Together We Stand - North Africa 1942-1943 and Turning the Tide in West - James Holland

[merdiolu]

Monty’s attempt to break through to Tunis had failed, but it made Kesselring and von Arnim believe they could be attacked in any sector along the front at any time. In this, they were quite correct, as they were about to find out. Crocker’s 9th Corps were the first to strike in the centre. At midnight on 22 April, two hundred guns opened up ahead of 46th British Division’s advance. The hills that barred the way to the Goubellat Plain were their immediate goal. The Leicesters were down to three of their usual four companies and were in reserve. While Peter Moore was comforted to know that the attack was being supported by such large numbers of artillery, he had come to learn that being in reserve was often an ominous situation. ‘It meant you were going to be hurled into action wherever a crisis arose and with very little preparation,’ he noted.

For two days they watched the battle as first British 6th Armoured, then 1st Armoured Divisions pushed through the plains either side of the high ground. On the 23rd, they moved up from their concentration area, following behind the tanks and preparing for any counter-attack. But none came, although it was clear their advance was not progressing as speedily as Crocker had hoped.

The Guards Brigade was also following behind 6th Armoured’s tanks, and once again Captain Nigel Nicolson was able to watch the armour press on across the open plain. At one point he noticed they all lurched forward then halted. A belch of thick smoke suddenly appeared from the turret of one of them – it had been hit by an 88 mm. ‘The other tanks then scurry around like a farm yard full of hens,’ wrote Nigel, ‘and try to get into position behind hills where the 88 cannot hit them, but they can hit the 88. All this is a very quiet affair. There is very little shooting, and the whole thing is very clumsy. Tank battles are not in the least bit slick.’ He then watched the infantry push forward and try and shoot at the 88 and its crew. The Germans then hurriedly brought up a half-track, hooked the 88 to the back of it and began withdrawing. This was the cue for the tanks to open fire again as their target scurried off. Then the armour pushed on forward again.

In this way, Crocker’s armour made slow and steady progress, but they had been unable to advance more than a few miles and there were still pockets of resistance on the high ground. On the 24th, the Leicesters, along with the Sherwood Foresters, were suddenly called upon to attack a cluster of hills known as the Djebel Bessioud. The plan was for the Leicesters to storm one ridge, the Forresters another.

To avoid a long march, the Leciesters were taken under the cover of darkness by recently arrived Churchill tanks, clinging desperately onto the flat area behind the turret and above the engine, as the tanks lurched and climbed to the start point. There they synchronized their watches and, staring into the darkness, waited on the grassy slopes for Z-Hour. On the stroke of midnight, the Leicesters and Sherwood Foresters stood up from where they’d been lying and began marching towards the German positions, which in the case of the Leicesters were just 800 yards away. They covered the first two hundred without any opposition, but then the Spandaus began drilling out their fire. Flares hissed into the sky, but so far Peter and the rest of ‘C’ Company, on the right flank of the hill, had not been seen. Their presence was not left undiscovered for long, however. Another flare burst above them, and machine-gun bullets crackled over their heads. Everyone dived for the ground, but once the flare died down they began to organize themselves for a final charge. One platoon was to give covering fire, while the other two pushed around to the right. Then a green flare was shot into the sky and all four companies charged at once. ‘As we charged, the Spandaus fell silent,’ noted Peter. ‘Even the splendid young men of the Hermann Göring Division had had enough.’ They took a handful of prisoners, but the rest had fled.

By dawn, the Foresters had also taken their hill. Peter Moore’s ‘C’ Company quickly set up their mortars but were out of range of the retreating enemy. The hill, however, gave the Leicestershire men a commanding view. Peter looked out across the wide sweep of the Goubellat Plain, with its tranquil-looking fields of corn and groves of fruit trees. Out of sight over the horizon was Tunis. At first glance, the path seemed tantalizingly clear, but appearances were deceptive. Crocker’s armour had forced 10th Panzer Division back some six miles but, if anything, German resistance here was stiffening rather than weakening, and there were still a number of hills that needed clearing, most particularly the Djebel Bou Kournine, known as the ‘Twin Tits’. American Mitchell bombers were called in to help, two waves of twenty-five. Peter was not envying the Germans, but then he watched in disbelief as the B-25s dropped their bombs on their own side. Once again it was the hapless Hampshires who bore the brunt; they had been jinxed throughout the campaign by incidents of friendly fire. As the Leicesters attended an Easter Sunday service in a grassy bowl on their captured high ground, Peter could sense the campaign was drawing to end. There would be one last effort, however. That night, Peter found himself marching across the dried salt lake then climbing up the precipitous Twin Tits, unsure of what they would find there, but expecting to meet German resistance at any moment. Miraculously, it was empty and the following day the Leicesters were withdrawn. It was to prove an unfortunate decision. Crocker’s drive had run out of steam, and in the lull the Twin Tits were reoccupied by the Germans, who wasted no time in fortifying them heavily. On 29 April, 2nd Rifle Brigade was given the task of storming the position at night. Although defended by only around thirty Germans, the bare and coverless slopes were now littered with mines, booby traps, and trip wires. Albert, manning a 6-pounder on the lower slopes, could only gaze at the black hulk of the mountain and try and work out what was going on. But all they could see was a mass of tracer, star shells briefly lighting a patch of the battle then fading, and bright, sudden, explosions as mines detonated or wires were tripped. But although the Riflemen were within shouting distance of the summit, they were unable to clear the final rock face. ‘We were a sombre group,’ noted Albert, ‘as we returned empty-handed to our positions.’

