by a sharp counter-attack. For hours the fighting swayed backwards and forwards in a series of brutal individual skirmishes in which Lieutenant Sandys-Glarke, a Loyals’ platoon commander, won a posthumous VC when he took out several machine-gun nests and died within touching distance of another. By the end of this first day, 2nd Brigade’s attack had faltered with just over 500 casualties. In support, 142nd Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, (25th Brigade, 4th Division) had sustained damage to 29 of its 45 tanks caused by unremitting fire from Tigers of Panzerabteilung 501.

Next day (24th April) Brigadier Matthews’ 3rd Brigade, leading with 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and 2nd Sherwood Foresters, managed to crack open the ridge position but lost over 300 casualties. Among the dead was the Foresters’ much-loved Lieutenant-Colonel J.D. Player, whose will stipulated that £3,000 should be given to the Beaufort Hunt and that the incumbent of the living in his gift should be a ‘man who approves of hunting, shooting, and all manly sports, which are the backbone of the nation.

As soon as Longstop was taken the Guards were able to advance on the 26th over 2,000 yards through the Gab-Gab Gap towards Djebels Asoud and Bou Aoukaz, dominating the approaches to Tébourba from the east bank of the Medjerda. Confident orders were received that a daylight attack on two long ridges leading to Bou Aoukaz had been fixed for the afternoon of 27 April. Every man was appalled by the timing; unlike divisional HQ they knew the cost of such a suicidal assault.

At first relatively free from harassing fire, 1st Irish on the right and 5th Grenadiers on the left were stepping out in their long, steady pace on the approach when they were saturated by shell and mortar fire from The Bou. Said one Irish Guardsman, ‘They threw everything but their cap badges at us.’ Grimly they stuck to their task, platoons spread out in open order in the burning cornfields, lines of rifle butts pointing from the broken earth to mark the dead. ‘Thank God for drill, it keeps you going,’ remarked one man. What was left of the Irish battalion – only 173 men out of four rifle companies and advanced HQ – clung on to their ridge for the next three days, mortared and shot at more or less non-stop by Kampfgruppe Irkens, formed on 24 April by von Arnim who brought together all his remaining armoured units into one composite force. On May Day just 80 survivors from Irish Brigade were relieved by 6th Gordon Highlanders; they left behind over 700 German dead.

To the west, 5th Grenadiers, also badly cut up, got on their objectives while 1st Scots Guards scaled The Bou’s left flank, losing Captain Lord Lyell, killed while bayoneting the crew of a particularly troublesome 88 mm gun and awarded a posthumous VC. Muddled staff work immediately handed the hill mass back to the enemy and another attack next day by desperately tired Scots Guards could not quite regain the whole position. A prolonged and bloody struggle continued in which, on 29 April, Lance-Corporal Kenneally (1st Irish Guards) won a VC for charging German infantry who were preparing to counter-attack, scattering them in all directions and then returning nonchalantly to his platoon.

On the right of 1st British Infantry Division, 12th Infantry Brigade (4th Division) attacked on 24 April towards Peter’s Corner with the object of carving an opening for 10th Brigade supported by 21st Tank Brigade. Brigadier Dick Hull, earlier in command of Blade Force and now promoted, sent his 2nd Royal Fusiliers on a strenuous night march south of the Massicault-Medjez road towards a series of small hills and, behind Peter’s corner to the south-east, a high, bare ridge at the foot of which sheltered the village of Ksar Tyr.

The Fusiliers were stopped in their tracks by troops of the Hermann Göring Jäger Regiment, losing the greatly-admired Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Brandon who had risen to command from the ranks. The next night, 25/26 April, the Fusiliers tried again, this time in conjunction with 6th Black Watch. Neither could make headway through well-positioned enemy minefields and 12th RTR lost ten of its Churchills which had been committed in support.

Brigadier Hull then called up 1st West Kents from Banana Ridge to assault three features, Sidi Abdallah, Cactus Farm and Point 133. During confused and hard fighting over the next four days (27–30 April) in which the Germans used flame-throwing tanks for the first time in the campaign, the battalion took over 300 casualties and was forced to retreat. Regular bombing by flights of Bostons on Ksar Tyr and heavy shelling destroyed most of the village without winkling out the defenders. Nor could repeated attacks by 12th Brigade shift them even when Hawkesworth called in from 10th Brigade the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, which had been waiting to drive on Tunis.

Decimated and exhausted, 12th Brigade could do no more. On the night of 30 April it was relieved by Cass’s 11th Brigade from 78th British Division. Next day the Germans sent a captured American officer carrying specific map references of an area where they sought a 24-hour armistice in which to bury their dead who were piled in heaps along the front. Other than daylong pulverizing attacks by bombers and artillery on those exact locations there was no reply. The British thought it was simply a ruse whereby the enemy could bring up reinforcements and supplies.

This blood-letting forced von Arnim to shift General der Panzertruppe Hans Cramer’s DAK to new positions at Pont du Fahs, stripping First Italian Army of its armour, while some of its units were sent to Fifth Panzer Army. Such changes inevitably caused some confusion, as one officer reported: ‘Here the situation changes hourly. An order is followed by a counter order. Since 11th [April] the fighting has entered its final stages and the task of maintaining the bridgehead is really only a question of time. With men alone we could hold the front but materially we are in an inferior position. The Luftwaffe cannot supply us and that which comes by sea is a drop in the ocean… we are on the defensive because we cannot fight tanks with the bodies of men and with shotguns…’

As the Divisions du Maroc and d’Alger of the French 19th Corps moved towards Pont du Fahs, von Arnim and von Vaerst agreed on 27 April that the situation was very serious. From Y intelligence the British knew that all enemy units were reduced in strength and hard-pressed by Crocker’s 9th Corps. Alexander thought Crocker had, ‘started off very well… in this recent battle’, but he was accidentally wounded in the chest by an unfortunate demonstration of the PIAT (anti-tank) weapon on 27 April. Nevertheless, calamitous damage done to its 334th German Infantry Division by the British 1st and 78th Infantry Divisions in 5th Corps’ sector, together with advances by the French and Americans against the von Manteuffel Division, greatly disturbed Fifth Panzer Army HQ.

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In the far north the Corps Franc d’Afrique and Tabors marocains were fighting a separate battle all their own. A motley force of Free French escapees from Vichy France, political refugees, Berber tribesmen and Spanish Loyalists who had sought asylum, they were commanded by, amongst others, a Jewish doctor and a Spanish admiral. The tabour of Goums in particular was extending its terror with the knife and, it was said, without expenditure of ammunition.

Next to them 3rd Battalion, 47th RCT , Regimental Combat Team (9th US Infantry Division) moved towards Jefna on 23 April, bumping up against Manteuffel’s right wing, which offered only light opposition, and sent powerful patrols in the direction of Green Hill, north of the Mateur road. Opposite, 1st Battalion pushed through a series of ridges behind strong artillery support to within a mile of Bald Hill. Supported by active patrols, 39th RCT (which had relieved 1st British Parachute Brigade at Tamera) put in its 1st and 3rd Battalions to take the commanding height of Djebel Ainchouna, to the north-west of Jefna. They had to fight their way through scrub and waist-high underbrush, scrambling through minefields and up rocky slopes against mortars, grenades, rifle and machine-gun fire. 1st Battalion, in particular, was badly cut up, losing its CO and most of his staff.

On 25 April, the 39th finally took Ainchouna’s four miles of peaks and ridges. Newly committed, its 2nd Battalion took four days to capture one particularly well defended position (Hill 382) but by 30 April all three battalions had swept the crests and could dominate the enemy’s installations, routes and supply dumps around Jefna. Over 4,000 rounds of high explosive fired off in a single day by 26th Field Artillery Battalion forced 160th Panzer Grenadier Regiment to begin a hurried withdrawal to the north-east on 1 May, shortly before 39th’s forward patrols entered the town. Two days later 47th RCT occupied Green and Bald Hills – made untenable for the enemy by the Americans’ outflanking northern movement – and opened the Jefna-Mateur road.

Further north still, 9th US Division’s 60th RCT and the Corps Franc attacked on 23 April, Americans along the hills on both sides of the Sedjenane Valley and the French towards Bizerte. Having just replaced Italians who had little stomach for the fight, 962nd Afrika Rifle Regiment held up the 60th’s three battalions, struggling through deep scrub to avoid the few roads which were invariably mined. In such rugged country attacking units often outran their artillery support but there was now a growing professionalism and determination about the American infantry. ‘We learned that to live we must take to the ridges and advance along them, avoiding the natural “avenues” of approach up the valleys,’ explained one officer. ‘Heads of valleys were always strongly defended and heavily-mined – to advance along the valleys was disastrous. Taking to the ridges was tedious, strenuous business but it saved hundreds of lives and gave physical possession of the high ground.’

With ammunition, weapons and supplies carried by mule train, they drove over the heights towards Kef en Nsour which 3rd Battalion captured on 2 May, and consolidated their positions overlooking the Mateur plain. As its wounded were evacuated, 962nd Regiment turned at bay, but despite much individual bravery could not resist indefinitely. Southwards as well, the right flank of Generalmajor Fritz Krause’s 334th German Infantry Division and Fallschirmjäger Regiment Barenthin on the left wing of the von Manteuffel Division were bent back by a vigorous American assault which followed several days of ground reconnaissance.

Between the Oued Tine and Sidi Nsir-Tébourba road stands a belt of smooth round-topped hills and it was into this area that 1st US Infantry Division struck behind an artillery barrage on 23 April with three RCTs, the 16th, 18th and 26th. Detachments of 1st Engineers had to clear 1,800 mines buried in wheatfields before the 26th could make much progress. The 16th also encountered mortar and artillery fire as it advanced from the southeast.

On the division’s right flank, 18th RCT’s 2nd Battalion ran into determined counter-attacks by 10th Panzer. It advanced only at the cost of heavy casualties, supported by a company from Lieutenant-Colonel Carr’s 1st Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment. After grim fighting the Germans began to retreat eastwards on the morning of 25 April, away from many of the heights which overlooked, from the north, the entrance to ‘The Mousetrap’ (the small north-eastern exit from the upper Tine Valley).

In the south, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment (1st US Armored Division) protected the right flank of Allen’s 1st US Infantry Division and secured the left of 38th Irish Brigade’s attempt on Heidous. The rest of 1st Armored (less 13th Armored Regiment) was held in reserve until infantry cleared the Tine Valley for its tanks to drive through on Mateur. One of Harmon’s first actions on taking over from ‘Pinky’ Ward at Lessouda, where the division had been resting and refitting after the fighting near Maknassy and El Guettar, was to call together every officer. Reprimanding and fining those who turned up late, he lambasted them for their lack of aggression and fighting record. The 1st US Armored was, he told them, carried by First Army as non-combat-worthy.

This was deeply resented for over 300 had been killed during March and early April. Robinett thought it demonstrated a definite lack of judgement by Harmon who later admitted he had miscalculated the effect of what was intended as a fighting speech. Others were upset by his replacement of Brigadier-General McQuillin from CC A by Colonel Kent Lambert on 13 April. Yet Harmon could do no other for Patton, in a fit of temper, had instantly relieved McQuillin. He was a, ‘fine and cooperative officer’, thought Harmon, sent him on rotation back to the United States, ‘with no derogatory remarks on his ability.’

Most of 1st US Armored Division arrived in the Béja area on 22 April due to the inspired efforts of Harmon to pass off his division as a single combat command – he had no authority to transfer more. Keen to assert his independence, Robinett (commanding CC B) had privately asked Eisenhower on 11 April if he could return to British V Corps and participate in the final drive on Tunis from Medjez el Bab since, ‘officers and men felt they have a score to settle with the Germans in that area.’ Wisely, Eisenhower ignored this and CG B was now reconnoitring towards the Mousetrap with 18th RGT.

South of the Oued Tine, Colonel Robert Stack drove his 6th Armoured Infantry Regiment across a series of hills and during heavy fighting on 28 April, as 1st Battalion attacked over one of the many ridges running from Djebel Ang to the Tine Valley, Private Nicholas Minue stalked at least ten enemy gunners through the high grass, bayoneting them and seeking out more enemy positions until he was killed. His supreme courage earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor and helped his regiment spring the Mousetrap by forcing a German withdrawal (after the British had taken Heidous) to a second line of defence on the edge of the Tine Valley, though further to the north-west the enemy still held strongly to an area near Sidi Nsir.

Later, Bradley took Anderson on a personal reconnaissance of the Mousetrap and explained the minelaying tactics of Major Wiltz’s engineer battalion. Pointing toward the German positions, Anderson said, ‘Oh, yes, Major Wiltz, the stout fellow, I knew him well before the war.’ This angered Bradley. ‘To us Wiltz was a German s.o.b.,’ he said.

Progress eastwards by 1st US Infantry Division to open up the Tine Valley had exposed it to counter-attacks on the left flank and Robinett’s CG B was forced into a muddy night march on 23/24 April to provide protection. Bradley decided therefore, on 26 April, to revise 2nd Corps’ plan of attack. Allen’s front was narrowed and 34th US Infantry Division readied to attack on his left, into the hills east and west of Sidi Nsir.

