DESERT WAR PART NINE: THE TUNISIAN CAMPAIGN DATE: NOVEMBER 17 1942 – MAY 13 1943 As fighting ended in Morocco and Algeria at the conclusion of Operation Torch, the Eastern Task Force advanced eastward toward Tunisia, organized as the British First Army under Lt. General Kenneth Anderson. First Army was tasked with targeting the Tunis-Bizerte area, the two important seaports in Tunisia. Far to the east was the British Eighth Army, commanded by Lt. General (later Field Marshal) Bernard Montgomery, moving westward after its important victory at El Alamein. As the Allies had planned, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps would be caught between the Allied armies advancing from the east and the west. With the rapidly changing situation in North Africa, German and Italian forces moved into southern France. German Army units reached Toulon on the Mediterranean coast on November 27. To counter the Allied advance into Tunisia, the German garrison there was massively reinforced and reorganized as 90th Corps under the command of General Walther Nehring, the former commander of the Afrika Korps. The German buildup went unopposed by the French in Tunisia, whose government under General Henri Giraud was in political chaos, leaving airfields and ports open to German use. FIRST ARMY MOVES EAST INTO TUNISIA By November 16 1942, First Army had advanced 400 miles from Algiers, and was inside Tunisia approaching Tunis from the west, only 50 miles further on. But an Allied attack on November 24 was repulsed and German counter offensives on November 27 and December 1 forced Anderson to withdraw. On December 8, General Nehring was replaced by General Juergen von Arnim, recalled from Stalingrad and given command of 5th Panzer Army, expanded by the recent reinforcements. Anderson ordered First Army into defensive positions, recognizing a stalemate. German air superiority in Tunisia was a major factor in their success. An unsuccessful attempt at an offensive between December 22-24 demonstrated that First Army could at best hold its defensive position while building up its forces. During the last week of 1942 and the first six weeks of 1943, both the Allies and Germans conducted limited attacks, trying to improve positions in central Tunisia. German Fifth Panzer Army air and ground forces hammered away at First Army. Most of the battles were centered on the road-rail routes leading from eastern ports through mountain passes to the Algerian border on the west. In January 1943, the US II Corps began reinforcing First Army with additional troops, moving into southern Tunisia, adding to the British V Corps in the north and the French XIX Corps in the center. After the fall of Tripoli to British Eighth Army on January 23 1943, Rommel retreated hastily across Libya to Tunisia, slowing Montgomery by bombing ports of entry, fighting rear-guard actions, and by mining roads. By February 6 all of Rommel's forces were in Tunisia and had linked up with von Arnim. Rommel took over the Mareth Line, a 22-mile long series of French colonial fortifications in southern Tunisia, where the Germans prepared a defense against the approaching British Eighth Army. Montgomery and the British Eighth Army were delayed by lengthening supply lines while the inexperienced US II Corps did not attack the Germans when they had the opportunity. Taking advantage of the pause, Fifth Panzer Army and the Afrika Korps combined to launch a heavy armored assault against the inexperienced and unprepared US II Corps. Four days of fighting around Sidi Bou Zid and Sbeitla, from February 14-17 cost II Corps 2,546 missing, 103 tanks, 280 vehicles, 18 field guns, 3 antitank guns, and 1 antiaircraft battery lost. KASSERINE PASS The humiliating losses at Sidi Bou Zid and Sbeitla were not the final blow. US II Corps scrambled backward to establish a new defensive position, this time at Kasserine Pass, a two-mile wide gap in the Dorsal Chain of the Atlas Mountains. For Rommel, Kasserine Pass was the gateway to Algeria. With a series of forceful attacks on February 19-20, the Germans massed armor and infantry against the ineffectively dispersed US II Corps, pushing the Americans back, seizing huge stocks of abandoned equipment, and breaking through the mountains at the Kasserine Pass into the valley beyond - a spectacular success. The Germans hardly paused as they ran over the American defenses. The disastrous series of February defeats was only ended by a shift in German priorities. With the British Eighth Army rapidly approaching from Libya, Rommel could not afford to continue west. The Desert Fox turned his force around, back to the east. ALLIES SEIZE THE INTIATIVE IN TUNISIA The disaster at Kasserine Pass confirmed to the Allied commanders that drastic changes were needed. Improvements in logistics, fresh troops, the new M-4 Sherman tank, and