Over the hills to the north of 9th Corps, General Allfrey’s 5th Corps were preparing to launch their own two-pronged attack along the ridges of hills that overlooked the Medjerda Valley. On 20 April, Captain David Brown took the chance to write a long letter to his wife. He often fretted about money and was anxious that they should be trying to save something for the future. This was hard, he knew, but he urged her to try and manage. ‘We’ll have a super nest egg after the war is over,’ he wrote. ‘I look forward to it very much.’

He was tired. It had been a hectic few weeks – during the last stretch of fighting he’d gone seventy-two hours without sleep. Right now, he’d had enough of the Medjerda Valley, and especially of tramping up and down the mountains. ‘I’ve been a bloody mountain goat lately,’ he grumbled. The battery’s only means of transport to their gun positions on the high ground were pack mules, of which there never seemed to be enough. ‘You carry 60lb wireless sets, batteries, food, water and every damn thing up the mountain yourself,’ he wrote. ‘All this with no sleep and any little packets Jerry may be sending over.’ More than at any time since arriving in North Africa, David was feeling the tug of home; he wished he could be back in London, or anywhere in England, where spring would be bursting out once more. ‘Goodbye for now, darling,’ he finished off. ‘Much love to you and Carola, and your mum and pats to the wee chap, and regards to all.’ Then having added his regards to everyone else he could think of, he added, ‘And big hugs and kisses to you, my darling.’

The following day, the entire regiment moved up to new positions in preparation for 78th British Division’s attack on Longstop. ‘What a legend Longstop had become,’ wrote Alan Moorehead, who was there. He hoped to watch its capture. ‘For five months it had lain right in the front line, the fortress of the Medjerda Valley, the locked gate on the road to Tunis.’ As he climbed the hills before it and looked across at this stubborn crest, he likened it to ‘a great two-humped bulk that heaved itself out of the wheat fields like some fabulous whale beached on the edge of a green sea’.

During the night of 22 April, the 17th Field Artillery began firing concentrations onto the enemy positions on Longstop. Between them and the other divisional artillery they managed to bring 154 guns to bear, but despite their efforts the attacks the following morning met predictably stiff resistance. As troops and Churchill tanks began crawling up the slopes of Longstop on this sunny Good Friday, the battlefield soon became shrouded in smoke and dust and it was hard for anyone to follow quite what was going on. Alan Moorehead looked out and through the smoke watched Churchill tanks climbing unbelievably steep terrain ‘like toys’. Dot-like infantry scurried across the uplands while equally toy-like pack mules drudged up hill tracks.

David Brown was one of the dots that Alan was watching. Sent up ahead with the assaulting troops, he and several other gunners had been given the task of trying to establish a forward observation post. By early afternoon, despite intensive mortar and machine-gun fire, he had managed to reach the main summit along with the infantry of 36th Brigade. He got no further. Soon after, he was killed, his body discovered later during a lull in the fighting. David had been shot through the head.

[merdiolu]

Administratively, Alex had placed 2nd US Corps under Anderson’s command, but this did not worry Bradley. Alex had outlined the 2nd US Corps mission in fine detail, with which Bradley concurred entirely, making any interference from Anderson very unlikely. Nonetheless, Alex had further put the 2nd Corps commander’s mind at rest by paying him a visit and assuring him that, should he ever receive an order, suggestion or request from First Army to which he objected, he was to feel free to refer it back to him. Alex did not view Bradley as a loose cannon like Patton.

Bradley had realized that the army campaign in Tunisia was all about capturing the high ground. His attack was launched the day after First Army’s, on 23 April. First on the list was a series of high points, all close to one another and, from a defender’s point of view, all mutually supporting. They therefore needed to be attacked simultaneously. He gave the task to the Big Red One. The only hill that actually dominated the mouth of the Mousetrap – the Tine Valley – was Hill 350, the objective given to the 2nd Battalion of the 18th Infantry. Intelligence had told them that the enemy was strongly dug in along the reverse slopes, while a cluster of buildings known as Windmill Farm on the forward slopes was held by a few enemy outposts.

After softening up the Germans with artillery fire, Company ‘G’ launched a bayonet charge at Windmill Farm in the last hour before dawn. It was another bloody and costly night for the company. The buildings were far from being lightly held; the attackers met far stronger resistance than they’d expected. ‘We’d lost so many men we had to pull back,’ says Randy Paulsen, ‘but as we pulled back, the Germans came over the hill and counter-attacked us.’ Randy had been lying flat on the ground, aiming his new carbine, when the enemy appeared. A big German lieutenant lunged towards him, and squeezing the trigger, Randy put one round straight through him. But then the carbine jammed. Randy desperately tried to pull out the offending bullet, ripping a fingernail in the process, but, unable to dislodge it, had to give up and run for his life. ‘In fact, I took a couple of rounds through the pack on my back and didn’t even know it,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I was ever scared, though. I think I was more petrified. I didn’t think I’d ever get back.’ Tom Bowles was another from Company ‘G’ who’d managed to get back to safety that day. ‘We lost a lot of good men there,’ he says. In fact, they’d lost 40 per cent of their number.