Due to Harmon’s insistent urging, 1st US Armored Division took over the whole of the southern flank that connected with First Army. Visited by Anderson, he was asked what he expected to do with his tanks in the difficult terrain ahead. Patiently Harmon explained the plan, agreed with Bradley, to put them through to Mateur. ‘Just a childish fancy,’ commented Anderson, waving his swagger stick vaguely, ‘Just a childish fancy,’ and strode away. ‘I’ll make that son of a bitch eat those words,’ mouthed Harmon.

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At the centre of 2nd US Corps’ sector between 26 April and 2 May, operations focussed on Hill 609 (Djebel Tahent), the last commanding height west of Mateur, whose white cliffs towered above surrounding hills on which the 334th German Infantry Division and Barenthin Regiment had organized interlocking defensive support positions. ‘Doc’ Ryder’s men had little experience of attack but a surfeit of retreats; his 168th Infantry had been very badly mauled at Sidi bou Zid. ‘Get me that hill,’ Bradley told Ryder, ‘and you’ll break up the enemy’s defences clear across our front. Take it and no one will ever again doubt the toughness of your division.’ After Fondouk, the 34th US Division had been able to get in some real training before moving to the vicinity of Béja and the troops assembling along the Sidi Nsir-Chouïgui road were confident.

On the left, 1st and 3rd Battalions of 168th RCT began the assault behind a heavy barrage by 175th Field Artillery Battalion and the corps artillery. For three days they struggled against strong opposition through undulating hills. Meanwhile, under machine-gun, mortar and artillery fire Colonel Robert Ward’s 135th RCT fought to take Hill 490, directly barring the way to Hill 609. Totally ignoring its strategic character, Anderson suggested bypassing it through the valleys but Bradley disregarded this certain commitment to disaster. All day on 28 April, the air was heavy with the crack and rumble of American artillery pounding Hill 609 as 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 135th prepared to attack enemy outposts. Concurrently, 3rd Battalion was to distract the defenders with a feint at the southwestern end and 2nd Battalion of 168th to carry its line to the north.

At 0500 hours on 29 April the troops set off through the ripening corn. 1st and 2nd Battalions were soon held up by increasing enemy resistance and 3rd Battalion, forsaking its holding operation, had to go it alone in an unsupported frontal attack. Through intermittent mortaring and gunfire one unit managed to reach a village of stone huts in the last deep fold of the hill, beneath a barren precipice 200 feet above. The rest of the battalion struggled half a mile up steep slopes and settled for the night.

Aided by an assault over the north-west shoulder by 1st Battalion, 133rd RCT and 17 of 1st Armored Regiment’s Shermans, they attacked again next morning. Two tanks were soon lost to accurate gunfire but others shot up signalled targets and blinded the enemy on the hill; meanwhile the plateau above was plastered from end to end by artillery while sappers lifted mines from village paths. Swarming up the broken face of the cliff, the infantry, ‘grabbed and hung on to the tails of their tanks’. At the same time, troops of 2nd Battalion, 168th RCT, attacked the northern tip of Hill 609 and by late afternoon, with 1st Battalion of the 133rd, controlled most of the plateau. Its capture proved to be an outstanding and much-needed American success, providing a springboard to further victories. When the Germans counter-attacked on the 31st from the north-eastern slopes in great force they were driven back by devastating fire from a company of 2nd Battalion, 168th RGT (which had relieved the 135th). Throughout the rest of the day Ryder’s men held on though dive-bombed and plastered with artillery fire, as the Germans fought to regain this bastion which was so important to their overall strategy.

In the Tine Valley Harmon’s mobile armoured elements were on half-hour alert, the men eating at their tanks. Engineers had been out, marking two mine-free corridors part way along the valley while from Mateur came the sound of explosions and a spreading glow of fires as the enemy got ready to abandon the town. Further north 9th Division had smashed the enemy’s control of Jefna, leaving him clinging to the last remnants of high ground on the edge of the Mateur Plain.

Intended only to protect First Army’s flank, 2nd US Corps had done much better than the British expected while what Montgomery had dismissively termed Anderson’s ‘partridge drive’ on the bigger objective of Tunis itself had stalled. But so had Montgomery’s Enfidaville attack.

At 2nd US Corps HQ on 1 May, Bradley considered the distinct possibility of driving all the way to Bizerte and might have taken the gamble with another division to throw into the line. An unsuccessful exploitation, however, could have resulted in the Germans shifting additional forces to the American front, helping First Army to break through but stalemating his own effort. ‘This campaign is too important to the prestige of the American army to take such risks,’ he told assembled officers. In no mood to pull British chestnuts out of the fire, Anderson’s request on 28 April for a RGT to relieve one of his brigades was coolly received: ‘he was told that we could ill spare it but would study the matter. Looks like start of old game of piecemealing US units.’ Bradley then got Eisenhower’s agreement that American and British units should not be intermingled and used his right of appeal to Alexander, who backed his decision not to send assistance. Clearly, Anderson – and Montgomery – would have to find their own solutions.

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Chapter 17

Smash Through to Tunis

‘The greatest and most formidable attack yet made by the British armies in this war, will begin to-morrow… We ought to do it now; God help us if we can’t.’

War correspondent Philip Jordan in his diary, 5 May 1943.

The Americans were confident. ‘Let’s radio Monty,’ suggested Bradley to his chief of staff, ‘and ask if he wants us to send him a few American advisers to show his desert fighters how to get through those hills.’ The Eighth Army was stuck at Enfidaville; neither it nor First Army was being pushed in for the kill. ‘Ike says Alex isn’t so good as he thinks he is. He is up against some real fighting now,’ noted Everett Hughes.

Plans had gone ahead for Operation Accomplish against the wishes of Freyberg and Tuker although years later Dick McCreery told the latter: ‘I always wanted to move troops round from the Eighth Army front to the First Army area sooner than we did but Alex was always reluctant to take a strong line with Monty!’ 18th Army Group never intended the final attack on Tunis to be made other than by First Army but relied on Monty’s prestige and the threat posed by Eighth Army to convince the enemy that the assault would come from the south. Supposing this to have been an ingenious feint, someone forgot to tell Montgomery since Horrocks ordered 56th Division to take Djebels Srafi and Terhouna on the night of 28/29 April. Brigadier Lyne’s 169th Brigade had been at the front for less than 48 hours. His inexperienced troops were from London’s southern outskirts – clerks, shop assistants, small tradesmen. The whole tenor of their lives had been respect for the law: not to trespass, steal and above all, not to kill. ‘It is a great personal shock to a man with this background and upbringing,’ commented Lyne, ‘when he realises that not only must Germans be killed, but he is the man to do it.’

An initial attack carried well but a sharp counter-attack on the morning of 29 April threw the attackers off Srafi and they retreated in disorder after their GO had been killed, stampeding through their own gun lines and men waiting to follow up. ‘It was only the second time I had seen our infantry running,’ commented Ronald Lewin, ‘the first was at Mareth when they came back through my gun position. At this stage in the African campaign it was a horrible sight…’

This incident, insignificant in itself, finally convinced Montgomery that Eighth Army could not break through the Enfidaville position without taking unacceptable casualties which might have damaging repercussions on planning for Husky. His views were not well received at 18th Army Group HQ, as Miller reported: ‘A wire from Monty to say he can’t attack making inexperience of 56 Div as excuse. We feel Monty is not playing the game and suspect him of really being a little man who has been playing big. He will not risk failure after success – will not co-operate and is thinking of himself alone… What is clear is that we must smash up the Hun here and clear Tunisia and do it quickly. If Monty won’t do it, then someone else must.’

On 30 April Alexander breakfasted with McCreery and Broadhurst at Monty’s forward Tactical HQ. Afterwards, Montgomery pushed the case for First Army to put in the final blow while Eighth Army held south of Enfidaville. Alexander confirmed that he proposed to attack all along First Army’s front with Freyberg commanding 9th Corps in place of the wounded Crocker. Montgomery dismissed this at once – Freyberg was, ‘a nice old boy, but… a bit stupid. You’d better have Jorrocks. Jorrocks – he’s the chap.’ Consequently, he summoned General Brian Horrocks to the meeting and told him: ‘You will go off to-day, taking with you the 4th Indian Division, 7th Armoured Division, and 201st Guards Brigade, and you will assume command of the 9 Corps in General Anderson’s army. You will then smash through to Tunis and finish the war in North Africa.’

‘My heart leapt,’ commented Horrocks on hearing he was to command 9th Corps in the final attack on Tunis. ‘This was the real art of generalship – a quick switch, then a knock-out blow.’ Tuker was delighted to leave Enfidaville – ‘We were now to stick a feather in First Army’s cap and very glad indeed we were to do so.’ Horrocks was replaced by Freyberg at 10th Corps and Kippenberger, putting up the insignia of a (temporary) Major-General, acquired an ADC and the New Zealand Division.

The transfer of 4th Indian, 7th British Armoured Divisions and 201st Guards Brigade took place in an unending procession of vehicles, driven hard by night over 200 miles to Medjez el Bab, without hindrance from the enemy. Their landing grounds under remorseless attack, the Germans had removed their ageing and vulnerable Stukas to Sicily; only fighters now defended Tunis and Bizerte and these could not be spared to attack this great convoy. When Eighth Army’s trucks swept into the ordered echelons of First Army, bemusement and disbelief greeted the scratched and rusty vehicles in what was left of their desert paintwork. The veterans’ arrogant self-confidence, ‘did not make us very popular’, remarked Captain Edney of 7th Armoured Division, ‘who the hell were these swaggering dirty looking soldiers who had come out of the desert and thought themselves the answer to everything?’

Until 2 May, Kesselring’s intelligence staff believed the main weight of attack would come from the direction of Pont du Fahs but, in the meantime, traffic movements and radio intercepts enabled von Arnim to forecast accurately that the assault would be mounted against Fifth Panzer Army through the Medjerda Valley. This persuaded Heeresgruppe Afrika to attach strong forces from First Italian Army to Fifth Panzer Army. At the beginning of the month, heavy armour was brought up and placed in position in the Medjerda Valley followed by remnants of 8th Panzer Regiment, detached from 15th Panzer Division , which reached a point south-west of Tunis about 4 May. The rest of the division which could be moved, together with all Messe’s tanks, 88mm guns and most of his artillery, was also sent north to Fifth Panzer Army but plans to transfer other units from the Afrika Korps foundered on lack of petrol and the devastating effect their withdrawal would have on Italian morale. If the army group – which had moved its GP to the Gap Bon peninsula – was split by enemy attack, Fifth Panzer was to take command of the north and First Italian Army the south. The struggle was to be continued to the last round.

Arrangements to protect the expected vital area of Fifth Panzer Army’s front on the Medjerda Plain included placing the motorcycle battalion of 10th Panzer Division, equipped with anti-aircraft guns, behind the first line of defence as flak protection for the port of Tunis and siting 88mm flak batteries southwest of the city. 10th Panzer Division, less its tanks, was left at Goubellat. In the Medjerda Valley, on 2/3 May, it attacked just south of the river in order to throw off balance British 5th Corps’ infantry who had penetrated there and afterwards was held in readiness for further action near Massicault. Little else could be done for the Axis forces were virtually out of fuel and ammunition. The Allies learned from intercepts of the German naval command’s wireless traffic in Tunisia that Heeresgruppe Afrika expected, ‘a complete supply breakdown’, at the end of April if matters did not improve and units had so little fuel that their movements were restricted to between six and 37 miles. So catastrophic was the situation that the Luftwaffe could no longer find even the 35 gallons of fuel needed each day to operate its radar and by 4 May supplies of rations, water and ammunition could not be guaranteed to the troops.

Heroic efforts to alleviate the supply problem included a despairing request from Kapitän Meixner to use two supply U-boats, normally deployed in the North Atlantic, in four trips each month, ferrying 72,000 cubic metres of fuel into Tunisia.16 The last two merchantmen to attempt the hazardous run had both been sunk and their 3,500 tons of supplies totally lost.

Every last man was drafted into the defence line, including even medical personnel. Mindful of the fast-approaching ruin Heeresgruppe Afrika ordered some intelligence staff and Luftwaffe technicians, together with secret direction-finding indicators and microwave radio sets, back to Europe. Instruments that could not be saved were destroyed. Among the returning troops was Ernst Küstner who left by sea for Trapani military base and felt, he said, like a rat leaving a sinking ship. Bayerlein, who was ill, and von Manteuffel who had collapsed from exhaustion, were evacuated, the latter in the last hospital ship to leave Tunis which was severely bombed by US aircraft en route. Getting up from his sickbed, he quelled the panic and helped put out the flames, eventually arriving safely on the Italian coast. Using the pretext of ill health, von Arnim invalided Generalmajor Weber of 334th German Division out of North Africa as well. Others who departed were von Arnim’s long-time adjutant and his only daughter’s fiancée, Major von Kathen, who had to be hauled bodily onto an aircraft, and two generals who had not come up to scratch but were offered new appointments in Europe, Hildebrandt (21st Panzer) and Ziegler (DAK). Their replacements, Generalmajor Heinrich-Hermann von Hülsen and General der Panzertruppe Hans Cramer had little time in which to assert their authority before they were captured.

Also leaving North Africa for good was Generalleutnant Gause, recalled to a conference in Italy, and Oberleutnant Heinz Werner Schmidt, formerly an aide to Rommel. Summoned from Sonderverband 288, he arrived exhausted and caked in mud at First Italian Army HQ, to be told he had been granted 14 days’ leave to get married. When he tried to arrange for his faithful driver to accompany him, the old soldier said: ‘First, Herr Oberleutnant, I must pay a visit to the hospital. I shall be back soon.’ Schmidt never saw him again.

