Saturday, February 8, 2025

First Blood

  







Saturday 13 Feb.  1:30 pm


American flyers respond to report of enemy trucks

driving north to south just east of Faid.

The pilots strafe and bomb an estimated 100 vehicles

loaded with troops.  As a result 20 trucks are claimed

to have been destroyed.







 13 Feb. Saturday - late afternoon.


German troops begin sporadic shelling of American

troops entrenched atop Djebel Lassouda - 

a hill that guards the road to Sbeitla.  A few

short miles away a second hilltop, Djebel Ksaira,

is similarly fortified with Yanks guarding the highway.







 13 Feb:  Saturday evening


General Eisenhower came to Tebessa to survey

General Fredendall's deployment of US troops.

The commander of II Corps didn't foresee any

major action on this front.  The 1st Armored Division

was scattered about the Sbeitla plain despite

Army doctrine calling for concentrating your armored

power.  There was dissention among Fredendall's

field commanders.  For one thing he was making 

decisions without knowing the circumstance.

Only once had he even visited the frontline and

his visit there was too brief to assess the terrain.


Eisenhower was not one to interfere.

He deferred tactical decisions to his subordinates.

His commanders were picked with the expectation

they were up to the job.  He left for Constantine 

keeping his beliefs to himself.


A warning from Allied intelligence was just received.

Axis forces would attack in the morning -

Valentine's day.  The question was where.

General Anderson, the front's commander, believed

the assault would be up around Tunis.

An attack into central Tunis would be a diversion.

Very manageable.








14 Feb. Sunday 4:00 am


German forces attack Sidi Bou Zid.


5:30 am.

Upon his arrival at Constantine Eisenhower receives

news of fierce fighting around the small Arab village.

General McQuillin of Combat Command A, CCA,

reports his men are holding their own.


He counterattacks with his tanks charging.








 14 Feb. Sunday - midafternoon


Setbacks reported.

Two American infantry battalions were surrounded,

marooned on two separate hilltops near Sidi Bou Zid.

Meanwhile to the south Combat Command A was

fighting for its survival.

The quick, bold charge of tanks was easily repulsed.

The long distance guns on the Tiger tanks easily picked

off all Yankee armor before they ever got close.


Now nothing stood in the way of advancing German armor.








 14 Feb Sunday evening


Germans controlled Sidi Bou Zid.

The Americans were in retreat to Sbeitla.

Their tank battalion destroyed.

Their artillery overrun.  They'd been routed.


The two infantry battalions surrounded on the hilltops

of Lassouda and Ksaira took advantage of darkness

and attempted to escape the German noose by

slipping through enemy lines in small groups of 2 or 3. 


It was an unfair fight.

Battalions of inexperienced GIs taking on

divisions of experienced Panzer troops.

And something else was wrong.

U.S. Army armored doctrine was obsolete.

Someone needed to shake it up.



*  *  *  *  *





©  Tom Taylor







OVER  EASY



coldValentine




Sunday, February 2, 2025

good morning jacob








60 Month Financing

0 Down


It's yours







Speed:  30 mph







Capacity:  25 cubic yards 







Imagine what you can do in a day



love

   dad



coldValentine




Saturday, February 1, 2025

Faid

  







 Axis troops were being crowded into the coastal

area extending from the Mediterranean port of Bizerte 

in the north to Gabes in the south.  The Allies wanted to

use the mountain pass at Faid to strike east, dividing

the German force by capturing Sfax.


Hitler's man in North Africa, General Arnim, responded 

by sending a division of German tanks to wrest

Faid from its poorly equipped French defenders. 

Armin determined that all mountain passes leading

to the Tunisian coast would be under his control.









The Eastern Dorsal mountain range rose to over

four thousand feet at its highest and provided 

safe-haven for North Africa's Axis troops.

It was an effective fortress with its passes armed

to the teeth.  But it was only a defense.


Rommel had a plan to win.

He wouldn't stop with taking Faid but

continue west, routing the Yanks at Kasserine.

Then on to Tebessa - capturing its vast stores

of Allied tanks, trucks, ammunition, fuel and all

the other supplies Rommel would need to stock 

his major offensive.


He would drive Allied forces back into Algeria,

all the way to the Mediterranean shore.

Frankly, Rommel knew his strategy was

a long shot.  That's what he did best.

The audacious gamble.


Arnim's defense was a half-measure leading only

to ultimate defeat.







 American tankers were far better trained than

the stateside GIs that were rushed across the 

Atlantic to land on North African beaches.

Tanks of the 1st Armored Division were dispersed 

on a large plain surrounding Sidi Bou Zid.

The French at Faid made desperate pleas for their 

help.  There was no time to spare.


The American II Corps commander had other ideas.

His response would have been piecemeal at best.

It wouldn't be enough to stop the 10th Panzer Division.


Not with those Yankee Doodle tanks.

The ones engineered by Dr. Seuss.








 The Germans proved to be their own worst enemy.

They were of two minds in countering Allied strategy.

Arnim was the realist.  The resources to fuel 

a German offensive against the Allies didn't exist.

Only high risk action will save the day according

to Rommel.


You have no choice.


But there would be no unified command.

Coordination and cooperation between 

the two rival generals was grudging at best.

 Jealousies helped defeat the German effort.








 The rifleman.


Chances are he doesn't know where he is or 

where he is going.  He knows what is needed

for him to be a rifleman.  That's it. 

The perfect POW.  He knows nothing, 


Maybe you find yourself sitting in the back of a truck

one bitter cold night.  You've been going nowhere

now for three straight hours.  What's happening?