Despite further counter-attacks, the hill was eventually secured later that day. Elsewhere the Big Red One was also making progress. Enemy positions were slowly but surely overrun, ground down through dogged persistence and weight of arms. By 26 April, Bradley’s men had slugged their way forward about five miles, but then they, too, became bogged down. The Germans, leaving reams of mines and the usual booby traps in their wake, had dug in particularly firmly on the highest mountain in the area, Djebel Tahent – or, more simply, Hill 609. This feature, more rugged than most of the hills in the area, dominated both the Djoumine and Tine Valleys.It occurred to Bradley that the capture of Hill 609 was the perfect opportunity for the Red Bull Division to redeem itself. ‘Get me that hill,’ he told Doc Ryder, ‘and no one will ever again doubt the toughness of your division.’ Ryder’s men began flushing out the lower slopes on 28 April; then, supported by heavy artillery, they launched their main assault the following day. Three times the Red Bulls stormed the peak only be pushed back. At Bradley’s suggestion, Ryder tried a fourth attempt, but this time supported by tanks. The British Churchill tanks had proved particularly good at forcing their way up steep terrain, and this had had a knock-on effect. Suddenly commanders were being more adventurous in the use of tanks in hill country. On the morning of 30 April, the Red Bulls assaulted Hill 609 again, the accompanying tanks pounding the enemy mortar and machine-gun nests with shell after shell. By afternoon, the Americans had taken the summit. Counter-attacks were successfully beaten off and by 2 May all of Hill 609 and the neighbouring high ground was occupied by the victorious Red Bulls. Both sides had fought with exceptional tenacity; one German prisoner told his captors that in the final assault on the 30th, they had lost 50 per cent of their men.

Following the Americans’ progress was Ernie Pyle. When he reached North Africa, his columns had been syndicated to forty-two newspapers throughout the USA. Such was his growing popularity, however, that figure was now over a hundred and twenty. Even in London, excerpts were being printed. He couldn’t understand it – as far as he was concerned he was doing little more than writing letters home. But at a time when there was no television, and little film coverage, his efforts to paint a picture of what their boys were up to brought it home to millions of Americans more clearly than any one else*.‘I love the infantry because they are the underdogs,’* he wrote. ‘They are the guys that wars can’t be won without.’ One day, during the Red Bulls’ assault on Hill 609, he watched a column of men returning from the front line, traipsing down a winding mountain track. ‘Their walk is slow,’ he noted, ‘for they are dead weary … Every line and sag speaks of their inhuman exhaustion. On their shoulders and backs they carry heavy steel tripods, machine-gun barrels, leaden boxes of ammunition. Their feet seem to sink into the ground from the overload they are bearing.’ He was shocked by their appearance. ‘Their faces are black and unshaven,’ he continued. ‘They are young men, but the grime and whiskers and exhaustion make them look middle-aged.’ His heart ached for them.

Bucky Walters was one of those blackened, battle-weary infantrymen who’d been in the thick of the fighting on Hill 609. From the outset, when they’d moved through the Big Red One and into position on the lower hills, he’d felt better equipped to deal with the battle ahead of them than when they’d been at Fondouk. ‘We’d become hardened, absolutely,’ he says, ‘we had developed quite a bit of hate and anger towards the enemy. Seeing your buddies get killed – you become dulled. It’s a numbness. And the fact that you’re still alive makes you somehow still able to go on, I guess.’ Ernie Pyle noticed this change, too, among the soldiers he spoke to. ‘He wants to see the Germans overrun, mangled, butchered in the Tunisian trap,’ he noted, then added: ‘Say what you will, nothing can make a complete soldier except battle experience.’

Bucky Walters agrees. A lot of the uncertainty at Fondouk had come from not knowing what to expect; they’d never advanced together into the waiting jaws of an Axis defensive screen before. New boys joining the Eighth Army, for example, would be sent to a section in which there were several old-timers, veterans who had experienced what it was like to be attacked by Stukas, to advance at machine guns, or be shelled and mortared without respite. The Red Bulls had had to discover these things together, as one. The shock had been appalling.

But now they knew. At Fondouk, Bucky had learned to distinguish between the different sounds of shell and small-arms fire. He had learned that Stuka attacks were usually directed at tanks and artillery rather than infantry, and that with air bursts the shrapnel usually went in one direction. Air bursts, particularly, were still terrifying – ‘You tasted fear,’ he says – but there was no longer any uncertainty about what they were doing. Each man knew his task and what he had to do to try and achieve it.Bucky was still with the heavy weapons company and spent much of the battle for Hill 609 alongside the company commander carrying out forward observation work. It was whilst working his way up towards an OP that he came under Stuka attack. ‘We all jumped in a little wadi,’ he says, ‘and the son of a gun hit not too far away and the blast lifted us right out, about four or five feet, and dropped us onto the bank again. Not a mark on us.’ Shrapnel could cover quite a wide area, especially from an 88 mm. By the end of the battle for Hill 609, Bucky’s uniform was full of holes, his body covered in small welts and burns. They also came under fire from the Nebelwerfer, or ‘Screaming Meanies’ – multiple rocket launchers – for the first time. ‘The noise was terrible,’ he says. ‘It was deafening, a horrible sound. It seemed as though there were fish swimming over your head and going around in circles.’ But they quickly realized that, despite their terrible wail, these rockets were to be the least feared of German explosives.

