Somewhere in the West Point curriculum you'd think
there would be a lesson plan on how to successfully
retreat after getting your butt kicked in battle. First,
don't run away in panic. Keep your unit together
as a team with the purpose to fight again another day.
That's easy to say. You best have the character
qualities needed to make it happen.
If your a dog-faced GI like Willie and Joe in the cartoons
your job doesn't change when you lose but your attitude
definitely does. It's dark, nasty humor material.
The masterminds of this catastrophe would be probed
as to why things went so off the charts bad.
But they first had to survive this disaster.
17 February, Wednesday dawn
The panzers should be plowing into Sbeitla about now.
Instead they were responding to Yanks escaping from
the Ksaira hilltop. Intense machine gun and mortar fire,
followed up by tanks moving in, quickly brought
the Yankees' big escape episode to a close.
The panzer assault on Sbeitla resumed around noon;
too late to catch the last of the Yanks vacating the town.
The U.S. 1st Armored division was divvied up and
off in different directions. McQuillin's CCA was fortifying
itself outside Sbiba. CCB, Combat Command B, was
on the road to Thala. 1st Armored HQ was headed to
Tebessa - the nerve center of the Allied front.
Two newly constructed airbases critical to Allied defense
were now in German hands. These were Rommel's men,
the Afrika Korps, up from the coast to the south.
The first elements of Montgomery's Eighth Army were
beginning to arrive opposite the Axis fortification at Mareth.
Rommel believed a skeletal crew would be all the defense
they needed, while the Afrika Korps was off destroying
the Yanks.
Victory in Tunis meant crushing the Yankees now,
before the Axis force was overwhelmed by the
constant arrival of new American units.
Rommel figured he had a 50-50 chance to succeed.
He liked his odds.
The roads out of Sbeitla were hopelessly clogged
with supply trucks, marching troops and refugees.
The Luftwaffe dive-bombers were busy adding to
the chaos. U.S. Army engineers spent the day blowing
up immense divisional stores of fuel, ammo and supplies.
It was chaos and explosions. It felt like doomsday
to newly arrived troops. Rumors abounded
with dreadful news. Here's where the officers
needed to be seen and heard. Command and control.
Everyone needed to know someone was in charge.
The panzers entered the wrecked town of Sbeitla,
empty of its inhabitants and the American military.
It's here the highway forked. To the right the road
led to Sbiba and to the left was Kasserine pass.
There would be more than a hundred tanks
in the area by morning, if all went as planned.
Rommel cannot get past Thala, Sbiba or Tebessa.
The Allied defense was based upon availability.
Find warm bodies to fill the gaps. Improvise.
It was open tank country beyond any of those three
points. Rommel would then be up against the
greenest of Allied troops all the way to Bone, his
coastal destination. Rommel versus the Hardy Boys.
The meager Allied forces in the area couldn't
let that happen.
Rommel needed Arnim's panzers for his assault.
It took Field Marshal Kesselring's intervention
to wrest from Arnim two panzer divisions vital
to Rommel's attacks on Sbiba and Kasserine.
Arnim had a personal war going with Rommel.
This animosity would be a factor in determining
the coming battle's outcome. There were
others more important, like a critical lack of
supplies. Rommel knew all this but it wouldn't
matter.
The Germans found themselves outnumbered
and cornered. They were left with relying on
a Hail Mary pass as their only chance at winning.
Their victory was to be bright but brief.
* * * * *
OVER EASY
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