Replacements for Weber, von Manteuffel and Bayerlein were Krause, Bülowius and Oberst Markert. Others were offered the chance to flee but refused, including General der Panzertruppe von Vaerst and his chief of staff, Generalmajor von Quast, Oberst Pomtow (Fifth Panzer Army’s operations officer), von Liebenstein (164th German Light Division) von Broich (10th Panzer Division), von Sponeck (90th German LightDivision) and Borowietz (15th Panzer). For all of them, time was fast running out.

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The main feature of Operation Strike was an overwhelming onslaught on a 3,500-yard front by Horrocks’ 9th Corps. Lining up on the right of the Medjez-Tunis road, 4th British Infantry Division and, opposite, 4th Indian Division were to make the initial break-in; 6th and 7th British Armoured Divisions would then pass through the same day in a dash for Tunis. As protection on the right flank the French 19th Corps was to take Djebel Zaghouan while on the left flank, 5th British Corps was to capture Djebel Bou Aoukaz and be ready to support the main thrust. Further north, 2nd Corps was to win high ground around Chouïgui and the river crossings at Djedeïda and Tébourba.

Horrocks knew that the best chance of a successful armoured thrust would carry straight across the single bridge at Medjez el Bab, up the Medjerda Valley to Massicault, on to St Gyprien and so to Tunis. His divisional commanders generally agreed this axis but there was argument about the actual methods to be employed. Tuker wanted a night attack, supported by concentrated artillery; Hawkesworth and Horrocks himself favoured the more traditional daylight assault behind a general barrage.

Some very straight talking by Tuker convinced the corps commander that a daylight attack into hills overlooking 4th Indian’s area, with no real chance of tank support until the infantry could deal with the 88s, ‘like all other 1st Army attacks, would just peter out on the enemy’s forward positions and the battle would have to be fought again from further back.’ Moreover, 4th Indian Division was low in strength and extensive casualties might have a very serious effect on its capabilities in a daytime offensive. These points were not carried easily; Tuker even asked to be relieved of his command if such an assault were ordered and remarked to Horrocks at one point, ‘Well, I’m off! You don’t want me here, but they need good commanders in Burma.’

In order to conceal his intentions, Anderson had 18th Army Group camouflage section erect 70 dummy tanks near Bou Arada, hoping to persuade von Arnim that the main thrust would be on the Goubellat plain, to the right of 1st British Armoured Division, or that he had divided his armour. Radio traffic appropriate to two armoured divisions and a corps HQ was broadcast, with a few plausible security lapses, and German intelligence provided with agents’ reports which indicated strong Allied armour in the area. Although the dummies were painfully obvious these distractions kept part of 21st Panzer tied to the Pont du Fahs area and left only a weakened 15th Panzer opposite the main British thrust line.

Set to jump off in dark moonless conditions at 0300 hours on 6 May, Horrocks’ attack was supported by 442 guns (652 if 5th Corps is included) with 350 rounds apiece. In comparison, von Arnim’s men were down to an average of 25–30 rounds per gun and there were virtually no reserve shells in the dumps for field and antitank guns. Nor could he rely on his armour. The few remnants in Kampfgruppe Irkens were out of fuel and totally immobilised near Djebel Bou Aoukaz as were most surviving Tigers of Panzerabteilung 501 on the Cap Bon peninsula. Horrocks had some 400 tanks; 7th Armoured Division alone possessed 72 Shermans, 21 Grants and 47 Crusaders while 21st and 25th Army Tank Brigades from 4th Infantry Division were entirely equipped with Churchills.

Harmon’s tanks, meanwhile, were already in Mateur. American successes in the north around Jefna and the Tine Valley had forced the Germans to withdraw on the night of 1/2 May behind the Tine sector. Against light opposition, 1st US Armored Division rolled forward 30 miles through the Mousetrap and entered the town at about 1100 hours on 3 May. By piercing the German main defence line in the north, the Americans prevented von Arnim from effectively concentrating more forces in the Medjerda Valley. On the 4th, Harmon ordered Robinett to see if CC B could inflict further damage while Lambert’s CC A came up on the opposite (northern) flank. Engineers built river crossings near Mateur as the division consolidated its strength for an attack which Harmon intended would punch a hole clean through to the coast.

1st US Armored’s advance was confined by the terrain to a double-headed thrust along two roads leading to the Tunis plain: one force (CC A) via the naval arsenal of Ferryville in the north to strike the main Tunis-Bizerte highway while the other (CC B) swung south-east by way of Djedeïda to block any retreat by the enemy on Tunis itself. Both were ranged by German artillery and anti-tank guns on Djebel Achkel, 1,600 feet above the Ferryville road, and on a hill mass stretching from there south to the Djedeïda route.

"Can you do it?,’ Bradley asked Harmon. ‘Yes, but it’s going to be expensive.’

‘How much?’

A shrug of the shoulders. ‘I’d guess fifty tanks to finish the job.’ Bradley took the hard decision. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘It’ll cost less in the long run if we cut him to pieces quickly.’

Tentative probes into hills separating the Mateur plateau from the coastal plain confirmed the enemy had holed up there behind strongly-maintained defences. When 91st Reconnaissance Squadron from CC A (Combat Command A , 1st US Armored) launched a preliminary attack against Djebel Achkel on 4 May it met ferocious opposition from elements of Gruppe Witzig and battled for many hours to advance a third of the way up the steep western slopes, capturing about 80 prisoners. A few hundred others fighting on with unshakeable determination had to be blasted out of stone buildings by tank destroyers.

While grey skies grounded aircraft of the North-West African Tactical Air Force – though 242 Group RAF remained operational – Robinett suffered repeated air attacks en route to Mateur as Me-109s bombed the new bridge into the town from the south. After this he seemed less keen to push south-east along the Mateur-Djedeïda road skirting the five mile belt of hills where the remnants of the Hermann Göring Division lay in wait. He was further dismayed when Captain Dwight S. Varner’s company, flanking 13th Armored Infantry, was hit by intense artillery fire, losing nine of its tanks.

At the division’s HQ in the afternoon of 5 May, Harmon urged aggressive attack but was gloomily received by his unit commanders who had pessimistic views on likely losses. Part of the division was still equipped with 51 M3 Lee tanks brought from the United Kingdom; they were falling to pieces from long use. Even Harmon later admitted it was ‘criminal’ to send his men into action so badly equipped.

As Robinett returned to CG B Harmon came to a sudden conclusion*: ‘Hell, that fellow isn’t going to fight for me tomorrow,’* he yelled and started off intending to replace him with Benson. At that moment a sudden strafing attack blew Robinett’s vehicle apart, wounding the driver and driving a shell fragment into Robinett’s left thigh where it tore through the sciatic nerve. Harmon realised at once that he would be out of action for some time and so Benson, ‘aggressive and brave,’ took over without Robinett being bounced. The metal was removed from Robinett’s crotch, with a hunk of his overalls still wrapped round it, but there was delay in suturing the nerve and Robinett spent eight months back home in the Walter Reed Hospital, never again to be afforded more than limited status as commandant of an armor school. Through this misfortune Harmon now had the two forceful combat command leaders he wanted and the ‘cold-blooded fighter’ Lieutenant-Colonel Howze, temporarily in command of 2nd Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment (CCB), who was to distinguish himself in the coming fighting.

Coupled with 1st US Armored Division’s drive north-eastwards from Djebel Achkel and along the southern edge of Lac de Bizerte to seal off any retreat towards Tunis, north of the lakes two RCTs from 9th US Infantry Division and Corps Franc D’Afrique were to advance on Djebel Cheniti. On this peak the enemy had anchored the northern part of his new defensive line which ran south-east around the shoreline of Garaet Achkel (where one German regiment, out of fuel, had only partly withdrawn), through Ferryville to Djebel Achkel and its associated hill mass. An interlocking attack ensured that should the defenders be pushed off Djebel Cheniti those north of Garaet Achkel would have to fall back on Bizerte or risk running into 1stUS ArmoredDivision coming up from Mateur to Ferryville.

On 1st US Armored’s right the enemy’s defensive line now ran from just east of the Oued Tine at Kef en Nosour, a hill mass south-east of Mateur, to good defensive positions ten miles to the south, between Eddekhila and Chouïgui, in hills rising between 600 and 1,000 feet above the plain. These might be outflanked if Benson managed to push his CC B along the Mateur-Djedeïda road. Beyond was Tébourba and the approach to Tunis. To breach this line 1st Infantry was scheduled to attack across the Tine into the northern hills while 34th US Division moved directly east on Eddekhila and Chouïgui.

Preliminary moves began on 3 May when 168th RCT (34th US Infantry Division) started out for Chouïgui, supported by 175th Field Artillery Battalion. Patrols advanced easily across the Oued Tine plain and reached towards Eddekhila next day, where they met the first German opposition. Ryder’s men took to the high ground instead of simply boring in across open country; on 5 May they swung into hills south-west of the town and after a day spent scrambling across broken, rocky ground and steep slopes they captured it. Northwards was the Chouïgui Pass, the 168th’s next objective. Meanwhile, Terry Allen had sent the Big Red One into hills west of the Tine facing Djebel Douimiss. On 6 May they faced the daunting prospect of attacking the Barenthin Regiment, well lodged on this hill mass. Sure of their aggressive intent, Allen was about to make the fundamental mistake of over-committing his men.

In the far north, the Corps Franc worked its way into three hills to the west of Djebel Cheniti on 4 May and a poorly-supported enemy infantry attack down the peak’s western slope was smashed by US artillery. Next day, 47th RCT (9th US Infantry Division) began an outflanking march from Jefna which took it into the hills on the left. By 6 March Eddy’s men were due north of Cheniti and threatening to cut the Mateur-Bizerte road.

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Allied propaganda cartoon in Arabic for Final Drive to Tunisia

In First Army’s sector, Djebel Bou Aoukaz was wreathed in smoke and flame as over 600 guns saturated it with high explosive on the afternoon of 5 May. A series of grim rushes carried troops of the 1st Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, and 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, forward on the left and right of the long-suffering 5th Grenadier Guards. This combination proved too much for elements of Kampfgruppe Irkens who were driven off as the Guards watched the struggle with interest from their grandstand seat. As the main attack passed beneath his lofty perch next day, Sergeant Danger of the Guards was on Bou Aoukaz identifying dead bodies: ‘the smell of death haunted me for weeks afterwards,’ he wrote. ‘In one case, we picked up a body by the legs to put it in the grave and the leg came off in my hand because it was so decomposed.’

Signs of preparation for the great assault were everywhere on First Army’s front. The sappers had driven roads, put up new steel bridges and opened cuttings through solid rock. Passages had been cleared across minefields, start tapes laid, guns sited and shells stockpiled. Troops of Scorpion mine learing tanks stood ready to sweep through mines still unlocated and spigot mortar groups assembled to meet counter-attacks. Wellingtons and Bisleys struck at roads and transport, Flying Fortresses hit Tunis and La Goulette while the Strategic and Tactical Air Forces preyed on enemy shipping. At night Bisleys, Wellingtons and French Leos softened up enemy strongholds and smashed troop concentrations in the Medjerda Valley. From 700 miles away Truscott’s 3rd Infantry Division was hurrying to join 2nd US Corps’ 1st US Infantry Division south-east of Mateur.

Provided that infantry from 4th British and 4th Indian Divisions had torn a hole in the enemy’s defences by 0700 hours on 6 May, tanks were to be released on either flank, 7th British Armoured towards St Cyprien and 6th Armoured Division into the hills south of La Mornaghia. ‘If by tomorrow night the infantry objectives have been gained and the tanks level or a little beyond them on each flank, we shall have done very well,’ said Horrocks. In the light of what was to happen this cautious comment was to assume considerable interest.

finalvictoryintunisia_orig

Right on cue, one field gun on every seven yards of front poured tons of high explosive into the funnel of the Medjerda Valley. At first light the first of 2,000 sorties to be flown that day took off; concentrated bombing of a ‘box,’ four by three and a half miles in size, by the Tactical Air Force delivered a creeping barrage behind which the infantry advanced. Before 0900 hours on 6 May pilots were reporting they had nothing to bomb. The enemy had dragged his aircraft from the airfields and taken his vehicles off the roads. He had gone to ground, dug into trenches and heavily camouflaged gun pits. British and Indian infantry waited briefly while sappers cut a path through barbed wire and probed for mines; then above the aroma of crushed corn and wild thyme arose the acrid smell of cordite as l/9th Gurkhas and 4/6th Rajputana Rifles swept uphill. Their first rush took them deep into the German defences; prisoners were shot or left behind to be collected later, along with the wounded. Whole chains of enemy machine-gun posts, firing target-indicating white tracer, were wiped out.

By the time l/4th Essex followed up burial parties were already out collecting the sprawled dead. Some Indian troops, now two miles beyond their start line, were busy with brew cans as others slept despite the continuous roar of fighter and tank-buster aircraft. Veering to the right across the front of 4th Infantry Division the Essex men, closely supported by 30 Churchill tanks of 25th Tank Brigade, moved towards their final objective (Point 165) while one company raced off to Frendj where a car full of Germans was captured. A battery of Nebelwerfers, ranged on 4th British Division, was overrun with its crews and ammunition, the first time these fearsome weapons had been captured. Casualties were light; at a cost of 137 killed and wounded a gap had been prised open, towards which 7th Armoured began to move. By 0845 hours their tanks were abreast of 4th Indian Division’s objectives.