‘We did a pretty good job on Hill 609,’ says Bucky with some satisfaction. General Omar Bradley agreed. As he’d hoped, their victory restored the division’s self-confidence. ‘No one ever again would question its courage,’ he noted. At AFHQ, both Ike and Harry Butcher had been following events on Hill 609 particularly closely. The Red Bulls’ success, Butch thought, was ‘another indication that after “greenness” is overcome by actual battle experience, our American troops fight very well.’ But this American epic also had a decisive effect on the course of 2nd Corps’ campaign. With the loss of Hill 609, the Axis decided to pull back to a tighter bridgehead around Bizerte. In the far north, this enabled the 9th US Infantry Division, who had been pushing forward slowly alongside Koeltz’s French troops, finally to capture Green and Baldy Hills on 1 May. Moreover, the Tine Valley – the Mousetrap – was now clear for Harmon’s armour to push its way forward. Bizerte beckoned.

All the while, Mary Coningham’s air forces never let up, flying an average of 650 sorties a day. Only on 24 April, when rain and low cloud once more interfered, did that figure drop. Bombers and fighters continued their relentless attack: airfields, supply columns, infantry, tanks, and artillery positions were bombed and strafed without mercy.

The 33rd Fighter Group was as busy as at any time since they arrived in North Africa. On 20 April, Jim Reed was flying as wingman to the group’s CO, Colonel Momyer. Their mission was to bomb an enemy airfield near Tunis, but unfortunately just before they reached the target Jim was hit in the wing by some light flak, knocking out the three machine guns in his right wing and giving him quite a scare. Unsure how badly he’d been hit, he immediately released his bomb into a field. The practice was for everyone in the flight to drop their bombs the moment the leader did, and obviously confusing Jim for Colonel Momyer, the other pilots began dropping their bombs too. Momyer immediately ordered them back to base, with Jim landing first as an emergency. ‘I sure took a lot of kidding for a while about this mission,’ says Jim. ‘Some funny things and some serious things happen in war. I don’t know which this was.’

Jim still managed to fly three days later when most of the air forces were grounded, and again the following day, this time on the lookout for Stukas. Flying at only 500 feet, he was given a bird’s eye view of the battle below. ‘Big shells were streaking across the ground, from one tank to another,’ he noted in his diary. ‘I saw one large tank explode and burn … smoke was everywhere.’21Bryan Colston was also busy, flying every day. They now had a few P-51 Mustangs, the latest American fighter planes built on behalf of the British. He, too, was getting to see much of the battle, flying over the 9th Corps sector on the 24th – ‘an amazing sight’, he recorded. The heavy bombers also continued to pound the enemy’s port facilities and targets further afield. On 27 April, the 97th Bomb Group flew their hundredth overseas mission, with Tooey Spaatz on board as an observer. Since that first mission, they had had 1878 encounters with the enemy and had shot down 181 enemy planes. Ralph Burbridge had been on the first mission, and was on the hundredth too.

Longstop was eventually cleared of all enemy forces on 27 April, but, as in 9th Corp’s sector, the strike either side of the Medjerda had run out of steam. Alex had recognized that First Army’s drive needed fresh impetus and had begun thinking about bringing most of Crocker’s armour over to join 78th British Division in an all-out charge through the Medjerda Valley. On 30 April, he visited Monty at Eighth Army Tactical HQ. Montgomery had been in Cairo at a HUSKY conference and whilst there had come down with tonsillitis. Although recovering, he was not in the best of form. His head told him that any further strike through the coastal sector would be a wasted effort, but his vanity made him unable to resist another attempt to be first in Tunis. Both Freyberg and Tuker repeatedly told Montgomery and Horrocks that this was foolish and that the drive from Medjez was the most effective course open to them, but their arguments fell on deaf ears. Monty’s one concession was to cancel 4th Indian’s part in the plan. Instead, Horrocks launched 56th Division on the coastal strip on 28 April. These Londoners were inexperienced in battle and had only recently arrived at the front after a 32-day trek from Kirkuk in Iraq. Their attack was bloodily beaten back.

Even Monty had to concede that any further thrust along his front would be pointless and acquiesced when Alex cancelled his further plans to attack up the coast. Instead, Alex told him, he wanted Monty to despatch the best troops he could spare for the renewed strike through the Medjerda Valley. Monty nominated 4th Indian and 7th Armoured Divisions, along with 201st Guards Brigade, the nucleus from which Eighth Army had been formed back in 1940. ‘It was particularly appropriate,’ noted Alex, ‘that the two divisions which had won our first victory in Africa, at Sidi Barrani, should be chosen for the main role in our last victory, the battle for Tunis.’ When General Crocker had been wounded the previous day, Alex had originally had Freyberg in mind to take over 9th Corps for this final thrust. Monty, however, was adamant that it should be Horrocks. On this matter, it was Alex’s turn to acquiesce.

Tuker was delighted with this outcome. It was what he’d hoped for all along, and secretly felt that it was his constant badgering of Monty and Horrocks that had also persuaded Alex to adopt this course. In this he was mistaken, but he was certainly able to have a significant bearing on the course of the battle. At last, his commanders were listening to him. It had been a long time coming, but General Tuker was about to be given the chance to implement the tactics and principles of modern warfare that he had studied so carefully for so long in a major and decisive battle.

[merdiolu]

The Americans, meanwhile, were drawing ever closer to Bizerte. The 48th Evacuation Hospital – now enlarged and renamed the 128th – had moved nearer to the front and was now encamped around the battered railway station at Sidi Nsir. Once more, the staff were frantically busy tending and caring for the sick and wounded. Nurse Margaret Hornback was used to seeing the horrors of war, but this did not stop her mourning the men who were mangled and killed in the process. Just before they’d headed north, she’d been taken to see the southern battlefields before they were cleared away. ‘American troops were plotting the graves there,’ she wrote. ‘Ours on one side of the road, the Germans on the other. You remember that little poem, “Under the Willow the Blue, Under the Laurel the Gray”? Same kind of boys on both sides. What a pity!’

