The first of these was the over-all weakness of his force. Lack of shipping had prevented us from bringing along the strength that could have solved the problem quickly and expeditiously. Consequently General Anderson’s plans had to be based upon speed and boldness rather than upon numbers.
The second difficulty was our great shortage in motor equipment,3 which was rendered all the more serious because of the very poor quality of the single-line railway running eastward from Algiers to Tunis, a distance as great as from New York to Cleveland.
The third major problem was the weather. Unseasonable rains soon overtook us, and since none of the scattered air strips that we had hoped to use boasted of a paved runway, our small air forces were handicapped and for days at a stretch were rendered almost completely helpless. The enemy was far better situated, since his large fields at Bizerte and Tunis were suitable for operations in all kinds of weather.
The next disadvantage was the proximity of the Tunisia area to the Axis forces in Sicily and in Italy. The day after we began our landings in northwest Africa the Axis started pouring troops into Tunisia, and they were reinforcing rapidly.
Another initial difficulty was the undetermined attitude of the French forces lying in the area between Constantine and Tunis. These were commanded by General Barre, and at the time General Anderson began his advance it was not known whether these forces and the local population would actively oppose him, would be neutral, or would co-operate with him in his advance toward Tunisia.
Under these conditions only a thoroughly loyal and bold commander would have undertaken without protest the operation that General Anderson was called upon to carry out. In response to my urgent orders he began the campaign on November 11 as soon as he put foot on shore.
Remembering that General Anderson and his troops were almost exclusively British, it has always seemed to me remarkable that he uttered not a single word of protest in accepting this bold order from an American. He was a true ally—and a courageous fighter. From Algiers he started his forces eastward by land and sea and in a series of rapid movements took the ports of Djidjelli, Philippeville, and Bône, at the same time moving farther inland to seize the towns of Sétif and Constantine.4 Axis air and submarine action both took a constant toll of our shipping and caused material damage in the small harbors we were able to seize, but there was never any hesitation on the part of the Navy, under Admiral Cunningham, fully to support the operations, nor on the part of General Anderson to continue his advance in spite of these threats. From the general region of Bône and Constantine the British First Army kept pushing eastward through Souk-Ahras and Souk-el-Arba, where they made the first contacts with Axis ground forces.5
When I transferred headquarters from Gibraltar to Algiers on November 23, I took advantage of the journey to begin inspections of our troops and facilities. At the Oran airfield I came squarely up against conditions that were to plague us throughout that bitter winter. We landed on a hard-surfaced strip but then could not taxi a foot off the runway because of the bottomless mud. A huge tractor appeared and, with men placing great planks under the wheels of our Fortress, pulled us off a few yards so that incoming craft would still be able to land. Tactical operations were at a standstill so I spent the morning inquiring into problems of supply, housing, and food. It was on that occasion that I first met Lieutenant Colonel Lauris Norstad, a young air officer who so impressed me by his alertness, grasp of problems, and personality that I never thereafter lost sight of him. He was and is one of those rare men whose capacity knows no limit.
On arriving at Algiers that evening I found that previously issued orders to support Anderson’s British army with whatever American contingents could be brought up to him from the Oran area were not clearly understood nor vigorously executed. In the office when I arrived was Brigadier General Lunsford E. Oliver, commander of Combat Command B, a portion of the U. S. 1st Armored Division. He had made a reconnaissance to the front, had determined that railway communications were inadequate to get him to the battle area promptly, and was seeking permission to march a part of his command in half-tracks over the seven hundred miles between Oran and Souk-el-Arba. The staff officer to whom he was appealing was well informed as to the characteristics of the half-track and refused permission on the ground that the march would consume half of the useful life of the vehicle!