On the right of the Medjez-Tunis road, l/6th Surreys and 2nd Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (10th Brigade) were supported by Brigadier Ivor Moore’s 21st Tank Brigade and a massive weight of artillery firing over 16,000 shells in two hours. By 0700 hours they had smashed their way onto the Massicault ridge. ‘From the top of the turret,’ wrote Lance-Corporal Cook of 48th RTR, ‘the sight was most remarkable – behind us the spectacle of a long line of flashes which lit up the sky away into the distance, casting eerie shadows as we moved slowly past them towards the German positions: in front, tracer shells and bullets crisscrossed the wide valley… we all seemed to be quite exhilarated by the sight and by the occasion – there was a fine sense of drama and we had our small part to play in it.’

On the receiving end of this massive onslaught 15th Panzer Division cracked and collapsed. Command and communications broke down and Germans were seen, very unusually, running away or trying hastily to surrender – not always successfully as Cook witnessed: ‘About 200 yards from our tank, a German climbed from a slit-trench with hands held above his head. An approaching infantryman, armed with a Bren gun, stopped and waved to the German to come forward. The latter must have understood the gesture, but he didn’t move; he seemed to be pointing down into the trench. Again the British soldier motioned, but again the German refused to move, his hands still above his head in the position of surrender. I can imagine that the infantryman was scared… that a trap lay ahead and that he could walk forward into it so easily. With a final gesture to the German which, once more, remained unacknowledged except by his hand again pointing downwards, the infantryman swung his Bren at the hip and sent a burst at the German, killing him instantly. Then two British soldiers ran up and I saw them go down into the trench and lift out a wounded man. The one who had died had obviously been trying to protect his comrade by drawing attention to him and, in doing so, had given his life for him.’

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General Brian Horrocks

Alexander had left Horrocks in no doubt that speed and refusal to be thrown off a direct line to Tunis were essential. Yet when Tuker told him, as early as 0940 hours, that the enemy’s defences seemed to have collapsed and 7th British Armoured Division could, ‘go as fast and as far as it liked,’ 6th and 7th Armoured Divisions were not driven on and instead made only slow progress throughout the rest of the day. This was in part due to the fact that 15th Panzer Division, now in full retreat, was hurriedly recalled and sent north of the Medjerda where elements of 334th German Infantry Division were located around Djebel Lanserine. The distinct impression at 9th Corps’ HQ shortly before 1300 hours that, ‘the enemy [are] not aware of direction of our attacks and are now pulling out as fast as they can’, made no difference either to armored division commanders General Keightley (6th Armored Division) or General Erskine (7th Armored Division). Both wished to establish a firm base before committing their tanks to a further advance and neither wanted to disturb the complicated order of vehicles in each division extending in a 30-mile-long procession, other than to bring up 201st Guards Brigade (6th Armoured) and 131st Lorried Infantry Brigade (7th Armoured Division) which took time.

Brigadier Bateman (5th Indian Brigade) was at a loss to know why the breakout was progressing so slowly. ‘By first light we had certainly reported success (i.e. Brigade final objectives gained) and so far as we could tell there was nothing to stop the Armour going through from then on.’ Tuker thought it ‘pretty feeble’ that 7th Armoured Division could push ahead only eight miles beyond the infantry by the evening, when it pulled up just north of Massicault, and that 6th Armoured Division took three hours longer to reach a position two miles to the east. They then halted for maintenance when a swift dash might have cut off the enemy streaming away towards the north and east.

A breathing space had again been provided but this time it did not matter for Heeresgruppe Afrika was already at its last gasp, its command structure rapidly disintegrating: ‘Between the Medjerda and the Medjez-St Cyprien road the enemy has achieved his decisive breakthrough to Tunis,’ it reported. ‘This sector was heroically defended by 15th Panzer Division… but these troops could not survive an assault mounted by numerically far superior infantry and armoured formations with massed artillery support, and accompanied by air attacks of an intensity not hitherto experienced. The bulk of 15th Panzer Division must be deemed to have been destroyed… There can be no doubt that on 7th May the road to Tunis will be open to the enemy, and that the fall of the city of Bizerte is only a question of time…’

Non-combatants and administrative personnel were hurriedly making their way to the Cap Bon peninsula.

Nothing was now coming into Tunis or Bizerte by sea though remarkably 53 men arrived on the 6th by air, accompanied by 25 tons of fuel and several tons of Feldpost. At the same time commanders of the various German units were informed that Tunis was to be evacuated by 1700 hours the next day, the Army Group’s Oberquartiermeister warning, however, that this depended on the tactical and fuel situation.

The Americans had apparently ground to a halt after their main attack opened in parallel with First Army. Too confident that Regiment Barenthin was about to come apart, 1st US Infantry Division ran into severe trouble after Allen committed 18th and 26th RCTs, supported by a company of 1st Armored Regiment, across the Tine. Badly held up, first by minefields and then by the collapse of a bridge across a deep wadi, the 18th was left exposed in the Chouïgui foothills on Djebel Douimiss, where it suffered heavy losses. Both RCTs were forced to retreat back across the Tine and for the rest of the campaign were motionless, simply preventing any westward movement by the enemy. Bradley was annoyed: ‘The gesture was a foolish one and undertaken without authorization. For Allen’s path of attack led nowhere… A commander attacks, I reminded him, to take objectives, not to waste his strength in occupying useless ground."

South of 1st US Division, Ryder’s 168th RCT had also encountered severe resistance as it attempted to turn northwards along the hills towards the Chouïgui Pass. In the north, while 47th RCT was outflanking the enemy, Eddy’s 60th RCT passed through the Corps Franc and attacked Djebel Cheniti but throughout 6 May could not drive him off the south-western slopes.

In 1st US Armored Division sector, Colonel Robert Stack’s 6th Armored Infantry Regiment (CC A) drove into the hill mass of Djebel el Messeftine, south-east of Djebel Achkel where 91st Reconnaissance Squadron was stalled. They were met by determined opposition from infantry and tanks and it was not until 1630 hours that the Messeftine ridge had been cleared. A co-ordinated attack by two companies of 13th Armored Regiment to drive the Germans from a secondary ridge was halted by intense artillery fire. Amid a stiff counterattack and confused fighting, the enemy regained the ridge by 2100 hours apart from one point where 3rd Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry, tenaciously held on.

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Omar Bradley

About the only success was that of CC B (13th Armored Regiment and attached units). Most of the day Benson’s men struggled to knock out many antitank guns concealed on the lower slopes of hills along the Mateur-Djedeïda road, losing 12 tanks, 15 battle-damaged and suffering 60 casualties. Rallying his 2nd Battalion at critical moments, by evening Colonel Howze had pushed it to the junction with a road leading due north, six miles east of Mateur, from where he could cut off the enemy’s direct access from the rear of the Djebel Achkel hill mass to Tunis via Djedeïda. From there he was set to charge eastwards at daybreak on 7 May.

In the hills a little to the north of the Medjerda, 78th British Division was stationary. Far to the south, around Bou Kournine, 1st British Armoured and 46th British Infantry Divisions remained static in a holding operation as were 2nd New Zealander Division and 56th British Division at Enfidaville. Keeping on the pressure, however, did not eliminate some vicious fighting at The Bou, ‘unnatural, forbidding and repellent’, where 1st British Armoured lay under the watchful eye of a German observation post which brought down artillery fire on every forward movement.Here, burial parties were overrun by the flood of death. Arriving at a nearby wadi on 26 April, Bombardier Challoner of 2nd Regiment RHA (1st Armoured Division), witnessed the aftermath of a recent violent tank engagement: ‘One Mark IV special… had been burnt out while running down from the crest of the hill. Inside there were at least three dead bodies; one, the driver, turned with his knee up on his seat as if to clamber out when the heat had overcome him. His clothes, skin and features were entirely gone, only shreds of flesh and sinew clung to the blackened bones and the boiling brain had blown the top off his head. And yet still very recognisable as a man.’ Considerably shaken by what they saw, Challoner and his comrades buried the remains of the bodies in the shadow of the ruined tank.

During a lull in the action, on or about 6 May, von Arnim managed a brief visit to the 65 men and two artillery observers, all who were left to defend The Bou. They could not hope to mount any kind of offensive but were ordered to delay the enemy as long as possible.

At Enfidaville there was no chance of blitzing through the German defences with only two British divisions (50th and 56th), 2nd New Zealand, and one French division exerting any pressure after Montgomery recalled the 51st Highland into reserve. ‘As far as the world is concerned,’ he told Alexander, ‘and particularly the enemy, Eighth Army is still controlling the battle in this corner of the world.’ It did not seem so to the men who faced up to 90th German Light Division in the hills around. Every night the high ground turned into a resounding inferno of bursting shells and bombs; on 2 May, as they cheered bombers unloading onto targets beyond the hills, Lieutenant McCallum’s battalion was suddenly attacked by several aircraft: ‘My sergeant was buried. He had to be dug out. My batman was punctured in the base of the spine and was taken away on a stretcher. Another man died in a short time. The rest of us escaped. Some time later someone came up from the battalion HQ. He said the airfield had been on the telephone with apologies and the pilots were to be court-martialled. Said someone, “If they court-martial all the pilots who have ever bombed their own troops there won’t be any bloody air force left.”’ Three days later the New Zealand 5th Brigade was mistakenly bombed by the Americans while relieving John Currie’s 8th Armoured Brigade at night on the western side of Djebel Garci,. The rest of the division, Gentry’s 6th NZ Brigade, was well behind the front at Sidi bou Ali, expecting daily to be sent up again. Visiting them, the New Zealand Minister of Defence was soundly barracked after trying to enthuse the troops to more fighting for which warning orders had just been received. In the event, none of the brigade was put back into the line.

This unwelcome development fell to Ralf Harding’s 5th New Zealander Brigade who were given the task of pinching out the Garci massif by Freyberg. On the night of 6/7 May 23rd Battalion, supported by the 28th, attacked an area 15 miles west of Takrouna in a drizzle which gave way to heavy rain accompanied by thunder, lightning and a gale force wind. Initial gains were encouraging with few casualties but, throughout the next day, intense shelling gave little respite. Even so, a sudden and fierce enemy attack on the night of 8/9 May was very unexpected because the German collapse on First Army’s front had by then assumed catastrophic proportions though with heavy British artillery support , German attack was repulsed.

Horrocks’ failure to capitalise on the breakthrough along the Medjez-St Cyprien road on 6 May, puzzled von Arnim. ‘A Rommel on their side,’ he declared, ‘would have said, “On to the sea!” (however Horrocks was not commanding a very operationally and organisational improvisional and flexible German Army and her was not fighting against easily demorilised and badly coordinated and non mobilised Italian or French forces , German generals and post war critics comparison between Germans and thei opponments always ignore that)

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General Jurgen Von Arnim , 5th Panzer Army and Army Group Afrika commander

In the evening von Arnim ordered his forces to retreat step-by-step into the ‘fortress area’ at Enfidaville, Zaghouan and Hammam Lif. The centre and left of Fifth Panzer Army was to pull back to a line running from Tébourba to Djebel Oust, overlooking the road roughly half-way between Pont du Fahs and La Mohammedia. At a last meeting in von Arnim’s bunker on the Bellevue Heights with von Vaerst they decided not to defend Tunis and Bizerte, for which there was neither the strength nor means, since both would needlessly be destroyed without changing the fate of the army. As for the guns in the forts at Bizerte, they pointed out to sea and could not be trained inland.

The DAK was also ordered to draw in its right wing to a line from Zaghouan to Djebel Oust and later assume command of the Hermann Göring and 10th Panzer Divisions. On the Gap Bon peninsula First Italian Army was to take control of the defences and hold its positions. The fortuitous discovery of an undamaged drum of fuel on the beach enabled von Arnim to move his HQ south to Sainte Marie du Zit, just east of Djebel Zaghouan; as he left, von Vaerst’s troops were busy destroying port installations at Bizerte and Ferryville.

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Chapter 18

We Shall Fight to the Last‘

"The war in Africa, as far as we are concerned, is over and everyone is enjoying the peace and quiet. It is sort of an anti-climax however and not at all like we thought it would be; the guns have stopped shooting – that’s about all.’

Entry in War Diary, 68th Armored Field Artillery Battalion (1st Armored Division), 10 May 1943.

‘That’s the end of the Tunisian episode.’

Major-General Tuker, entry in his diary for 15 May 1943.

As tanks of 6th and 7th British Armoured Divisions and 201st Guards Brigade began to roll out of their overnight laagers on 7 May, signs of the enemy’s widespread confusion and collapse were everywhere. Through the Medjerda Valley rumbled the artillery, anti-tank guns, fuel and ammunition wagons, workshops and recovery vehicles. Ahead were the tanks, visors down, flattening the ripening wheat as they worked past empty gun pits and abandoned trenches. At La Mornaghia German notices warned of typhus in the village but leading tanks of 1st RTR (22nd Brigade), accompanied by 5th RTR on the left and 1st Guards Brigade on the right, were intent on reaching the shallow semi-circle of hills around the city of Tunis. It was here that the last few Hermann Göring Panzers, supported by a dozen or so 88mm guns, made their final stand.