While the 9th US Infantry Division and the Corps d’Afrique Français pushed cautiously along the coast, General Harmon’s 1st US Armored Division pressed on down the Mousetrap. On 3 May, CCA had taken Mateur, a sizeable market town on the Bizerte road. Now with the 81st Reconnaissance Battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton Howze was one of the first to enter the town. Two days later, he was still with the advance guard pushing through the hills towards Ferryville, a French town nestling on the southern banks of the Lac de Bizerte. Under cover of a low ridge, Hamilton drove forward in his Jeep, then got out and walked up towards the crest. Before he reached the top, however, he encountered an American lieutenant about the same age as him, but with weathered, crinkled skin and four of his front teeth missing. It turned out he was a ranch hand from Texas and had only reached the front the previous evening. Hamilton then asked him if he knew where the nearest Germans were.

‘Oh, right over on the next ridge,’ he replied.

Hamilton thought this unlikely, so said, ‘How do you know?’

‘You can see them,’ the Texan told him. ‘The whole damn ridge is covered with them.’

Hamilton was certain this was nonsense, but as he stepped over the crest of the ridge he saw that the lieutenant was right. Less than a mile away, the hill was heaving with Germans – ten times the number he’d seen throughout the previous four months. Through his binoculars, he could see them hurriedly digging in and bringing up anti-tank guns. ‘I was flabbergasted,’ he noted, ‘but my new friend wasn’t at all – it seemed quite normal to him.’

The following day, once the rest of the armour had caught up, CCB attacked but were heavily repulsed. Hamilton was then called on by Harmon to take command of the 2nd Battalion 13th Armored Regiment after the previous CO was wounded and was told to prepare another assault. Ordering support from all the division’s artillery, Hamilton led his tanks forward under a heavy smokescreen, quickly overrunning the enemy forward positions. From his Sherman turret, Hamilton looked down on a number of Germans huddled in their gun emplacement. He felt exhilarated and scared in equal measure – this was his first action as a battle commander.

They crested the next rise and came under heavy enemy fire once more as the Germans began lobbing high-angle shells into them. Hamilton’s tanks were taking some damaging hits and soon became bogged down. He knew he had to get them moving again, but his radio was now on the blink. There was nothing else for it but to clamber out of his turret and hurry over to every tank in turn, banging on the hatch and shouting orders to each commander. ‘This is a poor way to issue orders,’ he observed, ‘but we got moving and once underway restored our order and momentum.’ As they set off, the shellfire died away, so they pushed on, inching ever closer to Bizerte until darkness fell.

To the west, CCA were also finding their path checked by a series of counter-attacks. In the early hours of 7 May, Ray Saidel and the men of the 1st Armored Regiment found themselves on the receiving end of long-range field artillery. The very first shell to land among them did so just 150 yards from Ray’s half-track. This was followed by more and more screeching over and bursting all around them. ‘It was the first time I really felt sure our number was up,’ he noted in his diary. For over two hours, the shelling was heavy and persistent and Ray felt that sooner or later an explosion was bound to get them. The blast of one nearby shell lifted Ray off the ground. As he slammed back down again, he smashed the frames of his glasses. For the next few months, he had to wear them held together by adhesive tape.

At dawn, Hamilton Howze had half expected to discover that his leaguer was surrounded, but in fact there was no sign of the enemy and so he led his tanks on to Ferryville. The 1st Armored Regiment also reached the town later in the afternoon. Unlike most of the towns they’d been through since arriving in Tunisia, Ferryville was thoroughly French in both appearance and population, and as they trundled through, the streets were lined with cheering people. ‘I dare say there were very few GIs that day who didn’t have a lump in their throat,’ noted Ray. He certainly did.

On his arrival at Medjez el Bab, General Tuker had gone to Horrocks’s HQ, where he heard the new 9th Corps commander’s battle plan. This was essentially a dawn attack supported by a barrage. Tuker said nothing at the time, but then carried out his own reconnaissance of the battlefield along with his divisional artillery commander. The extent of the hills overlooking the proposed line of advance made it clear to him that a daylight attack would be a huge error. At the next conference he pressed his views, suggesting: (1) a night attack with artillery to cover the noise of their advance and to pave the way; (2) massive concentrations of artillery, rather than a barrage, pin-pointed onto one target after another; (3) one thousand rounds per gun, which Tuker had discovered was perfectly feasible and not 450 as Horrocks was suggesting; and (4) plenty of air photographs beforehand in order to provide accurate and detailed analysis of enemy positions.

In what Tuker described as ‘a battle of wills’ he won nearly all his points. Horrocks argued that not enough men were trained for a night attack; Tuker replied that his infantry would do this on their own, guaranteeing that by dawn he would have tanks, anti-tank guns, mortars and machine guns in among the enemy’s forward positions to make sure the rest of the infantry succeeded easily in the final punch. He did, however, have to accept a ‘token’ barrage, but managed to ensure that his own artillery commander was allowed to run the whole artillery plan for the battle. ‘I urged this as the perfect infiltration battle,’ noted Tuker.