The young staff officer was not to blame for this extraordinary attitude. He had been trained assiduously, through years of peace, in the eternal need for economy, for avoiding waste. Peacetime training was possible, as he well knew, only when the cost would be inconsequential. He had not yet accepted the essential harshness of war; he did not realize that the word is synonymous with waste, nor did he understand that every positive action requires expenditure. The problem is to determine how, in space and time, to expend assets so as to achieve the maximum in results. When this has been determined, then assets must be spent with a lavish hand, particularly when the cost can be measured in the saving of lives.
General Oliver’s insistence, his desire to get to the battle, his pleading to take on a grueling march rather than to accept the easy solution with himself entirely absolved of responsibility, all impressed me greatly. Within five minutes he was on his way with the orders he sought.
During that night and the following one Algiers was bombed incessantly.6 No great numbers of the Luftwaffe came over at any one time but the continuous din made sleep impossible and the lack of it soon showed plainly in the faces of headquarters personnel. The principal targets were the ships in the harbor, a quarter of a mile below our hotel, but bombs landing in the city caused some casualties and abundant consternation.
Our air defenses were only slowly developed; one of the ships we had lost to enemy submarines had been carrying most of the warning and control equipment vital to fighter defense. But by the end of the month we had partially corrected the deficiencies, and after the Luftwaffe had taken several nasty knocks it abandoned its attacks against our principal ports except for attempted sneak and surprise forays. One night we got unmistakable proof that the enemy’s bombing crews had developed a healthy respect for the quality of our defenses. We intercepted a radio report from the commander of a bombing squadron to his home base. He said, “Bombs dropped on Algiers as ordered.” But we knew he had dropped his bombs thirty miles out to sea because we had a plane in contact with him at the time. This evidence of weakening enemy morale was instantly circulated to our own people. It was astounding to see its buoyant effect.
After but three days’ intensive work at headquarters I started for the front by automobile, taking General Clark with me. Because of hostile domination of the air, travel anywhere in the forward area was an exciting business. Lookouts kept a keen watch of the skies and the appearance of any plane was the signal to dismount and scatter. Occasionally, of course, the plane would turn out to be friendly—but no one could afford to keep pushing ahead on the chance that this would be so. All of us became quite expert in identifying planes, but I never saw anyone so certain of distant identification that he was ready to stake his chances on it. Truck drivers, engineers, artillerymen, and even the infantrymen in the forward areas had constantly to be watchful. Their dislike of the situation was reflected in the constant plaint, “Where is this bloody Air Force of ours? Why do we see nothing but Heinies?” When the enemy has air superiority the ground forces never hesitate to curse the “aviators.”
Clark and I found Anderson beyond Souk-Ahras, and forward of that place we entered a zone where all around us was evidence of incessant and hard fighting. Every conversation along the roadside brought out astounding exaggerations. “Béja has been bombed to rubble.” “No one can live on this next stretch of road.” “Our troops will surely have to retreat; humans cannot exist in these conditions.” Yet on the whole morale was good. The exaggerations were nothing more than the desire of the individual to convey the thought that he had been through the ultimate in terror and destruction—he had no thou
ght of clearing out himself.
Troops and commanders were not experienced, but the boldness, courage, and stamina of General Anderson’s forces could not have been exceeded by the most battle-wise veterans. Physical conditions were almost unendurable. The mud deepened daily, confining all operations to the roads, long stretches of which practically disintegrated. Winter cold was already descending upon the Tunisian highlands. The bringing up of supplies and ammunition was a Herculean task. In spite of all this, and in spite of Anderson’s lack of strength—his whole force numbered only about three brigades of infantry and a brigade of obsolescent tanks—he pushed on through Souk-el-Khemis, Béja, and finally reached a point from which he could look down into the outskirts of Tunis.7
Day by day, following the first contact, fighting grew more bitter, more stubborn, more difficult, and the enemy was more rapidly reinforced than were our own troops.