The contest was one-sided as Brigadier Carver’s tanks and medium artillery smashed the opposition; manned only by anti-aircraft defence crews, the 88s were not as deadly as usual. From the ridge could be seen the whole wide sweep of the bay and Tunis itself, grey under sullen, leaden clouds and a spreading canopy of black smoke rising from a burning dump on the race-course airfield. Finding no more than scattered resistance, Erskine ordered in his troops at 1430 hours. On the edge of the city, a patrol of B Squadron, 11th Hussars, met another from C Squadron, 1st Derbyshire Yeomanry, and decided to share the honour of entering. In fact, the Derbyshire Yeomanry just headed the Hussars who were delayed by madly rejoicing crowds, as their Signal Log revealed: ‘“B” Squadron… report right patrol now seems to be right in town itself. Gan 1st Royal Tanks send something forward to help? It is raining steadily, the Troop is surrounded by surprised Germans firing at the cars, hundreds of others surrendering, wildly excited civilians blocking way, showering flowers and pressing wine and other offerings.’

Gromalia_prisoner_of_war_camp

Italian prisoners at Gromalia POW camp , Tunisia en route to transfer to Algiers and UK/US. According to Allied censors , while Germans were very camera shy due to their awareness of images could be used for propaganda , Italians loved to be photographed.

Nevertheless, in a BBC broadcast on 9 May, Frank Gillard presented the capture of Tunis as, ‘another example of Monty’s left hook’, and the next day headlines in newspapers from the London Daily Sketch to the Tunis Telegraph credited Eighth Army with entering the city and winning single-handed the North African campaign – to Anderson’s intense annoyance. This was, ‘in very bad taste and likely to have the most unfortunate effect on First Army’, complained the Deputy GIGS, General Nye, who asked why Monty’s army could not be kept in its place and how Eisenhower’s censors failed to suppress such harmful reports.

Close behind the leading patrols came tanks from 1st RTR and infantry of 1/7th Queen’s Royals (131st Brigade) mopping up. For the most part enemy troops offered little resistance; one collection was ferried away to captivity in a Bren Gun carrier. Mistaking them for British the crowds threw flowers which the Germans caught and sat back stiffly, each man clutching a small posy in his hand. Two self-important Italian officers demanded to be driven to their quarters to collect waterproofs. They were hustled away, still protesting.

In the harbour of La Goulette the Italian steamer Belluno was crammed with 650 British and American POWs. A bombing attack the previous day which smashed her rudder persuaded some Italian guards to jump overboard and swim to safety but the Germans methodically swung out the last of her boats as she settled in shallow water and took the wounded ashore. One of the first acts as Tunis was liberated was to take them to hospital and bring the others to safety.

Further along the coast, Hans-Georg Moschallski of the Hermann Goring Division heard from the BBC that events were hastening to a conclusion. Disgusted at the sudden collapse of the German command structure, his unit quickly surrendered and on the eight-day journey by rail to Casablanca they came face-to-face with the realities of war against the Allies: ‘When I saw the miles of war supplies parked along the railway lines – millions of barrels of fuel, tanks, guns and lorries – my heart sank to my boots,’ he remarked.

As the French population of Tunis celebrated, Anderson ordered 6th Armoured Division to drive south-east towards Soliman and Grombalia in order to prevent the enemy setting up positions in defence of the Cap Bon peninsula. After a night of much confusion as the 1/7th Queen’s Royals sought out the last pockets of resistance, into Tunis the next day came dog-tired infantry from 78th British Division, lorried there on Anderson’s orders to receive some of their due for their magnificent and exhausting fighting in the hills.

By a happy coincidence – it was not planned that way – Americans entered Bizerte at about the same time as the British took Tunis. There had been no slackening of the enemy’s resistance on the 6th but when 47th and 60th RCTs (9th US Infantry Division), advancing on both sides of Djebel Gheniti, finally took the hill and cut the Mateur-Bizerte road the Germans were forced into a full retreat. Bradley was keen to get troops into Bizerte before the Germans demolished the port and called Eddy, who was not aggressive enough for his liking: ‘But the road to Bizerte is lousy with mines, Omar. We can’t even put a jeep over it until the engineers clear it.’

‘Well then, get off your trucks and begin walking, but get the hell to Bizerte,’ he ordered.

Stung into action, Eddy sent 47th RCT marching on the town and whipped his armour ahead of 3rd Battalion, 60th RCT. Grossing a ford constructed by 15th Engineer Battalion over Oued Douimiss on the Bizerte road, 9th Reconnaissance Troop lifted scores of mines. When the way was clear they were passed by Company A, 751st Tank Battalion supported by two companies of 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion which entered Bizerte at 1615 hours, followed shortly by 9th Reconnaissance.

The town was dead, deserted by its civilian population which had fled to Tindja or Ferryville. Only the Germans remained. In a church tower a machine-gun nest was active and their tanks and gunners were on gentle slopes, hardly a quarter of a mile away to the south, across the narrow sheet of water which leads to the sea out of Bizerte lake. From here they pumped shells at the tank destroyers when they ventured into any street running on a north-south axis. The Americans, firing back, knocked out two artillery pieces. Despite the presence of US tanks bivouacked in the central section of Bizerte airport the doughboys of 47th RCT, entering the town very early on the following morning (8 May), encountered continuous sniper fire. Nevertheless, Bradley had succeeded in blocking all routes. Elements of the 47th also controlled ground to the north-west, ready to repel any counter-attack, with 60th RCT on the hills commanding the Ferryville-Bizerte road.

To the south, an early morning attack on 7 May by 168th RCT (34th US Infantry) finally broke German resistance to an advance on the Chouïgui Pass; as they withdrew Ryder’s men entered Chouïgui itself in the afternoon, where they made contact with units from 5th Corps. Meanwhile, 1st US Armored Division put out three columns which wrecked the enemy’s defences on the line Ferryville-Mateur. At the northern end, CG A got 91st Armored Reconnaissance Squadron and 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment (temporarily transferred from 9th Division) into Ferryville soon after noon. The town was undamaged but precision bombing had blasted a square mile of workshops, warehouses, power-plants, torpedo-sheds and assembly plants at the naval arsenal.

In the heights around Messeftine Ridge the second prong of 1st US Armored shattered the enemy with concentrated artillery fire as 6th Armored Infantry Battalion cleaned out any survivors. At the same time, Crosby’s 3rd Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment, thrust northward beyond the area cleared by Howze the previous day and hunted down enemy concentrations. A detachment reached the road from Ferryville which loops round the southern shore of Lac de Bizerte to join the Tunis-Bizerte highway but by then elements of 1st Armored Regiment and 6th Armored Infantry had already advanced from Mateur to cut this route. Fighting their way past tanks and artillery they swung north-eastwards, driving the enemy onto the flats south of Lac de Bizerte and moving to entrap armour sited in the hills south-east of Bizerte. On the right, CC B was pushing the third prong of 1st Armored’s attack along the Mateur-Djedeïda road. Howze’s 2nd Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment, seized a crossroads six miles east of Mateur and during the day moved further towards Protville. At Pont du Fahs, elements of Koeltz’s 19th Corps entered the town.

From Bou Arada to Tunis, First Army had driven a mighty wedge between Fifth Panzer Army in the north and First Italian Army in the south. All von Vaerst’s forces were threatened with piecemeal destruction by 1st Armored’s drive eastwards and northward from Mateur and Ferryville just as Messe stood in danger of immediate extinction from the encircling movement of the British 6th Armoured Division.

On 30 April Mussolini had telegraphed the Führer pointing out that unless more supplies and aircraft were sent urgently to counteract the Allies’, ‘shattering air superiority’, then the troops, ‘fighting splendidly,’ would have their fate sealed.8Hitler, beyond ordering unyielding resistance to the last man, could do nothing while Mussolini revealed to the Japanese Ambassador in Rome that a general evacuation was impossible. Knowing that the Germans regarded Tunisia as lost, the Duce and Kesselring were, however, still talking of reinforcing Tunisia on 4 May. Kesselring received instructions from Keitel that units were to be amalgamated and spare staff, what the Italians called the mangiatori (best translated as ‘useless mouths’), evacuated. Comando Supremo sent von Arnim and Messe similar orders but these may never have reached them.

In the rapidly shrinking band of territory still controlled by Axis forces, the Oberquartiermeister der Heeresgruppe Afrika had lost contact with the northern half of the front. Oberstleutnant Brand was still trying to supply units wherever they could be reached. One plan was to use landing craft and Sturmboote (rubber boats) to ferry goods from ship to such harbours as were left in German hands. Another was to use ‘Dunkirk piers’ (vehicles driven into the water to form a chain from ship to shore).

Such desperate measures were never attempted because the Italo-German machine began to shrink and collapse in upon itself with fearful speed. On 8 May, CG A of 1st US Armored struck again in the north with tanks and assault guns, breaking up a final attack by remnants of 15th Panzer Division around Djebel Kechabta and driving the enemy from Djebel Sidi Mansour, four miles east of Ferryville, taking over 200 prisoners. From the crest of the hill troops of 3rd Battalion, 1st Armored Regiment, and 2nd Battalion, 6th Armoured Infantry, observed Germans in full retreat, scurrying across the Tunis-Bizerte road towards the village of El Alia. Next day, when 15th Panzer Division had completely exhausted its artillery ammunition, 3rd Battalion captured the village without difficulty other than that posed by, ‘the determination of several thousands of Germans to surrender.’ While one arm of 1st Armored Division was involved at El Alia, another was reaching around the southern shore of Lac de Bizerte towards the village of El Azib, astride the Tunis-Bizerte highway. This involved Carr’s 1st Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment, which was forced to cross perilously open ground. Two companies of light tanks were therefore ordered to, ‘drive like hell, pray, and rally in a wooded area a mile south of El Azib.’ Flat out, they ran the gauntlet of enemy guns for eight minutes. Six were hit but the enemy was forced to retreat, which opened a corridor for the remainder of the battalion, 91st Reconnaissance Squadron and 3rd Battalion, 6th Armoured Infantry.

In the hills south of Lac de Bizerte, CC B’s advance was held up by the craggy terrain but a determined push by Howze brought his 40 tanks to high ground from which they were able to cut the Tunis-Bizerte road at the Oued Medjerda crossing. From their vantage point they could see, on the coastal flats, hundreds of trapped enemy vehicles turn to fiery torches and the sky lit by tracer bullets as the Germans shot off the last of their ammunition. As sniping and shelling died down in Bizerte, 47th RCT withdrew so that the Corps Franc could make a symbolic entry. ‘All the nice suburban houses were empty,’ noted Master Sergeant Tommy Riggs, ‘with marks of shell and bullet on the plaster. Arabs were in the road carrying gilt-framed pierglasses and fine chairs, and having no luck looking like the owners.’11 A few locals still around gave the troops a wildly exuberant welcome. ‘Where are the Gaullists?,’ was the question heard time and again, and ‘Who is Giraud?’

‘The legend of de Gaulle is more powerful here than anywhere else in North Africa: it would be a political error not to cash in on it and thereby redeem the mistakes of last November,’ commented Philip Jordan. ‘Giraud’s regime is as reactionary as ever it was; and will continue that way, with the open support of the [US] State Department and the silent backing of Whitehall.’ But despite Giraud’s efforts to shed much of his anti-semitic and extremist following he was being steadily out-manoeuvred by de Gaulle, of whom Harold Macmillan observed: ‘he is a more powerful character than any other Frenchman with whom one has yet been in contact.’

While political matters were being decided at Tunis and Bizerte, Koeltz’s 19th French Corps was advancing on Djebel Zaghouan. Generals Boissau and Le Coulteux, travelling fast to the north-east from Pont du Fahs with the Division d’Oran and the armoured group, struck unexpectedly strong opposition but Generals Conne and Mathenet put the d’Alger and du Maroc Divisions beyond the Pont du Fahs-Takrouna road and set them toiling up Zaghouan’s formidable lower pitches.

In the adjoining 9th Corps sector, Horrocks replaced 7th British Armoured with 1st British Armoured Division which had at last pushed beyond Bou Kournine when the Germans melted away on the night of 6/7 May. A small patrol sent to bury recent casualties discovered a horrible sight, with the slopes and summits littered with bodies of men mown down in successive assaults. The burial party had to tread carefully and six were wounded on a mine when someone’s boot fouled a tripwire.

