From the close of the Kasserine battle our position steadily improved in a number of ways. First, as a result of the battle the entire American II Corps of four divisions was finally concentrated in the Tebessa region.26 There it could form a solid link between the Allied forces in northern Tunisia and the advancing Eighth Army, coming from the desert. Troops, commanders, and staffs gained a vast measure of battle wisdom that remained with them always.
Moreover, as a result of splendid action in Washington, an extra shipment of 5400 trucks had been brought into the theater. This shipment immeasurably improved our transport and supply situation and had a profound effect in all later operations. It was accomplished under circumstances that should give pause to those people who picture the War and Navy Departments as a mass of entangling red tape. The shipment demanded a special convoy at a time when both merchant shipping and escort vessels were at a premium. General Somervell happened to be visiting my headquarters and I explained to him our urgent need for this equipment. He said he could be loading it out of American ports within three days, providing the Navy Department could furnish the escorts. I sent a query to Admiral King, then in Casablanca, and within a matter of hours had from him a simple “Yes.”27 The trucks began arriving in Africa in less than three weeks after I made my initial request.
General Somervell was still at my headquarters when the message came from the War Department that the last of the trucks had been shipped. The telegram from Somervell’s assistant, Major General Wilhelm D. Styer, eloquently told the story of unending hours of intensive work to arrange this emergency shipment. In a plaintive final sentence it said, “If you should happen to want the Pentagon shipped over there, please try to give us about a week’s notice.”28
The tremendous value of this shipment appeared in our increased ability to supply the needs of the battle front and even more in our ability to transfer troops rapidly from one portion of the front to another. The later move of the entire U. S. II Corps from the Tebessa region to northern Tunisia would have been completely impossible without the presence of these additional trucks. At the same time our railway engineers, under the leadership of Brigadier General Carl Gray, were working miracles in improving the decrepit French line leading to the front. When we went into North Africa the railway could daily deliver a maximum of 900 tons of supplies. By introducing Yankee energy and modern American methods of operation Gray increased the daily tonnage to 3000, and this before he received a single extra engine or boxcar from the United States.
Another particularly pleasing development was the steadily growing strength and efficiency of our air forces, and the construction of suitable operating fields and bases.29 Still another was the speed with which the British forces in the desert opened up and began using the port in Tripoli, only recently captured.30 We now had definite assurance that the advance of the Eighth Army would not be stopped, as it had been so often stopped before, by lack of supplies.
A final advantage that accrued to us during this period was opportunity for establishing our whole system of command on a sound and permanent basis in accordance with the arrangements made at Casablanca. All air forces were integrated under Air Chief Marshal Tedder, with General Spaatz as his deputy; the ground command on the Tunisian front was placed under General Alexander.31 The latter, freed from the necessity of commanding also a single army, the handicap under which General Anderson labored, was able to devote his entire attention to daily tactical co-ordination.
Just after the first of March, I replaced Fredendall with Patton as commander of the II Corps.32 I had no intention of recommending Fredendall for reduction or of placing the blame for the initial defeats in the Kasserine battle on his shoulders, and so informed him. Several others, including myself, shared responsibility for our week of reverses. But morale in the II Corps was shaken and the troops had to be picked up quickly. For such a job Patton had no superior in the Army, whereas I believed that Fredendall was better suited for a training job in the States than he was for battle leadership. I recommended to General Marshall that Fredendall be given command of an army in the United States, where he became a lieutenant general.33
General Patton’s buoyant leadership and strict insistence upon discipline rapidly rejuvenated the II Corps and brought it up to fighting pitch. Moreover, the troops were now fortified by battle experience and had a much higher appreciation of the value of training, discipline, and speed in action. Our losses in tanks, personnel, and equipment were rapidly made good and all the eastern airfields were again in our possession and occupied by our fighter craft.
Winter conditions of weather and terrain in the desert were much better than those in the north, and the Eighth Army, under General Montgomery, was able to continue its advance to the westward with the purpose of making junction with the right of our forces in Tunisia. It was foreseen that General Montgomery’s principal battle to achieve this result would take place on the Mareth Line, a defensive position that had previously been constructed by the French along the Tunisian border and in which we now expected the Axis to make a determined defense.34 To assist General Montgomery in this battle, General Alexander ordered the American II Corps to concentrate the bulk of its strength in the general area of Gafsa and to push eastward from that location so as to draw off as much of Rommel’s forces as possible from the Eighth Army front. This maneuver had the desired effect, since Rommel could not afford to expose his line of communications and was forced to use a considerable portion of his strength to protect himself against this threat.
