After the defeat at the Battle of El Alamein, Rommel's Afrika Korps continued to retreat westward, and after cleverly avoiding several pursuits by Montgomery, it had gradually moved closer to the 5th Panzer Army in Tunis, led by General Hans von Arnim, a reinforcement of the Afrika Korps—in the eyes of others, the Afrika Korps was already a sunset, and it was only a matter of time before the Allied forces were caught on both sides and eventually completely destroyed. But the Desert Fox never thought so, and when the two Allied forces were moving centripetally and their own forces were shrinking closer, they had actually enjoyed the strategic benefit of being centrally located—they could concentrate their efforts on any one adversary. On February 13, 1943, General Dwight Eisenhower spent the whole day inspecting American positions on the Tunisian front. After midnight, the general rode to another front-line command post to listen to the report. At this time, the moonlight was bright, and there was no sound around, and there was silence. The general, however, was distraught. Beneath the dark sky in the distance was a large expanse of tall mountains. The general feared that the Germans would attack the Americans from there. During the day he inspected the American positions guarding the pass. What he saw only confirmed his fears: the US Second Army was not yet capable of confronting the Germans.
Most American soldiers had never fought at all. The inexperienced officers were content with the momentary silence of the front line, and had no idea how to hurry up and urge the troops to rush to repair the fortifications. It had been two days since the infantry had entered the position and had not yet been mined – eisenhower knew that the German-Italian army on the opposite side would do it all in two hours. He discovered that the commander of the Second Army, Major General L.R. Fredendall, had set up his headquarters in the mountains 80 miles behind the line, and was still afraid of being attacked by the Germans. Fredendall went so far as to ask the sappers to dig a shelter around the headquarters for him and his staff. "I asked the sappers if they should first dig fortifications for the front-line troops," recalled Eisenhower, "and a young staff officer said: 'Oh, the divisions have their own sappers.'" For the first time in the entire war, I saw the High Command so worried about its own safety that it had to dig underground bomb shelters. ”
This fredendall was obviously a death-defying ghost. Soldiers bear one, will bear a nest. The leadership in war is no less important than factors such as logistical equipment. Not to mention that 80 miles from the front line, how can you grasp the movement of the troops in time! What worries Esenhower even more is that The Military Commander Fredendall is stubborn and simply cannot gain the trust of his subordinates. He did not trust the commander of the First Panzer Division, Major General Ward, and even bypassed Major General Ward to give orders to his troops. Fredendall's platooning was even more problematic: in the present situation, it was customary to maintain a strong mobile reserve that could be driven up as soon as the Germans attacked somewhere; instead of doing so, he divided his troops evenly among the various parts of the front. The American lines were virtually weak.
Soldiers were beaten everywhere. Each finger with a fist spread out can be easily broken. This freedendall seems to be accustomed to the kind of "static war" play in the First World War, and there is no concept of "mobility" at all. When the Allied raids on tunis and the port of Bizerte failed due to a winter quagmire, General Eisenhower devoted more of his attention to the Allied south. The Allies at this point formed a 200-mile-long standoff line with German-Italian forces in Tunisia from north to south. The Allied forces on the northern front were mainly British, who would wait until after the beginning of spring to resume their offensive; in the center was the poorly equipped French Nineteenth Army; further down, the American Second Army was guarding the southern mountains.