Crossing the Oued Miliane, 1st Armoured moved on 8/9 May past small villages en fete to Créteville. Veering south-eastwards on the 9th, the division entered hills on either side of the Grombalia-Tunis road and was forced to run the gauntlet of artillery and mortar shells on its way to prevent the enemy moving into or out of the Gap Bon peninsula. In the meantime, 7th Armoured swung north from Tunis, one prong along the road to Bizerte and another parallel to the Oued Medjerda where fierce clashes took place on the 8th. Many Germans and Italians who had given up the fight made for the river where enterprising Arabs offered them a ferry service on horseback to the west bank – at 50 francs a crossing.West of Protville elements of 6th Armoured linked up with 1st Battalion, 1st US Armored Regiment on 9 May. As the 1st Battalion turned north on the Bizerte road, passing thousands of prisoners and great mounds of discarded arms and equipment, 3rd Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment, and 11th Hussars took the road to Porto Farina. Their arrival saved many enemy troops, busy trying to lash together rafts, from certain death since, on 8 May, Admiral Cunningham had set up Operation Retribution – so named after the agonies suffered by British troops while evacuating Greece and Crete in 1941. Moving in every available destroyer for close patrol work by day and night off the Cap Bon peninsula he signalled: ‘Sink, burn and destroy. Let nothing pass.’The ‘Kelibia Regatta’ as destroyer captains termed it, took place in heavily-mined waters outside an exclusion zone covered by Allied aircraft and shore batteries. On the night of 8/9 May, HMS Tartar with two other destroyers, the Laforey and Loyal, sank two ships with their cargoes of ammunition and tanks. On the HMS Tartar, Lieutenant-Gommander Hay could hear the shouts of men in the water. ‘We circled round once more… but it would have been useless to try and pick them up then. I was glad to see the davits and falls on one of the ships were empty and two or three large black shapes were, no doubt, the ship’s lifeboats.’ Conflicting evidence had been assembled by Allied intelligence but air reconnaissance over the whole area detected no signs of evacuation even though German radio broadcast on 8 May that the African campaign was over and troops would be taken off in small boats. At the last moment some did manage to escape like 18-year-old W. Jüttner, conveyed from hospital to a ship about to sail. However, sunken and damaged vessels littering the harbour prevented it putting out and so, accompanied by 12 other wounded comrades, he was rushed to El Aouina airfield where, at 1600 hours on 8 May, the last Ju-52 took off for Palermo, only minutes before the Germans blew up the airstrip. Surviving an attack by British fighters and a forced landing to repair the damage, the aircraft arrived at its destination the next day. On 10 May another hospital ship, the Italian Virgilio, sailed from Korbons; on board was Hauptmann Reutter carrying secret reports for the Heeresgruppe Afrika War Diary. Shortly before 0900 hours the ship was stopped by three British destroyers; as she was boarded Reutter quickly destroyed all his orders and papers. Ordered back to Tunis at first, the ship was allowed to continue her passage to Naples later that afternoon. A few others escaped, like the tank repair company from Panzerabteilung 501 pushed back to Gap Bon, which took a pioneer landing boat and made off for Sicily. Without water or provisions of any kind 18 men suffered terrible privations, eventually drifting ashore on Sardinia totally exhausted. Officially, only 632 officers and men were evacuated from Tunisia: about another 1,000 were rescued and captured by the Royal Navy during the first two weeks in May from rowing and sailing boats, rubber dinghies, rafts, clinging to empty fuel drums and even driftwood.

Had there been any intention to fight to the death on the Gap Bon peninsula in order to cover a last-minute wholesale evacuation, 6th Armoured would have prevented it. Ordered to Soliman, Grombalia and Hammamet by Anderson, on 8 May the division approached Hammam Lif where a narrow defile bars the way at the only northern entrance to the Gap Bon peninsula and Djebel el Rorouf runs down in precipitous falls to within 1,000 yards of the sea.

The stopper in the neck of the bottle was the town itself through which 6th Armoured Division had to pass since the beach was intersected by a wadi, considered impassable for tanks. The town and heights around were infested by a hastily formed German outfit, Gruppe Franz, consisting of a Panzerjäger unit and artillery. They had tanks hull-down behind the breakwaters, over 30 guns of various calibres covering the approach, a strong armament of anti-tank guns in the town backed up by mortars and Nebelwerfers, machine-guns on the hills and heavier artillery on the summits.A simple head-on attack was obviously suicidal unless the heights dominating the town could be captured. About midday the 2nd Lothians’ armour on its approach was hit by anti-tank guns firing straight down the road. There was a pause while the Welsh Guards, nearly three miles back, were brought up to take the dominating narrow, crescent-shaped ridge of Djebel el Rorouf. That afternoon, as 3rd Grenadier Guards moved smoothly inland against light resistance, taking 400 Italians prisoner, 3rd Welsh Guards attacked towards the crest, 750 feet above. Watched by crowds of interested civilians on the road below, and supported by Lothians and Border Horse tanks, they were swept by mortar and machine-gun fire. Not until nightfall was the battalion able to take out a troublesome German mortar located in a nearby cement works and even then could do no more than consolidate its hard-earned gains having lost 24 killed and 50 wounded. But the fight had been knocked out of the defenders and when the Coldstream Guards came up they were able to clear the remainder of the ridge fairly easily.

The way was now open for 26th Armoured Brigade to attack frontally. This was still a very formidable task. Arriving in time to see the last of the enemy cleared from Djebel el Rorouf, Horrocks witnessed the blunting of the first probing attack by Lothians’ tanks on the morning of 9 May and, anxious about the speed of his thrust, ordered the town to be taken without further delay. Other ‘red hats’ visiting the Lothians’ regimental HQ included Keightley, Roberts and Anderson himself: ‘… their reactions to Nebelwerfer fire were much as ours,’ commented one tank driver, ‘and they hastily jumped or crawled for cover under our tanks.’ At 1500 hours three squadrons of Lothians’ tanks went in again, one of them with infantry riding on their hulls. Deadly fire from well-sited 88s led to a series of bloody engagements as they fought their way into the town’s six parallel streets. Once there, infantry cleaned up house by house, driving snipers out of one six-storey building in vicious hand-to-hand fighting. Meanwhile, two tank troops had forced their way across the beach, rounding the wadi where it falls into the sea by driving through the surf and running a gauntlet of anti-tank guns.In immediate danger of becoming surrounded the Germans hastily withdrew towards Grombalia and the pursuit was on, across the base of the Gap Bon peninsula. The remarkable capture of Hammam Lif wrecked 22 Shermans but opened a gap through which the armour surged forward. This breakthrough amazed General von Broich (commander of 10th Panzer Division ) who thought it the most remarkable event of the campaign. As dusk fell leading tanks were three miles short of Soliman from where 6th British Armoured Division was to swing south-east and then south, towards Bou Ficha and Enfidaville.

On this same day (9 May), the Americans completed their destruction of the remains of Fifth Panzer Army in the north. Some 300 officers and men of the Hermann Göring Division still held out on Djebel Achkel but everywhere else resistance collapsed as von Vaerst’s forces were sliced into smaller and smaller pieces. Generalmajor Josef Schmid had lost contact with his troops on the mountain several days previously; now he showed von Arnim a signal received from Göring himself ordering him back to Italy. The contempt in which von Arnim held the Reichsmarschall deepened. From the last heights under German control near Porto Farina, von Vaerst was still holding on with a couple of Tiger tanks and a handful of infantry. At 0930 hours he sent a final situation report to Heeresgruppe Afrika: ‘Our armour and artillery have been destroyed; without ammunition and fuel; we shall fight to the last.’

German units resisted until they had expended all their ammunition and then quietly surrendered. They had done their duty; indeed, some went beyond it, like the crews of the last seven tanks of 10th Panzer which dug in when completely out of fuel and carried on until they had no more shells and bullets. Then, like other units, they blew up their vehicles and destroyed their weapons.

At 1000 hours Generalmajor Fritz Krause and his aides arrived at Harmon’s HQ to seek an end to the fighting. Harmon radioed Bradley, seeking advice, and was told bluntly: ‘… we have no terms. It must be unconditional surrender.’ While Bradley ordered a halt to avoid unnecessary casualties, Krause, his face stone-hard and betraying no emotion, negotiated a surrender at noon on 2nd US Corps’ front. Maurice Rose, Harmon’s young chief of staff, was sent back with the German delegation carrying a set of explicit instructions. ‘They are to collect their guns in ordnance piles and run their vehicles into pools. Tell them,’ ordered Bradley, ‘that if we catch them trying to destroy their stuff the armistice is off. We’ll shoot the hell out of them.’

Later that afternoon the generals and their staffs arrived in Mercedes-Benz staff cars. Formally clad in their crisp dress uniforms, stiffly they presented themselves to Harmon who, in utter contrast, was in his creased and sweat-stained working uniform. ‘You would have thought the bastards were going to a wedding,’ he said. Last to arrive was von Vaerst who signed off in a final signal at 1523 hours from his HQ to OKW and von Arnim. 2nd US Corps had netted six German generals, von Vaerst, Krause, newly-promoted Borowietz, Bülowius, Kurt Bassenge and Georg Neuffer (commander, Luftwaffe 20th Flak Division). Refusing to have anything to do with them, Bradley had them locked in a German hospital overnight with an ordinary sack of K-rations and a picture of Adolf Hitler, hung on a wall by one of their aides. Next day, ‘Chet’ Hansen handed the generals over to the British authorities where they were saluted and invited to lunch. The only people not fed were Hansen and his driver. ‘We were annoyed,’ commented a justifiably aggrieved Bradley.

In the meantime, tens of thousands of prisoners were entering the barbed wire cage, erected by American engineers north of the heavily used road west of Mateur, on the sandy plain stretching towards Djebel Achkel. Sitting atop his carrier, Lieutenant Royle, a 78th British Infantry Division gunner, looked at the streams of Germans passing by, ‘and thought that up to a few hours ago we had been trying to kill each other. And now it was all over.’

The way in which the Germans suddenly caved in seemed to show that individuals lacked initiative in an unanticipated crisis; remove the immediate command structure, said some observers, and the body will rapidly fall apart. There was some truth in this; the speed and weight of the Allied attack broke the Axis positions and made prolonged resistance useless. But the prisoners were, wrote Major-General Penney, ‘disciplined and not demoralised.’ Commanders of all units had their men well in hand until the close of fighting: as von Vaerst observed, ‘The German soldier went into captivity with the sense of not having been defeated on the field of battle but of having been a victim of the collapse of the supply system.’ This was especially true of the remnants of Rommel’s Afrika Korps.

Ralf Harding’s 5th Brigade was still under determined attack in the hills west of Takrouna. During the night of 8/9 May, 23rd and 28th Battalions were hit by 88mm and 210mm guns firing haphazardly and Nebelwerfers loosing off four at a time. ‘This was a puzzling affair,’ commented Kippenberger, ‘the Germans had never before attacked at night in our experience, and it was hard to understand their reasons for now doing so.’ Freyberg had not expected any notable results from the probing attacks he had been ordered to mount between 4 and 9 May in which the New Zealand Division lost 16 killed and 36 wounded. There had been no signs of a general collapse and on the coastal sector Messe had appeared even to strengthen his defences. Nevertheless, that was where 56th British Division – commanded by Major-General Graham who had taken over from Miles on 5 May – was ordered by 10th Corps to advance on the night of 10/11 May.

A battalion of Brigadier Birch’s newly-arrived 167th Brigade had successfully attacked the Young Fascist outposts 24 hours earlier, whereupon the brigade was ordered to take the foothills on the left of the sector before being relieved by 6th New Zealand Brigade which was to attempt a decisive breakthrough. It fared just as badly as had its unfortunate sister brigade, the 169th, on the night of 28/29 April. Fierce opposition sent the 167th reeling back, losing 63 killed, 104 missing and 221 wounded. Messe’s troops might be awaiting their inevitable fate but they could still sting, even though, like the DAK, they were completely immobilised through lack of fuel: ‘In effect the Corps was waiting for the end and was mainly preoccupied in ensuring its long service in Africa be brought to an honourable conclusion,’ Messe observed. The failure of 167th Brigade deterred 10th Corps from putting in Gentry’s New Zealanders; they at least had the consolation of knowing that greatly increased shelling revealed an enemy who knew the end was in sight and was no longer trying to husband his dwindling stocks. With the end of the campaign imminent, however, there was, as Kippenberger noted, a certain amount of ‘gun shyness’ among his troops.

Riding down from Gap Bon on 10–11 May, 6th Armoured Division was held up at the white-walled Arab town of Soliman by a screen of anti-tank guns and so, leaving a force to contain it until 4th Infantry Division arrived, Keightley turned south-east towards Grombalia. An advanced patrol of the Rifle Brigade reported little resistance while another from the Derbyshire Yeomanry, travelling fast beyond Soliman, surprised a German mess at dinner. ‘Dinner excellent, champagne sweet’ they signalled to division. ‘German now sampling bully-beef.’

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Still holding on 11 May, headquarters of Armeegruppe von Arnim and Armeegruppe Messe were hastily formed and within hours lost touch as Mathenet’s Division du Maroc destroyed much of what was left of 21st Panzer Division. Le Coulteux’s armoured group swept beyond Djebel Zaghouan reaching Sainte Marie du Zit that evening and Boissau’s Division d’Oran moved forward parallel with Bateman’s 5th Indian Brigade in the hills north of Zaghouan. Sandwiched between French and Indian troops, Germans began to surrender in droves, great pillars of smoke arising from their burning dumps and transport. Throughout the night of 11/12 May, units reported to von Arnim’s HQ for the last time: ‘Ammunition used up, tanks and artillery pieces destroyed.’ Fighting patrols from l/9th Gurkhas and 4/6th Rajputana Rifles brought in 2,000 POWs and next morning (12 May) one of the latter’s carrier patrols accepted the surrender of the entire Italian Superga Division. Not to be outdone, even company cooks of 1/4th Essex seized transport and brought in their own prisoners.

