Nobody could determine the source of the enemy fire. Redding deployed his three platoons to shoot at likely points. German fire soon zeroed in on the TDs and forced them to begin shifting about after firing. As the command group gathered to discuss next steps, the German fire adjusted to their location and forced the men to scatter. The incident, at least, demonstrated that the German observation post was located on a low mountain that provided line-of-sight to the location of the command group. Redding reasoned that the German mortars would be located on the reverse slope, which he had no means to engage. An attempt to maneuver the M6s into position to fire from the flank while the infantry advanced came to naught.
Help arrived in the form of a British artillery observer in a radio-equipped vehicle. His battery had not yet come into range, however, and the task force settled in to wait.
German aircraft again dive-bombed and strafed the tank destroyers repeatedly while mortar rounds pounded the position. German pilots were enjoying brilliant flying weather over their Tunisian bases, while bad weather was playing hob at Allied air bases.45 Miraculously, only one man was killed.
Shortly before dark, the battery was ready to execute fire missions. The observer had only a 1:200,000- scale French road map and did not know his own or the artillery’s position with any accuracy. The battery loosed a single round, and Redding and the observer rose to their feet to spot the impact. They quickly hit the dirt as the 5- inch shell landed only thirty feet in front of them. By the time the fire was corrected to the suspected German position, it was too dark to see or to support a planned night attack by the Surries.
The British tried valiantly anyway, but the Germans caught them on the slope with flares and badly shot up the attacking troops, who fell back. The next day, as the task force endured renewed strafing and dive-bombing attacks, the still unseen German force withdrew from the mountain.46
British troops set out to take Medjez el Bab under a bright moon the night of 24–25 November. The plan called for two battalions to simultaneously enter the town from the north and south, but the German paratroopers—now buttressed by two 88mm guns, seventeen tanks, and an Italian antitank company—threw the British back with heavy losses. At 1730 hours, Captain Redding received orders to take his TDs into Medjez el Bab to eliminate the antitank guns. Considering what had happened to the British force, the orders appear bizarre in retrospect. Even more bizarre, perhaps, is that the tank destroyers were able to enter the outskirts of town. Darkness was falling already, however, and the TDs navigated the final distance by heading toward the sound of gunfire. Redding and his men could see little more than a few fires in town and the flash of tracer rounds, and they were unable to distinguish enemy from friend. It was the Americans’ first real experience with the fog of war. Redding later noted, “Abysmal ignorance became our prime noteworthy characteristic.”
That night, while British artillery pounded the town, the Germans slipped out and withdrew to Djedeida, only ten miles from Tunis.47
When the Allies advanced again Thanksgiving Day to seize Medjez el Bab, the TDs were attached to the 2/13th Armored Regiment. The tanks passed Company C’s bivouac in the first gray light of dawn, and the TDs swung into their place in the column. Redding noted the flash of light reflecting off aircraft wings to the right front as one German and one Italian plane began a strafing run against the exposed Americans. His spirits lifted when he spotted eleven twin-boom P-38 Lightning aircraft racing toward the column—the first friendly air cover he had seen since near Beja. The Axis aircraft fled but left behind three wounded men from a Company C gun crew.
As the column pressed forward, Redding nervously eyed a large flight of Ju-88s that had appeared to the east. Suddenly, the vicious roar of aircraft cannon and machine gun fire came from the rear. Aircraft were diving at the column, pulling up, and circling to strike again. Redding and his men saw twin booms and American stars on the fuselages as the planes tore fifty feet overhead, engines snarling.
The P-38 squadron from the 14th Pursuit Group of the U.S. Twelfth Air Force raked the column five times, spitting explosive shells and bullets at men running for cover. The Lightning, its nose packed with a 20mm cannon and four .50-caliber machine guns, was if anything more terrifying than the Stuka to men on the ground in its sights. The P-38s finally pulled away, their mission apparently accomplished. Seven of the “enemy” soldiers lay dead and twelve wounded. Every vehicle in the company except for one M3 and one M6 had been knocked out, and nine of the vehicles were in flames.
The Twelfth Air Force would later admit to an official observer mission that its pilots were not well trained in ground-troop identification. The air arm noted that to a pilot in a speeding aircraft, American and German halftracks, trucks, tanks, and helmets—especially dirty ones—looked pretty much alike. The risk was high in that policy was for pilots over the front to attack any ground targets “not clearly identified” as friendly.48
The men of Company C were shocked and demoralized, and it would take Redding four days to restore his command to even minimal mission readiness. As there were no replacement vehicles, Redding set his men to exhausting work to build as many functioning tank destroyers as possible out of the wrecks. When they were finished, all but one of the M6s and one of the M3s would move under their own power (although one more M3 eventually gave up the ghost).49
While the tank destroyers were refitting, the Anglo-American advance ground to a halt following several sharp engagements. On 28 November, Captain Redding was ordered to rejoin British forces. As the company drove down the Beja–Medjez el Bab highway, enemy planes appeared in the sky. The now airwise soldiers quickly dispersed, a tactic, they had learned, that usually convinced a pilot that a strafing run was not worth the risk of being shot down.50
On 1 December, Company C was ordered to join CCB’s 6th Armored Infantry Regiment at Tebourba. The Allies were preparing another attempt to break through to Tunis, with local operations scheduled to begin at noon the next day. The TDs played virtually no direct role in the ensuing action, during which the tanks and armored doughs were badly mauled by the Germans. Inexperienced American tankers charged German antitank gun defenses and paid a steep price.
During two days of fighting, Redding’s 75mm TDs performed several indirect fire missions as artillery, the first such use of tank destroyers in combat. (The 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion had used most of its guns as artillery during an exercise in August 1942, so the idea had been in circulation for some time even though it was not part of TD doctrine.51) Redding noted, “Although little good was accomplished because of unsuitable sighting equipment, we added in a highly satisfactory fashion to the general din of battle.”52
The Allies gave ground, and by 10 December they had established a defensive line back at Medjez el Bab.
Company C was alerted the morning of 10 December while it was protecting the tank harbor of the 1/13th Armored Regiment in an olive grove near the Medjez–Tunis road. The company had been conducting daily reconnaissance missions in cooperation with the armored unit. Teams normally consisted of a two-gun TD section, a tank platoon of five M3 light tanks, a self-propelled mortar section with one halftrack-mounted 81mm mortar, and a detachment from the armored battalion reconnaissance section, probably equipped with jeeps and halftracks. The Germans patrolled the same area with similar equipment, and sharp clashes were frequent.
By now, the men had learned to meticulously camouflage their vehicles and to erase any tracks left by their passage. All movement into or out of positions took place after dark. These were the only ways available to defend effectively against the Luftwaffe.53
Reports indicated that a German armored column of fifty-five mixed vehicles was approaching. Indeed, the Germans had about thirty medium tanks and two of the massive new Mark VI Tigers in the column. A French battery brought the Germans to a halt only two miles short of Medjez el Bab. Rain had been pouring down for three days, and the panzers became temporarily bogged when they tried to maneuver around the guns. The 701st tank destroyers and Company A of the 13th Armored Regiment deployed to strike at the German flank. The light tanks of Company A also became mired, however, leaving the TDs on their own.54
Tanks to Destroy, and Guns to Do It