To the east, on the plain between the mountains and the sea, there were now two Axis armies, each led by an awesome German general. After the Start of the Torch Campaign, Hitler's Fifth Tank Corps, which was quickly transported to Tunisia, was commanded by General Jurgen von Arnim. He succeeded in keeping the Allies out of Tunisia in December. Now add the African Tank Army led by Rommel, who has arrived from the east. The Desert Fox traveled 1,400 miles west from Egypt and entered Tunisia under the pursuit of the British Eighth Army. He spread his troops in the shape of geese, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to 100 miles inland in the south, a vast expanse of insurmountable mountains. Scattered throughout the area were this cluster of old French fortifications, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and was once known as the Mareth Line. Rommel divided a force to hold the place, blocking the British Eighth Army, and then he immediately set about preparing for the attack. This time he targeted U.S. troops in the Allied forces. Comment: Tunisia's small projectile land actually gathered three German and Italian legions. However, there is no room for two tigers in a mountain, and Anim went to Tunisia first, so nominally the Tunisian territory should be decided by Arnim. But Anim was inferior in rank to Rommel, and came from a Silesian nobility, the kind of man Rommel despised the most. The two men were not convinced by each other and rolled each other's signs. Germany and Italy quarreled over who would be the supreme commander on the Tunisian front - Rommel had a lot of pleasure working with the Italians in the early days, especially after the recent defeat, and the Italians despised the "desert fox". The German high command, forced by Rommel's great prestige at home, did not dare to take him down. And when Rommel discovered that the American soldiers in front of him had no combat experience, he was sensitive to the fighters, and it was precisely when he had great potential to leave. A disorder in the chain of command would be of great harm to Rommel.
eisenhower foresaw that the Germans would first strike the Americans, cross the mountains all the way west, and then turn north to march north on the Algiers coast. This route of attack had a large number of lucrative targets: Allied airfields and logistical supply points. What Eisenhower did not expect was that the U.S. military was unprepared for an impending strike. On 14 February, on his way back to the headquarters of the Second Army after his inspection, he decided to immediately adjust his troop deployment. Unfortunately, when he arrived at the headquarters at 5:20 a.m., the news came that the Germans had already begun to attack. In fact, two hours after eisenhower left the front, the Germans began to attack. For the first time, American soldiers saw such a position: the overwhelming stuka swooped down with a fierce bombardment, and the German 10th Tank Division rushed west through the Faid Pass. Under the cover of a sandstorm, German tanks rumbled toward the village of Sidi bou zid, where the Americans held a road to the west. The German 21st Tank Division simultaneously emerged from the south of the village around the mountains and launched a pincer attack. Colonel D. Drake observed the fighting unfolding on the plain below from the hill outside the village, and he saw through his telescope that the artillery positions supporting the American tanks had been conquered and the soldiers were running around. He called the sidi bou zid village headquarters, which itself was fighting fiercely, to report what he had seen. "You don't know what you're talking about," his superior replied in amazement, "they may just be changing positions." "Go fucking change positions," replied the Colonel, "I know what I'm seeing is panic. After dark the American troops withdrew from the village of Sidi Bou Zid and the Germans moved in. But the next day Commander Fredendall ordered a counterattack to retake the village to free the 2,500 Americans who had been intercepted on two hills. In the afternoon of 15 February, Lieutenant Colonel J.D. Alger led his tank battalion in a parade-like formation towards the village of Sidi Bou Zid. The Germans waited. They hid on either side, the American tanks unaware, swinging into the village. Suddenly, German shells rained down, and a squad of stuka appeared in the sky and indiscriminately bombarded American tanks. In a panic, the Americans spotted German tanks rushing out from both sides, but it was too late. Alger's own tank was hit and taken prisoner. His troops fought bravely, but only four American tanks escaped in the face of the mighty Panzer IV. Alger's tank battalion was completely destroyed, sacrificing 19 officers, 298 soldiers and 50 tanks.