By then 6th British Armoured Division had reached the last remaining stronghold of enemy resistance, Bou Ficha, immediately north of Enfidaville, where 90th Grman Light Division was dug-in. Freyberg had called on von Sponeck to surrender on the 10th, repeating his demand early next day, but received no answer. At about 1000 hours 26th Armoured Brigade came into radio contact with the wearied leading units of 56th British Infantry Division, three miles to the south, thus menacing 90th German Light Division from both sides. Shells from German 210mm guns on the heights kept leading elements of 26th Armoured Brigade at bay and some vehicles were lost to accurate anti-tank fire. As the defenders began deliberately using up their ammunition there was much indiscriminate firing and this furious barrage of artillery, anti-tank, machine-gun and small arms fire from the heights continued with renewed ferocity on the morning of 12 May, ‘a perfectly crazy day’, thought Kippenberger. At about 1330 hours concentrated artillery of 6th Armoured Division, joined by the combined fire of 144 guns of the New Zealand Division, ranged the Germans’ HQ. Bou Ficha disappeared under a great cloud of dust and smoke as three waves of USAAF A-20 Boston bombers pattern-bombed the enemy’s positions; soon after, the tanks advanced.

From every gun-site, slit trench and dugout came a frantic waving of white flags. Down from the hills, late in the afternoon, came von Sponeck’s men, white faced and shocked by the pulverizing display of Allied power. Keightley received von Sponeck’s capitulation and sent him on to Freyberg, who had come forward through 56th British Infantry Division, to whom he repeated his unconditional surrender. Going out next day with Freyberg and Graham to a gap in a minefield on the 56th’s front, Brigadier Lyne came across a, ‘nasty scene when some Italians, apparently put off by the sight of so many senior officers, tried to take a short cut through their own minefield and got blown up. Some of the British spectators were also wounded.’

In orders issued on 12 May, Anderson demanded complete maps of minefields before surrenders were accepted and enemy units were ordered not to destroy militarily valuable material. The men of 6th Armoured Division were, however, disappointed to find that troops of 90th German Light Division had systematically smashed all their highly-prized binoculars and anything else which might have been taken for souvenirs.

Away in the hills to the north of Sainte Marie du Zit, Cramer and von Arnim prepared to close down their operations. At 0040 hours on the 12th, Cramer radioed his last defiant message to the OKW: ‘Ammunition shot off. Arms and equipment destroyed. In accordance with orders received DAK has fought itself to the condition where it can fight no more. The Deutsche Afrika Korps must rise again. Heia Safari.’ Later the same day, von Arnim sent off his last report to OKW and a few private signals from staff to their families at home. Then all communications with the outside world were severed as radio installations were destroyed together with Rommel’s caravan, which von Arnim set on fire with his own hand, having vowed that no enemy would ever lay claim to it. Slowly, the sounds of battle from the surrounding heights ebbed away, ‘as if’, wrote von Arnim, ‘nature itself was holding its breath.’ By this time troops of Lieutenant-Colonel Glennie’s 1st Royal Sussex had worked their way onto the heights around von Arnim’s HQ. Knowing a reconnaissance unit was nearing his position, von Arnim arranged for three officers to carry a letter to Glennie’s HQ offering his surrender together with that of his staff and Hans Cramer. The delegation was headed by, ‘a small, bulletheaded, fair-haired, closely cropped German colonel,’ Oberst Nolte, Stabschef (chief of staff) of DAK.

While Tuker prepared for formal negotiations with Nolte, l/2nd Gurkhas intervened. Mopping up south of Sainte Marie du Zit, Lieutenant-Colonel Showers climbed a ridge to reconnoitre his position when he spotted a German staff car, parked in a nearby hollow, with an officer waving a white flag beside it. Clambering down, he found himself in von Arnim’s HQ, where 1,000 Germans had been drawn up on parade. He was told that Nolte had already left to arrange a surrender and so, accompanied by an English-speaking German officer, Showers returned to brigade HQ. On the way, he met Glennie who was about to post guards around the camp. Hearing what had happened, Tuker contacted Allfrey and the two generals with Nolte, interpreters, the intrepid Showers and an escort, arrived at von Arnim’s HQ, now guarded by men of the 1st Royal Sussex.

Von Arnim surrenders

Von Arnim Captured

Both von Arnim and Cramer had turned out in their dress uniforms, strung about with decorations and Iron Crosses. ‘They gave an impression of green, scarlet and gold,’ remarked Tuker. He was wearing a pair of much-worn drill trousers, a threadbare battledress jacket without medal ribbons and the usual reverse-hide desert boots; Allfrey was equally plainly dressed and Showers, ‘an extremely dirty officer and most unshaven’, completed the scene. Walking straight past von Arnim’s proffered handshake, Tuker led the way to his caravan where negotiations began. From the start, von Arnim was difficult; he could not surrender his units because contact with them had been destroyed and refused to do so even when offered an Allied radio link. At this, Tuker threatened to move his division and attack 90th German Light (which had not, at that time, surrendered) from the rear. Their lives, he told von Arnim bluntly, were on his head.

At this von Arnim agreed to surrender his own staff and that of Cramer, petulantly threw his revolver on the table with a clatter, followed by his penknife. In the meantime, his staff were lining up outside to say goodbye. ‘Arnim was very red in the face and extremely peevish on the whole,’ noted Tuker, ‘while Kram [Cramer] was most ingratiating, talked a little English and tried to be friendly.’ Guarded by a Gurkha officer and Royal Sussex detachment, von Arnim and Cramer were driven through the lines of their saluting troops to meet Alexander – inadvertently making their way through one of their own minefields – von Arnim standing up, gesticulating angrily at his driver. ‘I… was cold and brusque at this meeting,’ observed Tuker. ‘As a plain soldier and no diplomat, I could not in those circumstances have brought myself to be a whit more cordial to the German commanders.

Alexander, however, was his usual polished self at 18th Army HQ, near Le Kef, where von Arnim arrived on 13 May, hospitably offering him supper and a tent for the night. Major-General Miller thought the German, ‘looked a decent sort of man. He said they never had any intention of withdrawal.’ Other than that the interview was not very productive observed an HQ intelligence officer, David Hunt, and von Arnim appeared bewildered by the suddenness of the collapse. Eisenhower absolutely refused to meet him or receive his sword in surrender.

Meanwhile, Bradley and his lieutenants dealt brusquely with remnants of the Hermann Göring Division still clinging to Djebel Achkel. ‘Monk’ Dickson was instructed, on 11 May, to see that their resistance was brought to a speedy conclusion and ordered von Vaerst to scribble a note to whomever was now in charge of the division. Delivered under a flag of truce, this summoned them – and the rest of Fifth Panzer Army – to lay down their arms. Back came the American officer and an Oberleutnant, his wounded arm in a sling. Before surrendering the Germans wanted to verify the message from von Vaerst. ‘Tell him to go to hell,’ said the battalion commander whose men surrounded the hill. Then the division would surrender, replied the Oberleutnant, if they could receive a document verifying that they were the last to lay down their arms on this front. ‘Brother,’ was the blunt response, ‘either you’ll come down right now and cut out this monkey business or we’ll carve that certificate on your headstone.’ A rapid attack killed some of the defenders and word soon got around. From the heights appeared several hundred men claiming unconditional surrender.

This left only Generale di Armata Messe, commanding the greatly weakened Young Fascist, Trieste and 164th German Light Divisions, in touch with the OKW and Comando Supremo. On the morning of 12 May Messe received permission from Mussolini to negotiate an ‘honourable surrender’ and sent a message at about 1300 hours to Eighth Army offering to cease hostilities. This was picked up by the New Zealanders and 10th Corps alerted. At 2030 hours General Bernard Freyberg sent this uncompromising reply: ‘Hostilities will not cease until all troops lay down their arms and surrender to the nearest Allied unit.’ Late in the evening New Zealand signals picked up another message from Maresciallo d’ltalia Messe – he had been promoted field marshal that day – whose representatives had left to meet those of 10th Corps. Travelling by a difficult route, General Mancinelli, Oberst Markert and Major Boscardi, arrived at Freyberg’s HQ at 0830 hours on the 13th. There they attempted to open negotiations but were told that only an unconditional surrender would be accepted; failing that hostilities would resume soon after noon. Lacking the necessary authority to accept these terms, Mancinelli returned with a British officer to Messe’s HQ where a message had been received from Freyberg of what had taken place. At 1220 hours Messe issued orders for the surrender of all his German and Italian troops and, later in the day, together with von Liebenstein, surrendered in person to Freyberg.

On low ground between the sea and positions occupied by 90th German Light Division , Ronald Lewin had seen the white flags of surrender go up, ‘first in small clusters, turning into larger groups as platoons merged with companies. White everywhere, as if butterflies were dancing over the hills.’

‘The Hun has jagged in,’ reported Private Crimp. Alexander sent an altogether more grandiose message on Thursday, 13 May, to Winston Churchill who was in Washington for the Trident Conference: ‘Sir, it is my duty to report that the Tunisian campaign is over. All enemy resistance has ceased. We are masters of the North African shores.’

In Berlin next day, Goebbels confided to his diary: ‘In Tunis[ia] the fight is ended. I write this with a heavy heart. I simply cannot read the exaggerated Anglo-American accounts. They are full of insults to our soldiers, who fought with legendary heroism to their last round of ammunition.’

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Epilogue

‘Altogether I feel rather stupidly and unreasonably depressed… I think it is the reaction, more than anything, and the loss of so many people one has known and liked… War is horrid, messy, bloody.’

Officer of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), May 1943.

‘Some did not complete the show and some will never see their homes again but the best of the people I have known in the service have been in the desert.’

Flight Lieutenant E. Chadwick, RAF, in a letter home, 24 May 1943.

‘Cut any stress on good morale of German POWs or troops which would support enemy propaganda of gallant troops who were overwhelmed or accepted inevitable,’ read a message from the British Chiefs of Staff to Eisenhower’s HQ on 13 May 1943. This was, however, precisely what had happened.Flowing back from Cap Bon towards Tunis and Bizerte and out of the mountains around Enfidaville, thousands upon thousands of troops made their way into captivity, German officers driving themselves in blunt-nosed open Volkswagen staff cars and a few Mercedes-Benz, Italians in Toppolino Fiats and Lancias, carrying great mounds of personal kit, very few of them accompanied by guards. Two trains passed each other, prisoners riding in one lot of trucks and British Tommies in the other: ‘British Army no good,’ called out a German soldier. A Tommy shouted back, ‘Who put you in the f……g cattle truck?’

Major-General Strong admitted that the total number of prisoners taken, ‘far exceeded our estimates’, and there was much difficulty in finding accommodation for them. Allied intelligence thought provision would have to be made for 150,000 – failing to take into account the number of extra administrative troops and civil and military officials in Tripolitania who had nothing to do with the final battle but headed back into the last bridgehead waiting to be picked up. The Italians were put to work under fixed bayonets: ‘Very disorderly and dirty in their habits,’ recorded Lieutenant-Colonel Shirley Smith, ‘unlike the Germans.’ In the open barbed-wire enclosure at Le Bardo, a suburb of Tunis, the Germans methodically buttoned together their groundsheets to provide tent-like shelters but had to be kept in separate compounds from the Italians because of mutual ill-feeling. The latter were, observed Sergeant Danger, allowed to roam around at will, while the Germans remained closely guarded. Tragedy was only narrowly averted in one US compound when the grass was accidentally set alight, but it was the French who demonstrated least concern for the welfare of their prisoners. Major-General Penney saw them ill-fed and, contrary to the Geneva Convention, forced to clear minefields. At Grombalia, where a huge compound had been established, the entire band of 10th Panzer Division turned up carrying their instruments. They were put on parole and played for battalions of Evelegh’s 78th British Division. Food was not a problem after the first massive influx of POWs because the enemy’s ration dumps, unlike his fuel and ammunition stores, were well stocked. The civilian population in towns, however, had little to eat and the Allies had to ship in sufficient supplies to prevent outright starvation.

In due course most of the prisoners were sent to Britain, America and Canada, roughly a quarter of a million of them, which is about the closest one can get to any final reckoning. Messe and his staff had two floors at their disposal in the high security quarters of the White House, at Wilton Park in south Buckinghamshire. They enjoyed six months’ croquet and tennis with two Italian admirals until the Italian capitulation when they were sent home to help the Allied cause. Messe became Army Chief of Staff in Marshal Badoglio’s government, surviving the change to Ivanoe Bonomi in 1944 but losing his post the following year.

The German generals were held in closer detention not far away, at Cockfosters, where they joined Generalleutnant Ludwig Crüwell and General-leutnant Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, captured earlier in the desert war. Their rooms were bugged and von Arnim made little attempt to hide his outrage at never having received a clear plan of operations in Tunisia, at the contradictory orders issued by both German and Italian High Commands, and the failure of promised supplies.

For the victors there were the usual plaudits. Only in First Army were there any serious misgivings. In a less than frank letter, Eisenhower thanked Anderson on 10 May for his ‘perfect team play.’ Anderson was quick to reply, not through Alexander as propriety dictated, but in a personal letter two days later. ‘I don’t know what our future relations will be after this show is cleaned up…,’ wrote Anderson, ‘but I do hope it will not mean a complete severance of our paths, and that I may still have a close relationship in one form or another with you and the US Army.’ Not long after he wrote again, this time in a spirit of misgiving and confusion*: ‘As First Army seems to be disappearing I would appreciate being able to help my bewildered Commanders and men. Please send a senior officer urgently to help throw light on the darkness. Of course I will do all I can to help in a spirit of utmost co-operation if only some information is vouchsafed me.’* Eisenhower merely passed the letter on to his staff. First Army was dying, dismembered and despatched to other formations, its only job to oversee the reorganization of Allied control in Tunisia into four subordinate sectors along the coast as the French assumed responsibility for internal security.