By the night of March 20, General Montgomery was ready to attack the Mareth Line.35 The fighting was severe but by a brilliant and rapid switch of forces in the midst of the battle he succeeded in outflanking and surprising the enemy and drove him precipitately to the northward. The left flank of the Eighth Army soon joined up with Patton’s II Corps, which had pushed aggressively to the eastward. At last all our troops were connected up in one single battle line.
I visited Montgomery soon after the Mareth battle. His Eighth Army was very colorful and probably the most cosmopolitan army to fight in North Africa since Hannibal. It included, in addition to English units, Highlanders, New Zealanders, Indians (including Gurkhas with their kukris—long, curved knives with which they beheaded their enemies), Poles, Czechs, Free French, Australians, and South Africans. Not all of these came as far as Tunisia. With the Eighth Army were American air squadrons, our first to see action in Africa against the Germans. They had participated in the campaign all the way from El Alamein.36 I fortunately had a chance to talk with the pilots and crews during my visit to Montgomery; later I was able to send to them some of the soldier luxuries that they had been denied during the long trip across the desert.
In an effort to cut off the Germans retreating from Montgomery’s front, General Alexander organized an attack to break through the pass at Fondouk and push eastward toward the sea. The left of the American II Corps was involved in this attack, but the entire operation was commanded by a British corps commander.37 The only American division available for participation was one that had had only sketchy training and had been involved for many weeks in protection of our line of communications, thus missing the opportunity to work together as a unit. The task assigned the American unit was a difficult one and the attack failed. A break-through was finally accomplished by British formations, but it was not particularly effective because the Germans had made good their retreat to the northward. General Sir John Crocker, the British corps commander, severely criticized to press representatives the failure of the American division, and for almost the only time during the African operations definite British-American recrimination resulted.38 It was disturbing, the more so because it was so unnecessary. With the help of Alexander, we quickly took steps to stop it. Nothing creates trouble between allies so often or so easily as unnecessary talk—particularly when it belittles one of them. A family squabble is always exaggerated beyond its true importance.
Although the out
come of this particular attack was disappointing, the rapid retreat of the Germans had the effect of shrinking the circumference of the enemy line, thus pinching out the American II Corps for employment elsewhere on the battle line.
Some discussion arose as to the suitability of the corps for participating effectively in the final battle. Alexander’s staff felt that a large portion should be sent back to the Constantine area for additional training. Admittedly some of the troops were still relatively green. However, both Patton and I were confident that the corps was now ready to act aggressively and to take an important sector in the battle line. For one thing the troops were at last angry—not only because of the rough handling they had received, but more so because of insulting and slighting comments concerning the fighting qualities of Americans, originated by German prisoners and given some circulation within the theater.
I had a personal interview with Alexander to insist upon the employment of the entire II Corps, as a unit.39 For this I had several reasons. In the first place, the bulk of the ground forces required by the Allies to defeat Germany would have to come from the United States. The need for battle training on a large scale was evident. Secondly, in all its prior battles the corps had been compelled to fight in small packets; never had it had a chance to exert its power as a unit. Thirdly, the morale of the corps had improved markedly since March 1 and it had a right to prove its own effectiveness as well as the quality of American arms.
Success would make the unit, and it would give a sense of accomplishment to the American people that they richly deserved in view of the strenuous efforts they had made thus far in the war. Out of victory participated in by both countries on a significant scale would come a sense of partnership not otherwise obtainable. The soldiers themselves were entitled to engage in an operation where for the first time conditions would favor instead of hamper and impede them. A real victory would give them a great élan for the sterner tests yet to come.
Alexander instantly concurred in my determination that the corps should be used in its entirety and as a unit. He proposed, and I agreed, that the best plan was to transfer the II Corps across the rear of the First Army and place it on the northern flank facing Bizerte. This involved a nicety in staff work in order to avoid entanglement with the British First Army’s supply lines, but Anderson’s and Patton’s staffs worked out the details so efficiently that no confusion resulted.40 It was a move that prewar staff colleges would have deemed an impossibility. But clockwork schedules and effective traffic control at crossroads characterized the whole movement.