At one point, Rommel's advance eastward bound for Egypt was too fast for the Air Force to keep up. Now that all branches of the German army are hedgehogs in Tunisia, the logistics line is greatly shortened, and the airfield is close to the front line, and the air force is basically on call. This kind of air-ground integrated warfare is very new in the eyes of American soldiers. The German army has ju-87, the Soviet army has il-2, in contrast, the US Air Force does not have a special ground attack aircraft, during World War II, the United States and Britain basically relied on fighters such as p47/p51 to change to ground attack... It was not until the seventies that the Americans adopted the concept of a close-range ground attack aircraft, and only then did the A-10 fredendall realize that it was futile to continue the offensive, and he airdropted instructions to the American infantry on two hills with his aircraft, telling them to break out west on their own. At 10:00 p.m. on 16 February, Colonel Drake led his 1,600 men from the hillside under the cover of night and quietly passed through the German tank camp without alerting the enemy. However, after dawn, they were spotted and soon surrounded by German infantry in trucks. Colonel Drake quickly arranged the soldiers into defensive circles, and he stood in the center of the circle, directing the battle. German tanks soon reached the scene of the battle. "Huge creature with tigers painted on the side." Drake recalled. A tank broke through the defensive circle and charged at Drake. The German tank commander shouted to Drake, "Colonel, surrender!" "Go and die." Drake replied. He turned around, waiting to be rolled over by a tank or killed by a machine gun. The tank turned in a different direction at the last second. Realizing that it would be futile to continue fighting, the rest of the Americans stopped resisting and all took prisoners. Comment: Compared with the atrocities committed by the Waffen-SS forces in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the Afrika Korps still had some respect for their Allied opponents, and the Geneva Conventions were relatively well observed. Probably because the German army in North Africa was basically made up of ordinary Wehrmacht, Rommel himself was not interested in the Nazi set. The Waffen-SS did not form an organized subordinate to Africa - probably because the Jewish problems in Africa were not serious since the time of Moses... This will definitely be rolled up directly on the Soviet-German battlefield, and what else to shout... On another hill, Colonel Robert Moore also ordered a breakout that same night. He walked a mile with about 900 of his men when he heard shouts in German from a grove of trees. Moore tried to ignore it and lead the team on their way. Suddenly, fierce machine gun fire tore through the tranquility of the night sky. "Spread out!" Moore shouted. In the dark night, the muzzle of the gun flashed everywhere, and the eerie traces of traces kept breaking through the night sky. Moore sometimes crawled and sometimes advanced, and at one point he was overwhelmed by machine gun fire and could not lift his head at all. When the exchange of fire subsided, about 600 American soldiers were killed or taken prisoner, and Moore and the surviving 300 men fled 9 miles through the night to return to the American lines. The Allies lost two armored battalions, two artillery battalions and two infantry battalions in two days of fighting. The Allied high command was so concerned that it ordered the U.S. Second Army and the French Nineteenth Army to retreat 50 miles. Exhausted and demoralized, American soldiers retreated over the mountains and over the cactus bushes of the plains. Their retreats are often delayed by traffic jams, and at night the roads are littered with sparks from car exhaust pipes. The humid air was filled with the stench of gasoline.
Note that the northernmost British of the Allied forces did not retreat. First, the British army is relatively strong, and the Second is that the Allied Navy controls the Mediterranean, and the powerful support fire can bombard the targets of the beach more than ten miles deep at any time, and more importantly, once the situation deteriorates, the British army can be directly withdrawn to the sea. Braving constant harassment by German aircraft and armored forces, the Allies finally crossed central Tunisia and reached the mountains to the west. The exhausted Second Army will meet the pursuers here. It is crucial at such times that there must be a strong will to defend. The famous Kasserine Pass guards the road to Algiers and tebessa, the hub of Allied communications logistics. From the Kesselring Pass there was little chance of defending the north, and Rommel could drive straight into the Algiers coast, not to mention that he could seriously threaten the Allied logistics from then on; attacking the British from behind - the Allies were either completely annihilated or had to withdraw. The ticket was done by Rommel. Comment: Rommel was accustomed to using this method, known as "hook boxing tactics". In fact, it is similar to the "sickle tactic" used by Alexander repeatedly in the conquest of Persia, which is to concentrate forces to open a gap from the enemy side and then sweep the enemy army. Here is another little episode: Rommel had begun to suspect that his radio was being intercepted, so in his telegram exchanges with the base camp he deliberately mixed up some false information, and it was intercepted by the Allied "ultra intercept",-the agency that specialized in listening and deciphering German communications. The Allies believed that Rommel's armored spearhead would be directed at the poorly equipped French Nineteenth Army in the middle... The fox shook his opponent again... The U.S. troops defending Kesselring Pass were unlucky. The morale of the Second Army was demoralized. The recent retreat was disorderly and in a state of panic. Many officers lost control of the troops. Soldiers can't find officers, officers can't find soldiers. To make matters worse, Commander Fredendall and his commander of the First Panzer Division, Major General Ward, had recently fallen out completely. The personal feud between the two has developed into a poison. Fredendall effectively stripped Ward of command and issued orders directly to the troops below, upsetting the officers of the First Panzer Division.