expanded air support increased the fighting power of Allied units. With the British Eighth Army now closing in on the southern flank, the British, French and US commands in Tunisia narrowed their battlefronts and shifted north. Finally, a decisive new commander was named for II Corps: Major General George S. Patton, Jr. The Axis kept up the pressure while the Allies regrouped. In the north, on February 26 von Arnim launched an offensive against the British in an effort to push his front west in order to give the Germans a larger secure zone around Tunis. The offensive failed after hard fighting. At the same time there was another thrust in the south, Rommel's last battle in Tunisia. On March 6, Rommel struck the British Eighth Army at Medenine soon after its arrival into Tunisia from Libya. The British blunted the attack with a new Panzer-stopping tactic: massed artillery and antitank fire combined with air strikes. ALLIED OFFENSIVE In mid-March the Allies went back on the offensive. Montgomery's Eighth Army hit the Axis’ southern flank around Mareth with a multi- division force, breaking the Mareth line on March 20. In a month-long series of battles, the British, hampered by heavy rains, pushed Axis units over 150 miles north to within 47 miles of Tunis. While Montgomery rolled up the German southern flank, Patton's revitalized II Corps drove east into their flank, drawing enemy units from the south, thereby weakening the opposition to Montgomery's push. APPROACHING BIZERTE By mid-April Axis forces, increasingly hampered by growing Allied success interdicting their supply line from Sicily, had been pushed into a perimeter at the northeast corner of Tunisia. After much difficult fighting and slow progress in the last two weeks of April, on the morning of April 30 1943, Patton's II Corps began a general offensive that set in motion the collapse of the remaining German forces. As the British V Corps entered Tunis, the final American battle of the campaign began on May 6 when two American divisions enveloped Bizerte, pushing the Germans out of the city the next day. As II Corps units pushed on to cut the Bizerte-Tunis road, they found surrendering enemy troops clogging the roads, impeding further advance. Rommel had already been flown out, too ill to continue the battle, but other Axis generals began surrendering on May 9, included in the total of over 275,000 prisoners rounded up that week. The six-month Tunisia Campaign ended on May 13 1943, when the last resistance ended. The Germans were defeated in Tunisia, but the bickering among the French remained. In the victory parade in Tunis on May 20, Gaullist troops refused to march with those loyal to General Giraud. THE AFTERMATH Tunisia was the first time American soldiers confronted well-trained, battle-tested enemy units equipped with the most modern weapons and tactics. The result was painful: five months of almost continuous setbacks with unexpectedly high casualties. At the beginning of the Tunisian Campaign, the United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations had almost no experience. A few parts of four divisions had seen four days of combat with light casualties during Operation Torch. The remainder of the force was completely "green." By the time the Tunisian Campaign ended, the Army had five full divisions in the field, four with extensive experience against the best the Germans could hurl at them. Although the cost had been high, much had been learned about use of armor, combined arms operations, and managing the command of Allied forces from different nations. The victory in Tunisia expelled Axis forces from North Africa, a major step toward victory in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. The cost included 70,000 Allied casualties - the US Army alone lost 2,715 dead, 8,978 wounded, and 6,528 missing. From this experience the Army gained thousands of seasoned officers and soldiers who formed the core of subsequent campaigns, starting two months and 150 miles away with Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily on July 10 1943. M’44 SCENARIOS FOR THE TUNISIAN CAMPAIGN Desert War Part Nine: The Tunisian Campaign includes 42 scenarios, including 2 Overlord (OL) and 2 Breakthrough (BT) maps. These scenarios chronicle the major engagements of the Tunisian Campaign, and include only the best available in the Scenarios from the Front (SFTF) files section on the DoW website, as well as 3 official scenarios by Richard Borg, Jacques “jdrommel” David and “kippryon”. No campaign rules are included; not all M’44 players have access to the Campaign books. Instead, simply tally up the number of medals won in each scenario after playing both sides. This campaign is broken down into 4 smaller campaigns. Separate medal tally tables for each, as well as a final medal tally table are included below.