[NormanStewart]

@merdiolu

Following the Americans’ progress was Ernie Pyle. When he reached North Africa, his columns had been syndicated to forty-two newspapers throughout the USA. Such was his growing popularity, however, that figure was now over a hundred and twenty. Even in London, excerpts were being printed. He couldn’t understand it – as far as he was concerned he was doing little more than writing letters home. But at a time when there was no television, and little film coverage, his efforts to paint a picture of what their boys were up to brought it home to millions of Americans more clearly than any one else*.‘I love the infantry because they are the underdogs,’* he wrote. ‘They are the guys that wars can’t be won without.’ One day, during the Red Bulls’ assault on Hill 609, he watched a column of men returning from the front line, traipsing down a winding mountain track. ‘Their walk is slow,’ he noted, ‘for they are dead weary … Every line and sag speaks of their inhuman exhaustion. On their shoulders and backs they carry heavy steel tripods, machine-gun barrels, leaden boxes of ammunition. Their feet seem to sink into the ground from the overload they are bearing.’ He was shocked by their appearance. ‘Their faces are black and unshaven,’ he continued. ‘They are young men, but the grime and whiskers and exhaustion make them look middle-aged.’ His heart ached for them.

For anyone interesting in Pyle’s coverage of the war starting December 1942, check this thread out:

Roving Reporter, Ernie Pyle

The Pittsburgh Press (December 2, 1942) [pyle] Roving Reporter By Ernie Pyle Ernie Pyle has arrived in North Africa to write a new series about U.S. troops abroad. This, the first, tells how the soldiers lived when they arrived in the new battle zone. With U.S. forces in Algiers, Algeria – (Dec. 1, by wireless) From now onward, stretching for months and months into the future, life is completely changed for thousands of American boys on this side of the earth. For at last they are in …

[merdiolu]

In the event, Operation STRIKE went almost entirely as Tuker had hoped. After dark on 5 May, massed formations of night-bombers arrived, followed by the devastating artillery fire: 450 guns blasting one position after another, slinging 16,600 shells in under two hours. Nigel Nicolson, who had climbed up Grenadier Hill to follow the attack, was astonished. ‘The shells whistle over your head at the rate of eight or ten a second,’ he told his parents. ‘The gun flashes jump up out of the darkness and the exploding shells on the crest of the enemy position flower a few seconds later into a ruby tulip.’ Then, in the early hours of the following morning, the 4th Indian Division attacked through thick, reedy grass, and with the noise of the artillery, and the lack of a moon, gained the crucial advantage of surprise. With bayonet and kukri, they finally broke the German will. One Panzer grenadier regiment was almost entirely annihilated in the holocaust. As dawn broke, the infantry could be seen swarming all over their objectives, the Churchill tanks lurching behind them through wheat fields speckled with bright red poppies.

That morning Grenadier Hill was busy as officers and commanders, politicians and journalists, all took their seats to watch the final act in the African drama. Desert Air Force commander Air Marshall Mary Coningham was among them and looked up as, at 7 a.m., the first of his bomber and fighter formations filled the sky above him, roaring over to complete the coup de grâce. Accompanying him was Harold Balfour, Under-Secretary of State for Air. ‘I never realized what complete air superiority meant,’ he said, ‘until I saw this example of military and air movements carried out without the slightest attempt by enemy aircraft at interference.’ Hundreds of bombers and fighters flew over, while further north the Desert Air Force attacked airfields around Bizerte in support of 2nd US Corps. By noon, NATAF had carried out 1200 sorties. ‘I was worried all day lest the petrol and bombs on the forward airfields would give out,’ noted Tommy Elmhirst, ‘but I had no complaints.’

Alex had ordered that every effort should be made to pass the two armoured divisions through on the same day as the infantry attack started, but, yet again, Horrocks was slow to push his armour forward. ‘He had sworn that he would send it through at 0700 hours,’ complained Tuker. ‘At last at about 1100 I got him to move.’ Even then, Horrocks did not push hard for Tunis, ordering his tanks to stop for the night at Massicault, some fifteen miles to the south-east.But this was of little consequence. The Axis were beaten, crushed by the overwhelming air-army combination. Tunis fell on 7 May, as did Bizerte. The following day, all available Allied shipping was sent to patrol off Cape Bon. ‘Sink, burn, destroy,’ Admiral Cunningham signalled to them*. ‘Let nothing pass.’* This prepared operation was given the codename RETRIBUTION*. ‘I knew most of the destroyer captains,’* wrote ABC. ‘Some of them, and many more of their ships’ companies, had endured the agony that our men had had to face during the evacuations from Greece and Crete two years before.’

For the next few days, sporadic fighting continued up in the rocky Cap Bon Peninsula and in the similar ground north of the Enfidaville position, where most of the Axis forces were trapped. In Algiers, Harry Butcher noted that Ike was rather nonchalant at the news of imminent victory; the Supreme Commander had long since moved on to planning the next invasion. Butch, however, was overjoyed. Congratulations poured in: from the President, from Marshall, from the Prime Minister. Few, however, touched Ike more than the letter from General Anderson. ‘This is a personal and not an official letter,’ wrote Anderson, ‘written to one who, like myself, was in this party from the beginning, and who has tasted the bitter as well as the sweet.’ He assured Ike that it would remain ‘one of his proudest memories’ to have been ‘so intimately connected with the US Army’. Ike immediately forwarded it to Marshall, ‘so that you may personally have some evidence of the soundness of the cooperative spirit that is animating the principal combat officers in this theatre’.