On 22 May de Gaulle arrived at Algiers to open negotiations with Giraud. After much hard bargaining a French Committee of National Liberation was formed and recognised by the US, British and Russians as the de facto French government. Many difficulties remained, which were not resolved by the complicated system of dual control which was set up. Within a year, however, de Gaulle’s authority was complete.

Allied morale plummeted once the Tunisian campaign was over, especially among troops who thought they would be going home after the fighting. This affected all units apart from the New Zealand Division where 6,000 of those with the longest service were to return on furlough. Eighth Army men who had fought throughout the desert campaign were scheduled for Husky and there was much discontent when it was realized there was to be no home leave.

Many American troops were livid at news of POWs being shipped to the United States while they had no chance of seeing home. Rarely disciplined by Allen and Roosevelt, men of the Big Red One left their mark in rioting and brawling all the way from Arzeu. ‘We all play by the same ground rules,’ Bradley told Allen, ‘whatever the patch we wear on our sleeve.’ This had no discernible effect and Allen was ordered to get his troops out of Oran, back to their dreary tented bivouacs and strenuous training. Part of the problem had been caused by a complete lack of imagination on the part of the US Army authorities who had rushed the division back to such miserable conditions.Harmon, a much stricter disciplinarian, explained the need for regulations to 1st Armored and reported that, after the first rush of excitement had died away, his men were, ‘settling down to soldiering in a good fashion. Our number of disciplinary cases in town’, he added, ‘has dropped from around 50 to 70 a day to an average of about 10 and some days [we] only have one or two.’ Manton Eddy’s 9th US Infantry Division fetched up at Magenta, dusty, fly-ridden and sun-baked, 50 miles south of Sidi-bel-Abbes, the French Foreign Legion HQ. Before going into bivouac, however, an advance camp on the water’s edge was occupied at Nemours in French Morocco, where officers and men swam and filled themselves on decent rations and a truckload of beer, exchanged in an enterprising transaction with a merchantman for a load of souvenirs.

Similar efforts were made by the British authorities to keep the troops occupied. Passes were issued for First Army men to visit Tunis, though there was little to see until Basil Dean arrived on 7 May to begin organising an ENSA show, John Berryman’s ‘Laughter for Tonight.’ The company flew in from Gibraltar and performed to packed audiences, first at Bougie and then at the Theatre Municipal, fronting one side of the main square in Tunis, where Anderson strode on to the stage and declared open, amidst tumultuous cheers, the first garrison theatre in North Africa. Otherwise, the city offered little apart from rough local wine: ‘Tunis itself is rather marred by the drunkenness of British and American soldiers,’ noted the Rev. Gough Quinn of the Coldstream Guards. ‘It was a disappointing sight and I fear must do us harm.’ Captain Edney of 131st Brigade witnessed bitter clashes between men of the First and Eighth Armies, a result of widespread ill-feeling between them.

At Gueriat el Atach tragedy struck suddenly on 26 May when a party visiting Longstop, to see what lessons might be drawn, touched off an anti-personnel mine. Eight were killed; Brigadier Maxwell and Lieutenant-Colonel Robertson, CO 7th Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment, were badly injured.15Most men spent their time sunbathing on areas of beach specially cleared of mines and swimming in the translucent, warm sea. Easing down, slackening off, was something which all who had been in the front-line needed, as the recently promoted Captain Royle made clear in a letter home on 11 May: ‘Looking back on the last six months it seems as if one has been holding one’s breath and you have just let it go for the first time. What I mean is I can now completely relax whereas before you always knew that a shell might come over and were always on the look out for one. It has been a hell of a strain on us and some of the men have cracked up. I am afraid my nerves are in a rather poor state as if an explosion takes place anywhere near me I jump feet in the air and go cold all over! I suppose it’s only natural as I have had a good bit of shit flung at me since I became a Captain but a few weeks rest will see me O.K. again.’ Thirty years later, however, Royle admitted he was still badly affected by any loud or sudden noise. Another officer, grievously distressed at the loss of a corporal in his platoon while carrying out a hurried order wrote: ‘I dare not trust myself to feel his death at the time, but my rage and grief at it fermented in the bottling up and were not purged for years after the war.’

Another effect on men who found themselves thousands of miles from home was a dulling of the conventions that ruled their civilian lives. Noticeable was an indifference, quickly acquired, to sudden death. ‘A very young private lounged up to our car and started chatting,’ recorded an American war artist, George Biddle, who was sketching at Bizerte: ‘He… talked of the fighting on [Hill] 609. He said: “The Jerries are good mountain fighters. They dig in and you can’t dig ’em out. But once you get ’em on the plain and show ’em the bayonet they stick up their hands and come right to you. They got my buddy just two weeks back. I seen four or five of ’em stick up their hands but I give it to ’em. I said: ‘Fuck you, you god damn bloody Germans’; and I give it to the bastards, bam, bam, bam.’” At about the same time, Captain Royle was writing home: ‘I never thought I would see men blown to pieces and eat food with dead lying a few feet away unburied, but one took it as a matter of course. Its awful how callous one becomes but it’s the only way.’ Like many others he found a hard emotional shell was essential to survive the heartrending loss of so many good comrades. Victory in the Tunisian campaign was purchased with men’s lives, 10,290 of them, with a further 21,363 missing and 38,688 wounded – in total 70,341 Allied casualties.The dead were scattered in groups, nearest to where they fell. Sentries were mounted to shoot packs of marauding dogs and drive off Arabs who dug up the bodies. To discourage grave-robbers, caps were removed from hand-grenades before they were placed carefully in the pockets of the dead; anyone attempting to disinter a corpse received the full effect. Of German and Italian troops wounded, missing or killed there were less exact figures. Later assessments by German and Italian authorities give their dead as 8,563 and 3,727 respectively, to whom have to be added the missing and those wounded and evacuated before the surrender. All that can safely be said is that Axis losses were much higher than those of the Allies.

Eisenhower hated the idea of a vainglorious parade, preferring a combination of celebration and commemoration of those who had sacrificed their lives. Nevertheless, ‘it turned out to be just a Victory Parade’, noted Butcher, held under a sweltering sun through the streets of Tunis on 20 May. Roars of cheers and applause greeted the Zouaves, Tirailleurs, Moroccans, Algerians and Foreign Legionaries, led by a detachment of Spahis in red cloaks with drawn swords, astride their white horses. There followed Goums in their burnouses, carrying long-barrelled desert rifles and murderous knives in their belts. A French detachment led by Koeltz, ‘poor in physique and general appearance’, still impressed Macmillan because, ‘one felt it a sort of resurrection of France, and because one realised what a brave show they had put up all these months with such poor equipment and material.’

Two American regiments followed, superbly turned out in finest quality uniforms and equipment, led by a brass band. Yet many of them still looked like raw recruits: besides, it was impossible to make a dramatic impact while marching in the US Army’s standard rubber soled boots. What was to come, therefore, was even more effective.

In the distance was heard the faint sound of pipes then, marching in slow time, came the massed pipers of the Scots and Grenadier Guards and such Highland Regiments as were available. To Flowers of the Forest they marched and countermarched with perfect precision; there then followed a long procession of British units, the divisional generals, brigadiers, colonels leading their formations, stepping out with representatives of the RAF and Leclerc’s men (who had refused to march with the French). Apart from the Highland pipers and a few detachments from the 11th Hussars, Derbyshire Yeomanry and Gurkhas, the entire British march-past was First Army; the Eighth was considered to have had its own affair at Tripoli in February.

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First Army was already dead and gone. ‘Now that the break up of First Army is complete and General George Clark assumes command of all troops in Tunisia… it is obvious that I cannot continue here without any responsibilities or occupation,’ Anderson wrote plaintively to Eisenhower at the end of May. Early next month he was again complaining that he had received no orders: ‘I wrote to the GIGS [Brooke], who promised to let me know soon after he gets home what I am to do, so I hope it won’t be long before I get some definite offers.’ Despite polite letters of praise to Anderson, which went on well after the end of the war, it was obvious that Eisenhower was quite ruthless in casting off someone without the driving aggressiveness of Patton nor the limitless self-confidence of Montgomery.

By Anderson’s own admission it was his quiet, withdrawn personality which prevented him from making a greater mark. Writing to Eisenhower in 1948 he confessed that, ‘I have always had to fight against a queer sort of inhibition, or shyness, which prevents me coming out of my shell except with very intimate friends or a few naturally sympathetic acquaintances. Often I would like to expand, but find it very difficult; a queer thing human nature.’ When neither Roosevelt nor Churchill could spare their closest military advisers, Marshall and Brooke, Eisenhower became the compromise choice for Husky and later his known administrative and conciliatory skills marked him out as Supreme Allied Commander for Northwest Europe. ‘With that tremendous personality of his he could say “no” and make you feel better about it than a lot of people who said “yes”,’ remarked Ira Eaker. What threatened to undermine Eisenhower’s efforts was the, ‘back-biting and trivial, parochial, intramural competition that was going on,’ said a leading USAAF commander Brigadier-General Quesada, which placed a question mark over how far AFHQ at Algiers really operated as a genuinely coherent Allied command. But the fact that it did not fall apart was undoubtedly due to Eisenhower’s leadership.

Judged by its original objectives, the Allied campaign in Tunisia was a failure. Eisenhower’s early expectations were to be in Tunis by Christmas 1942, and trap Rommel in Libya. Due to a combination of Allied mistakes and determined German resistance, neither proved possible. Had the proportion of troops assigned to capture and hold harbours and bases in the Torch invasion forces been reduced, particularly the Algiers contingent, in favour of a more mobile strike force, the initial move eastwards on 10 November might have proceeded with greater dash than it did.

Anderson was not best suited to direct this, nor to mollifying the Americans who remained prickly when told by British officers – often deliberately or unintentionally supercilious – how to do their job. A potent source of trouble, never quite resolved, was the proper application of airpower and the campaign in Sicily would reveal quite conclusively that channels of control, basic allegiance and differences in national aims could still cause problems.

As it was, the failure to wind up the North African campaign until some months later than Eisenhower expected led to unforeseen advantages. By pouring scarce resources into Tunisia in order to keep Italy in the war, Hitler was forced to divert them away from the hard-pressed Eastern Front and ensured that in the end the Allies captured far more men and matériel. This was not what the Allies had thought would happen though much virtue was made out of necessity at the time as if it had been planned that way. Had two very big ‘ifs’ been resolved – that is, had Tunis been taken within six weeks of the TORCH landings and Montgomery been able to cut off and destroy the best part of the retreating German and Italian armies – it is possible, as Eisenhower suggested, that the Italian mainland might have been attacked in early summer 1943 and units firmly established in the Po Valley far to the north before the onset of winter. The timing of the Tunisian campaign was always under severe pressure because of the contingency of other plans waiting upon it; as it turned out, the Allies kept to their revised schedule in North Africa with just two days to spare.

In the process, Americans became battle-hardened and sorted out some of the worst of their training problems. Pitted against them had been German troops, especially the Afrika Korps, whom Bradley considered the best fighters they met in the whole war, ‘young men, early twenties, seasoned veterans… good physical condition. Never knew they were beaten.’ As late as August 1943 some were still being captured, coming down out of the hills, having refused to give in until completely out of food and ammunition.

Now the fighting was over the peoples of Tunisia were returning to their homes, laden with possessions. Soon the victorious troops would have to give up looted treasures, as one harassed postal officer reported: ‘Individuals insisted upon sending captured enemy material home and consequently base censor returned numerous packages containing hand grenades, helmets, bayonets and even rifles.’

In Britain the bells pealed out again for the Tunisian victory, the second time inside six months that a beleaguered people heard good news. In America people had, as Bradley said, ‘concrete evidence that things were beginning to pay off. Here was a victory we could see and recognize. [It] rubbed the taste of Kasserine out of the mouths of our people.’ But the price paid for that victory lay heavily on mourning families and was witnessed at first hand by the concentration and grave registration units that undertook the grim task of gathering the dead into eight large cemeteries on ground later donated in perpetuity by the post-war Tunisian government.

Returning briefly to Tunisia early in 1944, Patton remarked: ‘It is strange how completely the big battlefields have been cleared up, particularly the big dump near Tébessa and the dump at El Guettar. There is absolutely no sign they ever existed.’ Fearful that Arab nationalists might repair derelict weapons and vehicles and turn upon them, the French authorities had carefully swept most of the battle areas clean of debris.

In February 1949, when General Oliver Leese , former 30th Corps commander in Africa (later took command of Eighth Army during Italian Campaign in 1944) visited British cemeteries, they had no stone headstones or centre cross. Though well-weeded they were bare of grass or trees because no irrigation had been laid on. In Tunis church there were many memorials and on the site of all the main battles a simple column about ten feet high had been erected, bearing a plaque commemorating the men who fought there – at Wadi Akarit, Mareth, Takrouna, Wadi Zigzaou (where destroyed Valentine tanks had been left as rusting memorials) and at El Hamma. On the heights of El Rhorab, looking out through the Fondouk Gap, and on the rocky crest overlooking Hammam Lif two stones were raised, bearing the names of those who fell in the battle, The Welsh Guards’ Regimental crest and the motto, Cymru am byth – ‘Wales for ever.’ On Bou Aoukaz a white marble cross bore the inscription: ‘To the Memory of the Officers, W.O.s, N.G.O.s and Guardsmen of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, who died on and around this hill April 27th-30th, 1943. Quis separabit?’

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