The good news for the Allies was that the Axis powers had developed a strange dual command system at this juncture, allowing the Allies to rest for two days. Rommel and Arnim were equal in status, but who was not convinced of anyone. The two hated each other and were jealous of each other. Each had his own calculations; both were under the command of Marshal Kesselring, who was far away in Rome, but the problem was that Kesselring was too far away to coordinate the two men. As expected, Rommel urged a swift attack on the Allied communications logistics hub tebessa; arnim said that the logistical supply was woefully inadequate to prepare for an attack. And he had already begun to transfer some German troops from the Kesselring Pass to attack further north -- Rommel suspected that Arnim was deliberately retaining troops to "engage in his personal shows". Marshal Kesselring had to fly from Rome to North Africa to mediate the dispute. He approved Rommel's offensive plan. Even so, Arnim kept the troops that were supposed to be assigned to Rommel as planned. While the Germans quarreled, the Allies bought valuable time. Comment: Anim kept three of Rommel's panzer divisions and one of the Tenth Panzer Division, including a Tiger tank battalion! The Tiger tank was the trump card that Rommel had been counting on... Imagine how heart-wrenching Rommel would have been.
The U.S. troops defending Kesselring Pass were unlucky. The morale of the Second Army was demoralized. The recent retreat was disorderly and in a state of panic. Many officers lost control of the troops. Soldiers can't find officers, officers can't find soldiers. To make matters worse, Commander Fredendall and his commander of the First Panzer Division, Major General Ward, had recently fallen out completely. The personal feud between the two has developed into a poison. Fredendall effectively stripped Ward of command and issued orders directly to the troops below, upsetting the officers of the First Panzer Division. The good news for the Allies was that the Axis powers had developed a strange dual command system at this juncture, allowing the Allies to rest for two days. Rommel and Arnim were equal in status, but who was not convinced of anyone. The two hated each other and were jealous of each other. Each had his own calculations; both were under the command of Marshal Kesselring, who was far away in Rome, but the problem was that Kesselring was too far away to coordinate the two men. As expected, Rommel urged a swift attack on the Allied communications logistics hub tebessa; arnim said that the logistical supply was woefully inadequate to prepare for an attack. And he had already begun to transfer some German troops from the Kesselring Pass to attack further north -- Rommel suspected that Arnim was deliberately retaining troops to "engage in his personal shows". Marshal Kesselring had to fly from Rome to North Africa to mediate the dispute. He approved Rommel's offensive plan. Even so, Arnim kept the troops that were supposed to be assigned to Rommel as planned. While the Germans quarreled, the Allies bought valuable time. Anim kept three of Rommel's panzer divisions and one of the tenth panzer division, including a Tiger tank battalion! The Tiger tank was the trump card that Rommel had been counting on... Imagine how heart-wrenching Rommel would have been.
