VMI Archives. MS 0532. VMI at War Project Collection

M. B. Hardy, Jr. without a reserve; his army corps, my best guefiwas and is somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 men, was digging in to meet our expected counter-aW'k.) Within a day, 1st Armored Division had gathered the "penny-packets" into a provisional combat command, and on the afternoon of February 15 launched frontal counter-attack from our position at Kerns' Crossroads. Again, we lost all of our medium tanks-a battalion of old M-3s. The 68th Armored Field Artillery had to "circle the wa ons" and back into a depression to stand off the German tanks until dark, for which it received a Presidenti 1citation. Meanwhile, the battalion of 6th Armored Infantry, mounted in half tracks, veered north and, er dark, was able to bring back some of the I 68th Infantry off ofDJ. Lessouda. Late the next afternoo , he German advance slowly resumed. We had no medium tank unit left, and we backed off, firing continu sly. Some of their tanks were~ VIs, invulnerable to our weapons. All we could do was to blind them with smoke and dust. CC"B" of 1st .Mmored Division, under superb tanker Briga~i General Paul McDonald Robinette, was recalled from a pass thirty or more miles north of Faid. At dus e crossed our rear to go into action on our exposed southern flank. Then, behind us, an ordinance depot as blown-up; some of our people panicked and ran, but Brigadier General McQuillan, collectioncommanding CC"A," got them stopped. The dump bu_~ and exploded for hours, and confused fighting continued all night-highly unusual in the desert. One ~HI was destroyed by one of our howitzers at a range of twenty-five yards. By dawn we had lost ten miles and were backed up into Sbeitla, with some outfits amongProject the Roman ruins. The road from Faid Pass forks at Sbeitla, straddling a spur of the Algerian plateaus. One fork turns north below the plateau, while the other continues westward under its bluffs some thirty-five miles before rising northward through Kasserine Pass. On February 17, CC"B"War backed off toward Kasserine, while the survivors of Faid and Kerns' Crossroad marched up the forkat to the north. Six or eight headquarters and field artillery medium tanks made up a provisional rear guard platoon, leap-frogging our nine-piece howitzer battery that was substituting for tanks. Late in the day we were relieved by British 6th Armored Division, hurrying south into battle; but we marched on all VMInight, mounting the plateau at Sbiba from the east, and circling back to meet CC"B" above Kasserine the morning of February 18. Contact with the enemy had been broken, but there were no replacements of men or material. First Armored's commander, Major General0532. Orlando Ward, was finally in command of his division. His separating our retreat into two columns forced the Germans to do the same. One group which included lOth Panzer followed our column northward,MS and met and defeated British 6th Armored Division. The other column, including 21st Panzer, was stopped at Kasserine by the heroic stand of a small force of French infantry and U.S. combat engineers entrenched there. Rommel, we later learned, was furious, and the next day drove 21st Panzer through the pass-there, to encounter CC"B". CC"A" went into division reserve, continually marching hither and yon, day and night, as the forces maneuvered and clashed across the eastern Algerian plateau. (Once in the rain, I had to navigate my battery twenty miles across that barren plain by compass and odometer.)Archives. Of course, artillery is almost never really in reserve; we were frequently in long range action, reinforcing the fires of the direct support battalions. Meanwhile,VMI the entire Div. Arty. of U.S. 9th Division was conducting a remarkable 1,100-mile forced march from Morocco, and B-17s on Malta were preparing to head for Kasserine. Before the German force with lOth Panzer, following us (and some units of British 6th Armored Division) up onto the plateau a couple of days later, could link-up with the 21st Panzer group, heavy bombardment from both U.S. forces began t~t the Germans. Von Arnim, fearing that Anderson's First Army would attack in the north, pulled out his ~VIs; and, as we again later learned, Rommel was ordered back to Germany, and departed. On February 21, the Germans withdrew, leaving thousands of mines behind. Tenth Panzerreturned to Faid Pass, and the Afrika Korps moved into the Mareth Line to face the Eighth Army. The battle of Kasserine Pass was over. As commanding general of II Corps, Lieutenant General George S. Patton replaced Fredendall, who was promoted to lieutenant general when he got home. This gave rise 187 .

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