Very early I determined to take whatever additional risks might be involved in weakening our rear in order to strengthen Anderson. Shortage of transport prevented anything but movement by driblets—and the inherent dangers of such reinforcement are understood by the rawest of recruits. There was no lack of advisers to warn me concerning public reaction to “dissipation” of the American Army! “How,” I was often asked, “did Pershing make his reputation in World War I?” What such advisers did not recall was Pershing’s famous statement when stark crisis faced the Allies in March 1918. At that time, realizing the size of the stakes, he postponed integration of an American Army and said to Foch, “Every man, every gun, everything we have is yours to use as you see fit.” I felt that here in Tunisia, on a small scale, we had a glowing opportunity comparable to the crisis of 1918, and I was quite willing to take all later criticism if only the Allied forces could turn over Tunis to our people as a New Year’s present!
The gamble was great but the prize was such a glittering one that we abandoned caution in an effort to bring up to General Anderson every available fighting man in the theater. There still existed the fear that the German might thrust air forces down across the Pyrenees into Spain, to attack us from the rear. Nevertheless, as a beginning, the American air forces were directed to move as far to the eastward as possible to join in the air battle in support of General Anderson and to assist in cutting Axis sea communications between Tunis and Italy.8 This was a definite change from the preconceived plan to retain the United States air forces in the western end of the Mediterranean. The move brought them into close proximity to the British air forces and created a need for daily co-ordination.
I had left General Spaatz in England and now I called him forward to take on this particular task. We merely improvised controlling machinery and gave General Spaatz the title of “Acting Deputy Commander in Chief for Air.” Initially, the commander of the American Air Force in North Africa was Major General James Doolittle, who had sprung into fame as the leader of the raid on Tokyo. He was a dynamic personality and a bundle of energy. It took him some time to reconcile himself to shouldering his responsibilities as the senior United States air commander to the exclusion of opportunity for going out to fly a fighter plane against the enemy. But he had the priceless quality of learning from experience. He became one of our really fine commanders.
All during late November and early December the piecemeal process of reinforcing our eastern lines, principally by American troops, went on. Because of the critical nature of the day-by-day fighting and the lack of transport we could not wait to bring up any large unit as an entity nor could we wait to assemble such units before committing them to action. If we should fail to take Tunis we would suffer severely for this procedure, but General Anderson was given positive orders to use everything possible to gain his objective before the increasingly bad weather and the Axis reinforcements should compel us to settle down to a long winter campaign in such uninviting and inhospitable circumstances.
From Oran we brought up elements of the U. S. 1st Armored Division and part of the 1st Infantry Division. The U. S. 34th Division was distributed along the line of communication to protect critical points and to make sure of the security of the vast areas in which we were otherwise completely defenseless. We could use Allied troops for this purpose only on the most vital points, and as the enemy quickly resorted to a system of sabotage by night landing of paratroopers we were forced to rely on French contingents to protect hundreds of culverts, bridges, tunnels, and similar places where a few determined men could have inflicted almost decisive damage upon our lines of communication.
Courage, resourcefulness, and endurance, though daily displayed in overwhelming measure, could not completely overcome the combination of enemy, weather, and terrain. In early December the enemy was strong enough in mechanized units to begin local but sharp counterattacks and we were forced back from our most forward positions in front of Tunis.
As soon as we ceased attacking, the situation in northern Tunisia turned bleak for us, even from a defensive standpoint. Through a blunder during a local withdrawal we had lost the bulk of the equipment of Combat Command B, of the U. S. 1st Armored Division.9 The 18th Infantry of the U. S. 1st Infantry Division took severe losses, and practically an entire battalion of a fine British regiment was wiped out.10 General Anderson soon thought he would have to give up Medjez-el-Bab, a road center and a junction point with the French forces on his right. Since this spot was the key to our resumption of the offensive when we should get the necessary strength, I forbade this move—assuming personal responsibility for the fate of its garrison and the effect of its possible capture upon the safety of the command.11
We were still attempting to mount an attack of our own. Work continued twenty-four hours a day to build up the strength that we believed would, with some temporary improvement in the weather, give us a good fighting chance to capture northeastern Tunisia before all operations were hopelessly bogged down. December 24 was chosen as the date for our final and most ambitious attack.12 Our chief hope for success lay in our temporary advantage in artillery, which was relatively great. But reports from the Tunisian front were discouraging; the weather, instead of improving, continued to deteriorate. Prospects for mounting another attack grew darker.
