November 42:the Allies attempt a daring coup:take Tunis
Four days after the breaking of Rommel's lines at El-Alamein, on November 4, 1942, the Allied forces landed in Morocco and in Algeria.
Their leader, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, had to face very serious political and military difficulties:the rise of his forces was slow, and the attitude of the he French Army of Africa still uncertain.
“Ike” had however clearly understood that his strategic objective was in Tunis. The sooner Tunisia was liberated, the sooner the Axis forces in North Africa would be trapped.
General Eisenhower's idea was to drop the 1st battalion of British paratroopers on a Tunisian airfield and to launch towards Tunis all his available forces, very little in truth:two infantry brigades from the 78th British division and a small group armor based on elements of the 17th/21st Lancers Regiment. Towards Tunis, two possible routes:the northern one was the objective of the 36th brigade, and the southern one that of the 11th. The Blade Force comprising the lances reinforced with artillery, infantry and engineers was to make its junction with the paratroopers halfway. American armored units were to follow the movement as quickly as possible.
The high command of the Axis forces was completely taken by surprise, but the Germans were never so formidable as when things went wrong. With foresight equal to that of Eisenhower, they understood that if the
Allied offensive was not held in check, it was the end of the Afrikakorps. They hastily assembled armor and infantry, and, more importantly, air units drawn from Italy.
By November 15, 81 fighter planes had been deployed at seven Tunisian airfields, 14 brand new F.W.190As and 28 Stuka dive bombers. And as usual, reinforcement Kampfgruppen (battle groups) were immediately made available to Rommel from southern Italy. Most of the formations thus constituted were made up of seasoned veterans of the Panzers or paratroopers. It didn't take long for them to follow in the footsteps of the British commandos.
The stage was set for a series of ruthless skirmishes between small detachments of elite troops, operations miniscule compared to the great battles of the Russian front or, later, of Western Europe, but which nevertheless had consequences. decisive consequences for the future. Great military thinkers have often criticized the improvised and disjointed nature of this plan of operations. But for the Allies it was now or never to show boldness and speed in action.
Hence the sporadic and isolated nature of combat led by troops launched somewhat blindly. There was no organized front, only a few units lost in an immense Africa, as one person in charge of the affair wrote.
The first serious skirmish occurred on November 17, in small village of Djebel Abiod, at the crossroads of the road to Beja which connects the northern and southern access routes to Tunis.
The first formations to achieve this were the 6th Battalion of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment (a West Kent regiment whose colonel is traditionally the Queen) and the 360th Artillery Battery (8 x 25-pounders), all territorial units and therefore not very seasoned. Ahead of them, elements of the 56th Reconnaissance Regiment were patrolling in the direction of Mateur.
They reported a German armored column moving west. It was the Kampfgruppe Witzig, named after its leader, Major Witzig. It included a detachment of parachute technicians playing the role of infantry, plus about thirty tanks, armored vehicles and a few SP-type guns. The extraordinary discipline and extensive standardization of the instruction of German soldiers meant that these men from different units and completely foreign to each other were capable of a remarkable ability to be grouped together in an emergency in combat formations. combined arms. With them, there was no place for the palaver, the contradictory orders and the need for explanations which would have been the rule in such cases in the British army.
The men of West Kent began to put on their position in a state of defense from the dawn of November 17, an effort that was rewarded with the arrival of the motorized advance guard from Witzig, who innocently ventured towards noon in the main artery of the village. When the Germans had ventured beyond the strongpoints of the forward West Kent platoon, the 2-pounder anti-tank guns opened fire within 100 yards from carefully chosen positions on the flanks.
Two hits put two tanks out of action, and the German column stretched all along the street suddenly suffered a deluge of small arms fire. It would have taken much more to disconcert soldiers whose reaction to danger was to attack. The Panzer IIIs were soon in the middle of the West Kent position, where a fast and
brutal duel took place between 50mm guns, 2-pounder anti-tank guns and 25-pounder artillery pieces. During the action 40 German tankers were shot down by Kent fire as they evacuated the carcasses of their disabled tanks.
The second phase of the fight took place on a more classic mode:the German infantry and their trucks managed to stall and the surviving tanks and mortars unleashed systematic destruction fire on the British positions, in anticipation of a full assault.
A After a harrowing wait under artillery preparation fire, the defenders saw the German infantry return to the assault. They didn't let them get very close. Intense and precise fire from the "Tommies", wrongly considered poor fighters, forced the attackers to fall back to a distance respectful of the position. Djebel Abiod, firmly held, was further reinforced by the arrival of the other two infantry battalions of the 36th Brigade and the rest of its artillery.
At this time, it might have seemed that the 36th brigade was in a good position to prevail. Its penetration was to be by a narrow road, with the mountain on the right and maquis and cork oak forests on both sides. However, the brigade succeeded in making a breakthrough there of more than 30 kilometers towards the east.
It was then that the 8th battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Scottish regiment) fell into a deadly trap. With their usual look, the Germans had chosen two hills on either side of the road to make them the main outposts of the defensive system being assembled. They had names Djebel Azag and Djebel Ajred. But in the sad memorial of the unit, they remain for history the "green", and the "bald".
Unaware that they were held by the enemy, the Highlanders began to infiltrate between the two with their vehicles. From the start of the ambush, the losses amounted to 10 officers, 145 men, and most of the heavy armament.