The German Wehrmacht fielded two medium tanks in large numbers in North Africa, the Panzerkampfwagen III and IV. American troops invariably referred to them as the Mark III and Mark IV. The Mark III carried a 37mm or 50mm main gun and was protected by 30mm (a bit more than one inch) of steel armor. The Mark IV was fitted with a range of guns from the 50mm to the long-barreled 75mm. The latter type was initially known in Allied ranks as the “Mark IV special.” Early models of the panzer carried 50mm (two inches) of armor on the front and 30mm to 40mm on the sides and rear. Beginning in June 1942, the Wehrmacht began to add armor to vehicles in the field that increased the frontal armor to 80mm (three inches). In March 1943, the model H entered production with the frontal armor thickened to 85mm.55 The blocky Marks III and IV resembled one another closely, which accounts for the uncertain enemy vehicle identification in many American after-action reports from this period.
The Mark VI heavy tank had 100mm (four inches) of frontal armor and 80mm on the sides and rear.56 In practice, no American antitank gun fielded in North Africa could achieve a penetration of the Tiger’s armor from the front. The main gun was the fearsome 88mm high-velocity cannon.
The main medium tank used by Italian forces encountered in Tunisia was the M13/40. The vehicle mounted a 47mm high-velocity gun and was protected by armor ranging between 30mm and 9mm in thickness.57
In theory, the American 37mm gun on the M6 could penetrate up to 2.4 inches of armor (depending on the type of round fired) out to five hundred yards, and the 75mm gun on the M3 tank destroyer could penetrate three inches of face-hardened plate at one thousand yards.58 The U.S. Army claimed that the 3-inch gun on the M10 tank destroyer could penetrate four inches of face-hardened armor plate at one thousand yards. But it was not until the introduction of tungsten-core rounds late in the war that the weapon could achieve kills against that much armor from even three hundred yards.
As they had been taught, Capt Frank Redding’s crews displayed a boldly aggressive spirit and engaged the far more numerous German tanks. Redding sent his six available M3s toward the German armor and arrayed his M6s to cover his rear. The TDs remained on the road surface to avoid sinking in the muck, so to avoid bunching up, Redding sent three TDs down a side route toward Ksar Tyr.
The three crews still on the main highway soon had their hands full. A concealed 47mm gun opened fire from a patch of trees to the south of the road but missed. Staff Sergeant Matthew Dixon maneuvered his M3 into position, and his 75mm barked back. Immediately, the enemy gun and its ammunition caught fire.
Through the smoke, five or six Mark III and Mark IV tanks emerged at point-blank range. The thin armor on an M3 had no chance whatsoever of stopping a shell from the main gun on either panzer model. Staff Sergeant Louis Romani turned his halftrack toward the threat. His gunner, Pfc Herman Lenzini, fired, but the round went high. Lenzini hurriedly adjusted as German shells whistled by, and he began firing as fast as his cannoneer could load. Lenzini’s next four shots killed four Mark III tanks. The third M3 advanced to engage the remaining German tank or tanks, which had withdrawn under the murderous fire. A hidden armored car stitched the M3 with machine-gun fire, which killed the commander and two crewmen.59
A new threat emerged as a column of Mark IV tanks appeared at a bend in the road about a thousand yards distant. One of the remaining two guns drove the Germans back with hits on two of the lead tanks, while the crew of the second TD rounded up thirteen German prisoners. One gun of the second platoon on the nearby path was able to get into position to fire on the German column from the flank. It disabled three Mark III or IV tanks. Meanwhile, the light gun platoon drove off a probe to the company’s rear by two armored cars and one light tank.
During the entire action, Redding had to run from TD to TD to issue orders, the radios having been rendered useless by days of rain and little maintenance and Redding’s jeep having been sent to the rear on a supply mission.
German tanks had by now spotted the mired American light tanks and methodically shot them to pieces. The fire from the tank destroyers allowed many of the crews to dash to safety.
At 1630 hours, Redding received orders to disengage. All guns laid down heavy fire and backed down the highway.
The German column withdrew as well. The tank killers’ first encounter with German tanks had been a resounding tactical success.
Fate, however, would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As CCB—accompanied by the tank destroyers—attempted its own withdrawal under cover of darkness, the column was shelled at the bridge across the Madjerda River. The column was ordered to reverse course and proceed across country more or less in the direction from whence it had come. One by one, the vehicles became stuck in the mud and were abandoned. Later in the campaign, the 701st would encounter one of the Company C guns lost here in German service. Eventually, the entire column was immobilized, and the Americans retreated to Medjez el Bab on foot. CCB was crippled. Redding’s men, having lost all of their equipment, were assigned military police duties, where they remained until ordered back to the 701st in late January 1943.60 The armored battalion officers responsible for the fiasco were relieved of command.61
The Southern Flank: The Tunisian Task Force
Company B of the 701st had parted ways with Company C on 21 November and proceeded southeast toward Tebessa, Algeria, a frontier town of twelve hundred inhabitants at the foot of the forested Atlas Mountains.62 Waiting for their arrival was the Tunisian Task Force, a small venture consisting of the 2d Battalion of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment and French troops from the 3d Regiment of the Chasseur D’Afrique, all under the command of LtCol Edson Raff. The American paratroopers had dropped at Youks-les-Bains airfield on 15 November in order to deny its use to the Germans and to protect the flank of British-led operations to the north. The French troops on the scene had proved friendly, much to the relief of the paratroopers, who thought they might be Germans.63
Raff obtained permission from headquarters in Algiers to occupy a smaller airfield at Gafsa, a lush oasis town of ten thousand people eighty miles to the south and roughly half the distance to the coastal road that was Rommel’s only link to the German forces in Tunisia. Raff sent forty men there on 17 November. The French, who were receiving intelligence reports from coastal towns by phone, reported that a combined German-Italian force, including tanks, was advancing toward the area from the east. The defenses at Gafsa as of 20 November—a scant one hundred fifty men—had no artillery or antitank guns. Raff called for help.64
On 21 November, Raff ordered the destruction of fuel at the Gafsa airfield and pulled the elements there back to the vicinity of Youks-les-Bains, where he at least now had the support of a squadron of P-38s that had recently flown in. That morning, Company I and the antitank platoon from the 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived by air from Algiers. And just before midnight, the TDs of Company B pulled in, having completed a thousand-mile road march in seven days.65
Second Lieutenant Arthur Edson and the other tank destroyer men were tired, and their vehicles needed attention, but they were ordered to press on to Feriana, a village about halfway to Gafsa and just south of a place called Kasserine. Arriving in Feriana, the men were given one hour to sleep. At 0300 hours, Edson and the other company officers roused the men, and the company resumed its march toward Gafsa. Raff had ordered an attack at dawn on 22 November to evict a German parachute unit that had taken up residence.
At 0700 hours, P-38s strafed Gafsa and the Tunisian Task Force advanced. The tank destroyers were deployed as assault guns, and the infantry followed the halftracks—which were banging away with their 75s—into town. Lady Luck smiled, and the ‘tracks missed all of the mines that the Germans had laid at a roadblock north of town. After a bit of sniping, the German defenders slipped away.66
Raff now faced a dilemma. The French reported that enemy forces were advancing toward Feriana to his rear, and shortly thereafter a motorcycle rider roared into town to report that a French armored car was in contact with an enemy tank force at El Guettar, a dozen miles further to the southeast. Raff pulled together a tank destroyer-infantry force and rushed to El Guettar.67
Company B arrived at El Guettar about 1700 hours. The trees of the oasis were visible to the right, and the