Many of the men who had fought so hard throughout the campaign were unable to enjoy the spoils of victory. The Big Red One never reached Bizerte, or Tunis for that matter. On 9 May, they were relieved and sent back to Algeria, where they were to be deployed ready to embark for Sicily. Albert Martin had also left Tunisia. A few days after the attack on the Twin Tits, he was told to report to Geneifa in Egypt, where he was to become an instructor in the anti-tank training wing; his time in the front line was over. He left his battalion amidst a sudden flurry of enemy shellfire. As the lorry was pulling away from their positions, he suddenly remembered he’d left his knapsack of loot on his old truck, but as he looked back he saw it receive a direct hit. Ruing his bad luck, Albert began the 2000-mile journey back across North Africa.

The end in Africa brought little joy to Maiki Parkinson. As the victorious Allied troops marched into Tunis, Maiki was coming out of his coma at a military hospital in Tripoli. In the bed next to him there was a soldier about the same age who’d had his leg cut off at the thigh. ‘I’m sad to see you’ve lost a leg,’ Maiki said.‘You’ll get a good pension, though,’ the soldier replied.‘Will I?’ said Maiki. And then the penny dropped. ‘I looked down, and, oh Christ, I couldn’t stop crying,’ he says. ‘Realizing my leg had gone was the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to me.’

As it turned out, Admiral Cunningham’s naval forces had little seeking or destroying to carry out: only around eight hundred men were captured sailing away in light vessels and dinghies. Most had been trapped in Tunisia. Prisoners clogged every road around the Tunis bridgehead. Hamilton Howze had motored forward in his Jeep early on 8 May only to drive straight into a large bivouac of German troops, all of whom were armed. ‘We regarded them with trepidation,’ noted Hamilton, ‘after all, the day before they would have killed us – but were happy to note that each unit displayed a white rag tied to a stick.’ On the way into Bizerte, Ray Saidel also watched agog as ‘thousands and thousands’ tramped down the road towards them.

For Tommy Elmhirst, too, the sheer number of prisoners seemed astonishing. ‘I met one column of about 2,000 under the charge of six British Tommies,’ he noted. ‘At its head were fifty or so German and Italian officers, the younger ones looking happy, the older ones, much bemedalled, trudging sullenly up a dusthill in the midday sun, carrying bags containing all their worldly belongings.’ Nigel Nicolson had never been busier, interrogating as many officers as he could manage and spending the rest of his time with a headset on listening to vast numbers of messages flooding in. Final figures of prisoners vary, from 275,000 according to American figures, to 238,243 as registered by the British. At any rate, around a quarter of a million, a huge figure and one that matched Axis losses at Stalingrad. Total Axis casualties during the entire North African campaign were over half a million.

Fittingly, it was General Tuker to whom the Axis commander finally surrendered on 12 May. Tuker, who had motored up to von Arnim’s HQ with General Allfrey of 5th Corps, looked a sight, but that had ever been Eighth Army’s way: worn pullover with no medal ribbons, battered drill trousers and dusty suede desert boots; in contrast, von Arnim was dressed immaculately. Messe followed suit, signing the surrender document the next day. Appropriately enough, last to throw down its arms was the Afrika Korps.For some, it seemed hard to believe that the war in North Africa was finally over. The Sherwood Rangers had been stuck at the Enfidaville position for several weeks, facing an obstinate enemy. Suddenly, almost without warning, the front collapsed and they were on the move again, rounding up prisoners and equipment. ‘Somehow it is extremely difficult to fully realize that the war out here is finished,’ noted Stanley Christopherson, whose thoughts had immediately then turned to the future. ‘I am afraid that home leave appears to be out of the question,’ he added, ‘but still, one never knows.’ He was right, although they would be seeing England before many of those in North Africa.

At about 6 p.m. on 12 May, Nigel Nicolson was driving his Jeep along the coastal road near Hammamet, to the point where the First and Eighth armies were finally coming together. A ruined bridge lay across the river bed, but the sappers were already there, busily finishing off the construction of a Bailey bridge in its stead. As Nigel waited to cross, he noticed an Italian corpse beside the bridge abutment, the strap of his machine gun trailing in the dust beside him. Just then, a staff car drew up, and out stepped General Alexander. Nigel had never seen him before, but stepped aside as Alex walked up to the lip of the wadi. For a while the general stared at the sandy bottom, then he stepped over to the Italian machine gun, put the toe of his boot under its magazine, and shoved it, toppling it into the river bed. ‘It was a gesture of finality,’ observed Nigel, ‘but it was something more. It expressed all his loathing for the wastage of war, and his contempt for the adulation of which he was then the hero.’The general then turned, walked back to his car and, in a cloud of dust, was gone. He’d uttered not a word.The following day, at 1.16 p.m., Alex sent a signal to Churchill. ‘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.’

POSTSCRIPT

At the victory parade through Tunis on 20 May, it was the 135th Infantry who led the American contingent, chosen for the courage and resolve they’d shown in capturing Hill 609. Bucky Walters was there, marching in time to the ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’. He felt somewhat refreshed, having spent a couple of weeks swimming in the deep blue Mediterranean at Bizerte. ‘Boy that was paradise!’ he says.