Fredendall was not sure which of the five passes the Germans would launch a general offensive, and he again divided his troops evenly across the entire ridge. Even with the addition of the British and French troops who came to reinforce, neither pass received enough defensive troops. On 18 February, axis reconnaissance operations on the Kesselring Pass made Fredendall aware that there could be a large-scale operation there. He felt he had to find an experienced field commander to deal with the battle at Kesselring Pass. He called Colonel A. Stark of the 26th Infantry Regiment: "I need you to get to the Kesselring Pass at once, where a stonewall jackson is needed. (Note: "Stonewall" Jackson, a famous general in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War, was known for his majesty and resolute defense.) The title of "Stone Wall" won in the Battle of Manassas. Stark arrived at kesselring pass in the early hours of February 19 with a confused look, just in time for German tanks to emerge from the morning fog below the mountain and rush up. He quickly inspected the positions and found that he was not at all sure whether they could be defended. The only defensive forces available to him were an infantry battalion, an artillery battalion and a battalion of tank destroyers, plus A.T.W. Moore's 19th Engineer Regiment, but the sappers never fought. The full name of the 19th Engineer Regiment is the 19th Engineer Combat Regiment -- the U.S. army's engineer corps is very thinly divided, there are boat regiments, there are shore regiments, and there are aviation regiments. The 19th Engineer Regiment mentioned in the article was more focused on working in a battlefield environment, that is, the kind with a gun in one hand and a pickaxe in the other, with the slogan "always first in combat". Don't look like it's an engineer regiment, they have their own specialized anti-tank company! The tactical arrangement of the American army was to let the Germans enter the mountain pass, but they were determined not to let them out. In fact, this tactic is determined by the terrain: the passage made up of cliffs on both sides gradually narrows, and the narrowest point is only 1500 yards. The Germans entering the pass would be more and more crowded together, like sand passing through an hourglass. After entering a basin by road through a mountain pass, it splits into two: one to the west to tebessa and one north to thala. The Allies placed anti-tank guns near two roads in the basin. When the Germans tried to pass along the road, they would be hit. On the afternoon of 19 February, Afrika Korps tanks, led by Brigadier General Karl Buelowius, attempted to pass the day, stopping after being hit by artillery, anti-tank guns and light weapons. As night fell, Buelowius used a sneak attack to solve the mountain pass that he had not beaten during the day. The Afrika Korps infantry managed to climb from the north side of the pass to the top of the hill, catching the hill defenders by surprise. They then launched a surprise attack on the defenders in the basin below. About 100 U.S. officers and men on the road in the direction of Thala were taken prisoner. In the direction of tebessa Road, a company of the US 19th Engineer Regiment was frightened by the Germans who magically appeared in front of them and completely collapsed. Panic spreads like an infectious disease. Moore sent out some artillery forward observers to coordinate artillery strikes against the Germans. One of them claimed: "The fight here is too intense. Then they gave up their positions, and the others ran away one after another. Some troops are still fighting, others are either scattered or missing. By the night of the 19th, the defenses of the Kesselring Pass had been divided. Thanks to reinforcements from a Battalion of American infantry and a British armored force of only 11 tanks coming in late midnight, the German offensive was held back.
The next morning the Allies still held the pass. Rommel grew impatient. He was running out of time. On the same morning, Montgomery's Eighth Army began from the other direction of Tunisia to probe the Mareth Line, guarded by German rearguards. Rommel calculated that within a few days there would be a great battle there. The Kesselring Pass must be taken immediately, or the Desert Fox will be forced back to the Mareth line by Montgomery. Rommel inspired Buelowius to continue to put more pressure on him to tackle the Kesselring Pass. The German offensive on the 20th was more violent than ever. The valley echoed with the screeching of six German rocket launchers (nebelwerfer). After massive shelling, wave after wave of Axis forces rushed to the Allied positions. Shortly after the afternoon, the British troops defending Thala Road lost their last tanks; the American sappers were also overwhelmed in the direction of Tebessa Road. Colonel Moore, the commander of the engineers, almost took prisoner. He finally fled to stark's headquarters and reported that his 19th Engineer Regiment was retreating. 