At this time I made another change in the command of the II Corps. Major General Omar N. Bradley had reported to me in late February as an “inspector.” Aside from his outstanding personal qualifications, he had gained much experience during the March and early April fighting. The compelling reason for the change was to give General Patton the opportunity to go back to Seventh Army Headquarters and finish preparations for the Sicilian invasion, which was to take place as soon as possible after the completion of the African campaign. A second and less important reason, and the one given out, since manifestly the whole truth could not be hinted at for the moment, was that the II Corps operations would from then on feature infantry rather than tank tactics and so the change of its commander from a tank technician to an infantry expert was logical. Bradley took command on April 15, 1943, after part of the corps was already in position in the north.41
In the meantime General Montgomery continued to advance northward, until finally he pushed up to the line of Enfidaville, where he came up against a very strong enemy position which effectively blocked his further progress.42
However, the stage was now almost completely set for the final all-out effort against the enemy position. Improving weather was eagerly seized upon by the air forces to harass the enemy’s line of communications between Africa and Italy, and the Axis position grew more precarious. Under our growing air superiority our naval forces also pushed forward their bases and operations and added to the enemy’s difficulties. Our ground troops were confident and anxious to wind up the whole affair. The enemy still held some depth in the mountainous areas on his western flank, and the first move was to launch assaults calculated to drive him back to the edge of the Tunisian plain. These began on April 23, and all along the line satisfactory advances were made. Co-ordination between air and ground forces was immeasurably better than at the beginning of the campaign, and all of our assaults took place with effective aerial help. Our superiority in artillery was giving us a further advantage.43
By the time Alexander reached, on the west, the line from which he wished to launch his final thrust, it had become apparent that further attacks from the south by the Eighth Army would be costly and indecisive because of the nature of the terrain along the Enfidaville line. At the same time we confidently believed that the German would expect the main attack to be delivered by the Eighth Army, since that organization had established a brilliant reputation in its long pursuit across the Western Desert and the enemy would naturally expect us to use it for our knockout punch.
In the conviction, therefore, that the enemy would in any event keep strong forces in front of the Eighth Army, General Alexander quickly and secretly brought around from that flank several of the Eighth Army’s best divisions and attached them to the British First Army. These arrangements were completed in time to begin the final assault on May 5.44
The results were speedily decisive. On the left the American II Corps, with some detachments of French “Goumiers,” advanced magnificently through tough going and captured Bizerte on the seventh. Just to the southward the British First Army, under General Anderson, carrying out the main effort, was in Tunis at approximately the same time that the II Corps reached Bizerte.
During the final days of the Tunisian campaign two local battles in the north, one in the British sector and one in the American, gripped the interest of the entire theater. Both positions were exceedingly strong naturally and fiercely defended, and both were essential to us in our final drive for victory. The position in the British sector was Longstop—the battles for its possession from the beginning to the end of the African campaign probably cost more lives than did the fighting for any other spot in Tunisia. In the American sector the place was Hill 609, eventually captured by the 34th Division, to the intense satisfaction, particularly, of the American high command. This division had been denied opportunity for training to a greater degree than any other, and its capture of the formidable 609 was final proof that the American ground forces had come fully of age.
Following immediately upon the break-through, Alexander sent armored units of the British First Army rapidly forward across the base of the Bon Peninsula, where we believed the Germans might attempt to retreat to make a last stand in the manner of Bataan.45 Alexander’s swift action, regardless of the many thousands of enemy still fighting in confused packets along the front of the First Army, destroyed this last desperate hope of the enemy. From then on the operations were of a mopping-up variety. Some fighting continued until the twelfth but by the following day, except for a few stragglers in the mountains, the only living Germans left in Tunisia were safely within prison cages. The number of prisoners during the last week of the campaign alone reached 240,000, of which approximately 125,000 were German. Included in these captures was all that was left of the Afrika Korps and a number of other crack German and Italian units.46
Rommel himself escaped before the final debacle, apparently foreseeing the inevitable and earnestly desiring to save his own skin. The myth of his and Nazi invincibility had been completely destroyed. Von Arnim surrendered the German troops, and Field Marshal Messe, in nominal command of the whole force, surrendered the Italian contingent. When Von Arnim was brought through Algiers on his way to captivity, some members of my staff felt that I should observe the custom of bygone days and allow him to call on me.
The custom had its origin in the fact that mercenary soldiers of old had no real en
mity toward their opponents. Both sides fought for the love of a fight, out of a sense of duty or, more probably, for money. A captured commander of the eighteenth century was likely to be, for weeks or months, the honored guest of his captor. The tradition that all professional soldiers are really comrades in arms has, in tattered form, persisted to this day.
For me World War II was far too personal a thing to entertain such feelings. Daily as it progressed there grew within me the conviction that as never before in a war between many nations the forces that stood for human good and men’s rights were this time confronted by a completely evil conspiracy with which no compromise could be tolerated. Because only by the utter destruction of the Axis was a decent world possible, the war became for me a crusade in the traditional sense of that often misused word.
In this specific instance, I told my Intelligence officer, Brigadier Kenneth Strong, to get any information he possibly could out of the captured generals but that, as far as I was concerned, I was interested only in those who were not yet captured. None would be allowed to call on me. I pursued the same practice to the end of the war. Not until Field Marshal Jodl signed the surrender terms at Reims in 1945 did I ever speak to a German general, and even then my only words were that he would be held personally and completely responsible for the carrying out of the surrender terms.
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