Bucky had come a long way since the day, just over a year before, when he’d bid a tearful farewell to his father. But then so had the entire Red Bull Division. They’d gone from being green, wide-eyed country boys from the Midwest, training with wooden rifles, to battle-hardened combat veterans, ready for the next big test: the invasion of Italy.

The final year of the campaign in North Africa had seen both allies transformed. In the summer of 1942, Britain had been at her lowest ebb, a nation still stunned by the defeats of the first years of war, and only slowly waking up to the realization that she’d left her war preparations a little too late. The commanders in the field were hopelessly behind the times, as was much of their equipment. In the heat and sand of the desert, they had tried to fight a colonial war with colonial tactics, and it hadn’t worked. German professionalism had glaringly shown up their deficiencies.

The Americans, too, had entered the war woefully underprepared. Their armed forces had been forced to spring out of the ground fully formed. That they were able to contribute so significantly to the war in North Africa was nothing short of a miracle, but to expect them to perform on a par with the enemy was a hope too far. An army needs experience, at all levels.

Nonetheless, the two nations had, together, produced a team that could beat the Axis powers in Europe. American muscle was helping Britain’s war capabilities, while British experience was guiding the novice American forces in the ways of war. As the Americans had shown in North Africa, they were willing to learn fast and by the end in Africa were proving that they could absorb the humiliation of defeat and emerge better and stronger. In achieving this, however, they were fortunate to have two men whose leadership helped them incalculably. Few would have thought at the beginning of 1942 that Eisenhower would be Supreme Allied Commander in little more than a year, yet he turned out to be an inspired choice, a man whose single-minded determination and insistence on maintaining Allied unity gelled two alien nations together. Under his command, Britain and America co-operated on the biggest seaborne invasion the world had ever seen, and on the battlefield worked together with closer ties of shared command than either nation had ever attempted before.

Alexander also deserves credit. From the moment he arrived in the Middle East, Britain never retreated again. He handled Montgomery superbly and enabled the difficult and irascible Eighth Army commander to work to his best potential. It says something about Alex that he was the only senior commander Monty never argued with. Later, as army group commander, Alex guided the Americans forward, while the divisions and tensions in command that had threatened to undermine this grand alliance were replaced by a sense of cohesion and singleness of purpose. His achievements have often been overshadowed by some of the glory-seekers who served under him. Alex was never one to blow his own trumpet, but he deserves greater recognition than he has often been given. The Allies had much to thank both these men for. Under their direction, the Allied experiences gained in North Africa made the future invasions of Italy and Normandy possible, and made victory against Nazi Germany not only possible, but probable.Many lessons were learned in North Africa. By the end of the campaign, Britain had shaken off many of the earlier mistakes. Equipment had improved considerably: the Churchill tank, although not without its faults, was a marked improvement on anything Britain had produced before, whilst the army was now equipped with first-class anti-tank guns, the 6- and 17-pounders – the most important weapons on the ground throughout the campaign. The army was also beginning to employ the correct tactics to defeat the enemy: the final assault was, as Tuker claimed, an ideal example of how to use superior strength to devastating effect. He was actualy only employing the basic tenets of warfare, but these had often been forgotten amidst the dust and smoke. Britain was learning how to win wars again.

Of great significance was the development of air power, and in this the Allies were able to gain serious tactical advantage over the Axis for the first time. Although the Germans had developed the notion of army-air co-operation, demonstrating it with devastating effect during the blitzkriegs of 1939 and 1940, they had never expanded these ideas further. Mary Coningham, along with his small staff at the Desert Air Force and ably supported by Air Marshal Tedder, soon caught up and then overtook the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe never had the system of support that the Desert Air Force established – and for this Tommy Elmhirst deserves his place in history too. Moreover, the Luftwaffe did not share the same culture as the Allied air forces, where personal scores counted for little against the combined effort of the squadron, wing, group, and even air command. The Germans were held back by their tendency to idolize their aces and Experten. Nor did the Germans ever adopt the policy of close co-operation as endorsed firstly by Mary and Monty and then by Mary and Alex. It was a system, however, that would be used by Britain and America alike until the end of the war and beyond, whenever there was a land battle to be won. Aircraft would also be specially developed for ground support. North Africa had shown that the feared Stuka was now almost as obsolete as the Hurricane. What was needed was a fast, powerful, and strong air-to-ground fighter plane. This would be the Hawker Typhoon, originally designed to replace the Hurricane as an air-to-air fighter but later modified. At Falaise, a year later, this aircraft almost single-handedly finished off the German forces in Normandy, its rockets, cannon, and machine guns causing a holocaust as the encircled enemy tried to make their escape.In America, the tactical air doctrine was officially endorsed on 21 July 1943, when the US War Department Field Manual was significantly altered with regard to the use of air power. This was, said Colonel Momyer, commander of the 33rd Fighter Group in Tunisia and later an air force general, ‘the emancipation proclamation’ of tactical air power.1 A key player in securing this change was Larry Kuter, who returned to Washington soon after the end in North Africa and ensured that the work of NATAF impacted heavily on the way Americans viewed future warfare. A sign of any good tactical development is its longevity: the principles established by Mary et al. are still used to this day.

British pride had been restored by victory in North Africa, and victory had given the Americans much-needed confidence and, crucially, experience. It also heralded the end of the German-Italian partnership. Italy soldiered on, but with the loss of Africa, the writing was on the wall, as Hitler had known it would be. In July the Allies invaded Sicily, and again they were victorious. On 3 September, Italy surrendered. From then, the war in Europe was against Nazi Germany alone.