128 men were killed or missing, and the rest were placed behind the road in another desperate resistance. At 4:30 p.m., the Axis finally broke through the Kesselring Pass. Rommel watched with his own eyes as his Afrika Korps, the Italian Centauro Division and the 10th Tank Division swept through the pass and into the basin. Italian tanks reconnaissance along the tebessa road reported no resistance; german armored reconnaissance units in the direction of thala road also reported the same situation. The road to the Allied hinterland was wide open, but Rommel hesitated. He suspected that the Allies were preparing for a counterattack. He asked his troops to shrink and reorganize and get ready. When Rommel missed the opportunity, American and British troops began to pour into the area, strengthening the defenses of the thala road and the tebessa road. Comment: This is reminiscent of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Kurita's fleet finally reached the mouth of Leyte Gulf but turned away... Alamein's blow to Rommel caused him to lose his usual optimistic and enterprising style and began to become afraid of his tail - the reason why Rommel was able to win the title of Fox of the Desert was indispensable to the gambler's personality and bold and enterprising style. Once he began to doubt the gods and ghosts, he was no different from other mediocre people. From here, we can see how a once ambitious, optimistic young man has gradually degenerated into the old and conservative general he once despised most under the control of his colleagues and the blows of reality... When Rommel resumed the attack the next day, the Americans in the direction of tebessa road strengthened their defenses to withstand the attack; however, the British troops in the direction of Thala Road were outnumbered, and gradually retreated under the strong offensive of the German 10th Tank Division, and finally retreated to a small hill outside the village of Thala. In the direction of thala, three battalions of the US 9th Artillery Division played a crucial role. They trekked four days along muddy mountain roads from western Algeria and arrived at the front line on the afternoon of the 21st. The division commander, Major General Irvin, and his men built 48 howitzer positions overnight, despite fatigue. The spectacular American artillery barrage lifted the British defenders outside the village of Thala, determined to join the Americans in defending the area. Irvin was ready in the early hours of the morning. When the sun rose on the morning of February 22, irvin's artillery, despite the overnight fatigue, tried to pour artillery fire on the advancing German tanks. The first salvo of American artillery hit the German tank column. Commander Boich was dispatching his troops to capture the village of Thala in one fell swoop, and the density of the shelling surprised Boich, who began to believe that the Allies had gathered a large number of troops overnight and that a large-scale counterattack was imminent. On the one hand, he did not move for the time being, and at the same time telegraphed Rommel to explain the situation in person. Rommel also agreed not to risk advancing for the time being, but to adopt a defensive posture in response to the impending Allied counterattack. Boich waited all day, but the Allies on the opposite side did not move at all. He told Rommel to prepare to resume the offensive at 4 p.m. The attack was eventually canceled. Throughout the morning, Rommel suddenly began to wonder, worried about whether his offensive would work. He had spent some time inspecting captured U.S. military materiel: tanks, trucks, troop loads and weapons. He was amazed at the abundance of U.S. logistics and equipment, with an adequate supply of spare parts, and at the speed at which U.S. reinforcements could enter the Kesselring area. In contrast, his troops had only one day of ammunition and six days of rations. His fuel was only enough for his vehicle to run another 120 miles. Lao Mei has always paid attention to the fact that the large army has not moved grain and grass first, and that materials will be transported to wherever the troops fight at any time. It can be said that their tactics are to fight with the enemy logistics, and this is the weakness of the Germans. Before the War, Rommel also quarreled with Marshal Kesselring over whether he could raise his fuel supply from four to fourteen tons per day. Compared with Lao Mei, it was almost cold to death.
On the eve of the imminent capture of Thala, Rommel concluded that the speed of the Allied reinforcements could not be solved by his troops. If the Axis army continues to advance, on the one hand, it will have to lengthen its supply line every day, and on the other hand, it is bound to fall into more and more Allied sieges. Moreover, the Desert Fox was anxious to rush back to the Mareth Line to fend off the attack of his old rival, the British Eighth Army. The sudden change in Rommel's attitude surprised his superior, Marshal Kesselring. He rushed to the front line in an attempt to restore Rommel's confidence. "His usual passion and confidence are gone." Marshal Kesselring later observed in frustration. In fact, Rommel was suffering from some depression, jaundice and sand sores. On 23 February, he abandoned the Kesselring Pass, which he had worked so hard to capture, and withdrew his troops to the east. His retreat was so stealthy that the Allies in front of him did not dare to move for a whole day, and only after 24 hours did they realize that the Germans had retreated.
Rommel's offensive was a tactical success —the Americans suffered heavy losses, with 3,000 killed, 4,000 captured, 260 tanks destroyed, and Eisenhower, enraged, immediately dismissed Freedendall. But he failed to achieve his strategic goal of forcing the Allies to withdraw from Tunisia. Had Arnim had not pulled his hind legs, he could have seized tebessa –the vast amount of supplies tebessa had stored far more than he had captured in Tobruk. If, hoho, the real world does not recognize "ifs", only the status quo ... What did Arnim keep several armored divisions for? He launched an offensive on the Northern Front against the Allies according to his own plans, code-named "Stupid"! what a name!!! If the name is not correct, it is not smooth, and it naturally ends in failure. And the "stupid" hat turned around and finally fell on Arnim's own head, the so-called creation of people.