battalion gave way under overwhelming pressure.34 The informal battalion history recorded what happened next: “Confusion was king that day. There was no communication between units, no traffic control, no organization, and no order. It was every man for himself, and Heinie take the hindmost. Halftracks went sailing by jeeps as if the jeeps were standing still, and M4s tore down the road, three abreast, in chariot race style! It was a sad day for the new, inexperienced American Army.”35
Several hours later, men from the 601st were spotted passing the CCB CP. Upon questioning, they said that the battalion had been dispersed, and that they had been ordered to regroup at Kasserine. Staff officers regrouped all the TD men they could find on the spot and turned them over to Baker when he reappeared.36
The Americans held their ground at Sbeitla until 1500 hours. II Corps now ordered the 1st Armored Division to withdraw through Kasserine Pass—except for CCA, which departed northward via Sbiba. Combat Command B screened the main retreat. The remnants of the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion, supported by a company of infantry, was ordered to act as rearguard. They were nearly overrun. As German fighters strafed the retreating Americans, the 601st’s CP radio halftrack stalled. Sergeant Jagels dismounted, calmly extracted the air filter, held it up to the sunlight, and observed, “Look at the dirt in that goddamn thing!” The last American troops cleared the pass at about 0300 hours on 18 February. By its own admission, the 1st Armored Division had suffered defeat in detail.37
The 701st screened the withdrawal of CCA, with its remaining guns falling back in leap-frog fashion. When darkness fell, the command disengaged and slipped away. It lost one M3, but no men, during the action.
Rommel’s attack on Gafsa, meanwhile, had found the town abandoned, so Rommel advanced with his detachment from the Afrika Korps and some twenty-five tanks from the Italian Centauro Division toward Feriana. As of 16 February, Stark Force (built around the 26th RCT, 1st Infantry Division, commanded by Col Alexander Stark) was dug in around Feriana protecting the withdrawal of units into positions on the heights north of Thelepte.
The green 805th Tank Destroyer Battalion had moved into Feriana on 10 February,38 and its recon men quickly became the eyes and ears of Stark Force; they conducted daily patrols of likely approaches to the town. Company A had left the battalion for Sbeitla on 14 February, but Company B returned following the evacuation of Gafsa.
The battalion’s reconnaissance jeeps the morning of 16 February rolled down the road toward Gafsa, and the men noted that the usual Allied military traffic had disappeared. At 1130 hours, the patrol reported that it had sighted the enemy. Shortly thereafter, the first shells fell on a Stark Force outpost at Djebel Sidi Aich. TDs from Company B deployed beside the road to Gafsa to cover the recon team as it barreled back into Feriana.
Captain William Zierdt of Company C had deployed one TD platoon supported by a recon platoon to guard the pass leading to Feriana. A German fighter flew low over Zierdt’s position. When its pilot waved, Zierdt waved back. Weeks later, after experiencing combat and learning to fear aircraft, Zierdt would accidentally shoot down a Spitfire.39
In the early afternoon, Stark ordered Zierdt to destroy the guns that were thought to be firing on the American outpost. The company sent two platoons through the pass, but the crews could spot no guns. Stark now ordered the two platoons to take up positions along the Feriana-Gafsa highway. Unable to reach the company by radio, the battalion operations officer had to deliver the order in person.
The Company C TDs came under fire from the north, and the men became a bit excited as it was their first time in combat. The M3s engaged what the crews thought to be 75mm guns. Months of training and demonstrations for congressmen and senators while back at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, paid off, and the crews performed extremely well.40
Perhaps because they had revealed their position, the tank destroyers soon were taking fire from the rear, as well. The TDs withdrew closer to Feriana. Company B, meanwhile, spotted approaching tanks and opened fire. After a brisk fight during which two TDs were knocked out, the company pulled back somewhat on orders from Stark.
Late in the day, Colonel Stark issued orders for a counterattack the following morning. The tank destroyers were instructed to execute a flank attack from the east in support of the main effort. Inasmuchas Company C still could not be reached by radio, the instructions were passed to the battalion operations officer over a field telephone located at an outpost near the tank destroyers. Colonel Anderson Moore, meanwhile, was instructed to take elements of his 19th Engineer Combat Regiment and a battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment to Kasserine Pass and organize a defense.41
Company C mounted up at dawn on 17 February and moved out for the flank attack. The reconnaissance platoon at about 0830 reported that there were approximately fifty Italian tanks supported by 88s advancing along the highway from Gafsa. As the TDs pulled into sight of the highway, platoon commander SSgt John Spence saw German and Italian tanks and other vehicles driving bumper-to-bumper toward Feriana. There was no main American attack from the north in sight. Spence realized something had gone awry almost immediately. A few crews opened fire, but the order came almost at once in the face of such overwhelming odds: Pull back! 42
Zierdt still had no radio contact with higher command. The battalion operations officer, who was still with the company, raced to the Stark Force outpost to use the field telephone. The outpost—and its phone—were gone.
Stark had changed his mind and ordered that Feriana be abandoned. The outpost pulled out per orders, but nobody thought to tell the men of Company C. Battalion headquarters, which had had received its movement orders at 0300 hours, was unable to raise Company C by radio, so it sent a recon platoon to inform Zierdt. By the time the platoon tracked the company down, the tank killers appeared to have been surrounded.
Shortly after noon, Zierdt realized that he was almost completely encircled, so he ordered a withdrawal toward Kasserine. Gas and oil supplies were low, so he instructed vehicle commanders to destroy all faulty machines. As the halftracks, M6s, and jeeps pulled out, the enemy spotted the movement and machine-gun fire lashed the column. Recon took the lead, followed by Staff Sergeant Spence’s M3s. Soon, tank fire howled in from the west.
The recon men and Spence’s platoon returned fire to cover the rest of the column. One TD was knocked out, and several crewmembers were wounded. Almost immediately, heavy gunfire came crashing in from the east, and the other two platoons were committed. Company C had circled the wagons. The tanks to the west pulled back, evidently intending a flanking maneuver to the north.
Just as things looked hopeless, a flight of sixteen friendly aircraft strafed the enemy lines. The Germans were caught by surprise, and the fire slackened. The planes flew over the company, and each airplane waggled its wings as the flight swooped away to the north. “Look!” someone shouted, “They’re trying to show us the way!” Indeed, along the line indicated by the fighters’ flight Spence saw a cow path over a mountain that blocked the way. (The official operations report says that the planes did not attack the enemy, but Spence remembers that the air strike saved the company.)43
The Germans had recovered, so the two platoons facing east had to disengage separately under cannon fire. They were last seen heading northeast. The remainder of Company C traversed the rough high ground into the next valley. On the way across, the lead jeep tipped over and blocked the escape route; men grabbed the vehicle and righted it.
After coming under fire again near Thelepte airfield, the column turned toward Kasserine Pass. About 1515 hours, Zierdt finally reestablished radio contact with battalion headquarters, which ordered the company into positions at the foot of the pass. Company C had to borrow 75mm ammo from Sherman tank crews for its last two M3s.44 Patrols were sent out to find the missing platoons, but to no avail.
By the end of the day, Company C had lost one officer killed, seventy-four men captured or missing, and most of its vehicles.
The Allies enjoyed a bit of a respite on 18 February as German commanders argued over how to exploit their initial successes. Rommel wanted to continue his thrust deep into the Allied rear, an idea von Arnim strongly opposed. Comando Supremo late in the day split the difference and authorized a less sweeping envelopment—a maneuver that would unknowingly send the Germans into the strong Allied defenses building up in the Thala area.