I was determined not to give up unless personally convinced that the attack was an impossibility. Weather prohibited flying and I started forward by automobile on December 22, encountering miserable road conditions from the moment we left Algiers. Traveling almost incessantly, I met General Anderson at his headquarters in the early morning of December 24 and with him proceeded at once to Souk-el-Khemis.13 At that point was located the headquarters of the British 5 Corps, which was to make the attack and which was commanded by Major General C. W. Allfrey of the British Army. The preliminary moves of the attack had already been made by small detachments, attempting to secure critical points before the beginning of the major maneuver, scheduled for the following night.
The rain fell constantly. We went out personally to inspect the countryside over which the troops would have to advance, and while doing so I observed an incident which, as much as anything else, I think, convinced me of the hopelessness of an attack. About thirty feet off the road, in a field that appeared to be covered with winter wheat, a motorcycle had become stuck in the mud. Four soldiers were struggling to extricate it but in spite of their most strenuous efforts succeeded only in getting themselves mired into the sticky clay. They finally had to give up the attempt and left the motorcycle more deeply bogged down than when they started.
We went back to headquarters and I directed that the attack be indefinitely postponed.14 It was a bitter decision. Immediately it was reached, we were faced with the problem of tidying up and straightening out our lines, assembling units into proper formations, collecting local reserves, and protecting our southern flank where the terrain would permit operations throughout the winter. General Anderson was to do all this while holding firmly the gains we had already made, pending the arrival of better weather in the spring.
&nbs
p; In such circumstances it is always necessary for the commander to avoid an attitude of defeatism; discouragement on the part of the high commander inevitably spreads rapidly throughout the command and always with unfortunate results. On that occasion it was exceedingly difficult to display any particular optimism.
As early as the middle of November the French forces in Tunisia had cast their lot with us and were maintaining a precarious hold on the hilly masses stretching to the southward from Tunis, where their total lack of modern equipment did not so badly expose them to destruction.15 With the giving up of our plan for immediate capture of Tunis, the line that we selected for defense was one that would cover the forward airfields located at Thelepte, Youks-les-Bains, and Souk-el-Arba. As long as these fields were in our possession we could, with our growing air forces, constantly pound away, at least in decent weather, at Axis communications. We would be in perfect position to resume the assault once conditions of weather and terrain and our growing strength permitted. For the rest of the winter, therefore, our defensive plan embraced the covering of these forward areas. Without them we would be forced back into the Bône-Constantine region and would be faced in the following spring with the problem of fighting our way forward, without suitable air support, through difficult mountainous areas at the cost of great numbers of lives. I was convinced that no disadvantage of supply or of danger in these forward positions was to be considered for a second above the dangers that would follow a general retirement to a more secure and convenient position. We had also to consider the moral effect of retreat upon the population of North Africa, a matter of grave concern to Giraud and other French leaders.
Up to this time the only flank protection we had been able to establish in all the great region stretching from Tebessa southward to Gafsa had been provided by scattered French irregulars reinforced and inspired by a small United States parachute detachment under the command of a gallant American, Colonel Edson D. Raff.16 The story of his operations in that region is a minor epic in itself. The deceptions he practiced, the speed with which he struck, his boldness and his aggressiveness, kept the enemy completely confused during a period of weeks. But with the cessation of our attacks in the north the enemy was immediately enabled, behind the coastal mountain barrier, to concentrate his troops at will. It was unreasonable to assume that he would fail to realize our great weakness in the Tebessa region; it was likely that he would quickly strike us a damaging blow unless we took prompt measures to prevent it.
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