No one knows.  Don't worry about it.

It's the Army.







 American officers spent too much time being uncertain.

Where's the enemy?  What's his disposition?  

Those are standard, healthy questions.

Who's in charge?  Whose orders do I obey?

This is where military chain of command breaks down.


The American response to the conflict at Faid 

revealed fractured leadership among the top brass

at II Corps.  General Fredendall distrusted the 

reports coming from his commanders in the field.

This led to bad decision-making on everyone's part.

Opportunities were missed.  Mistakes made.

Battles lost.


There was frustration and finger-pointing

among the generals going into Kasserine.



*  *  *  *  *




©  Tom Taylor






OVER   EASY 



coldValentine







Saturday, January 25, 2025

Rommel Cornered

  







 He's a loser.  Hitler said it.

Look at what he sees.

Rommel loses at Alamein.

He's currently running from Montgomery.

And he has the audacity to contradict

his Fuhrer.


Hitler expects winning.  

No excuse for delivering less.








Rommel was a celebrity general 

with his reputation on the rocks.

He was being called back to Europe

for reasons of health.  But not just yet.


Let Rommel be Rommel one more time.

He had a plan to route the Yanks and

then turn on Montgomery, whose 

Eighth Army was currently encamped

at Tripoli.

His plan brought out the best in him-

brash confidence; a boxer with

a blinding left hook.








Rommel found a rival.  It was inevitable.

General Arnim was the new teacher's pet.

Hitler's latest golden boy had stopped the 

Allied thrust into Tunisia.

Now Arnim controlled his own German army

in North Africa.


Rommel's plan required Arnim's full support.

Support meant turning his army over to Rommel.

Arnim thought Rommel reckless.







 What a beast.  The Tiger 1 - best tank anywhere

on the globe.  Here was the blade to Rommel's

plan.  A flotilla of these tanks coming at you

at thirty miles an hour, firing all the way.

Heaven help us.


The Yankee line would look like tenpins

hit by a bowling ball.  Strike.









 Suddenly we're at war and now we need a tank.

The M3.  Not bad for a rush job.

Still these tankers were mere shooting gallery

ducks in the gunner's scope of a Tiger 1.

Definitely not a fair fight.








 The American commander of II Corps was AWOL,

secure but blind in his bunker sixty miles from

the front line.  His troops were drifting about

without instruction.  They knew how to fire their M1,

but not much more.  


Three thousand of them were silently marched off

to Nazi prison camp after Kasserine.

It was first in the string of bad news that results 

 when the wings of prayer meet unforgiving gravity.


Heads would roll.




*  *  *  *  * 






©  Tom Taylor







OVER   EASY 




coldValentine




Sunday, January 19, 2025

good morning jessicca

  



S  P  E  N  C  E  R     N  C






F A S H I O N E D     B Y     M A T H 







T H E   R O L E   O F   A   L I F E T I M E








I R O N     M I K E 








S O C I A L     C A U S E 








B U N K H O U S E








C A B O O S E



love

   dad



coldValentine




Saturday, January 18, 2025

End of the Beginning

   







 Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway,

Netherlands, Belgium, France, Greece, Crete, Russia,

North Africa - the role call of Hitler's vanquished foes 

 was a list that had an end.







 The crushing number of merchant ship sinkings

in the Atlantic by German U-boats was down.  

Better Allied sonar and radar made Nazi

submarine commander a hazardous occupation.

British breaking of Germany's Enigma code 

made finding targets for the Wolfpacks 

increasingly difficult. 


Their Happy Time was over.







 Spats on landing gear.  Quaint.

What was state of the art in 1940

looked curiously out of time by 1942.

Being successful on the battlefield 

required constant innovation by the military.


Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.


German engineers invented the exotic when

practical solutions would better serve winning.

The Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter and the V-2

rocket were both unreliable and horribly expensive

weapons systems.  Their ultimate military value

was minimal.









 The German Wehrmacht dominated opposing armies

by coordinating a tank attack with their dive-bombers

picking off targets from above.  They combined speed

with precision bombing to break through a dated

foot soldier defense.  All military cohesion crumbled

when tanks were discovered coming up from behind.

Collecting up the enemy's bewildered troops 

was left to the German infantry.


That was last year.  

The Russians, the Brits and the Yanks, were by 1942

coming around to combined arms warfare.

In turn, German forces found themselves increasingly

on the defensive.  They had lost the initiative and now,

suddenly, they were the ones reacting to their enemy's

moves.


German troops increasingly found themselves first

boxed in, then they were ground down in a contest

comparing whose weapons were more brutal.


This battle of attrition was a losing hand for the Nazis.










 Stalingrad.  

Three hundred thousand German troops, 

their entire 6th Army eliminated.  It was like

losing your queen on your third move in chess.

Hitler had already taken control of the 

Volga River, Moscow's prime route to their 

oil fields in the south.  Stalingrad was of no 

particular military value.  Hitler's ace in the hole

was Blitzkrieg, not street fighting.

Urban warfare was real close up.

Room to Room.  A grenade's throw away.

Not tanks popping you off at a thousand meters.


Then there was the loss at Alamein.

Rommel's Afrika Korps was now running from the British.

What do you know.

Nazi karma.








 The Yanks arrived in North Africa, just to the west

of Tunis.  Hitler was chortling, Come to me Baby.

He had the impression America was inept.  A joke.

For good reason.  It was obvious to the Germans,

Brits, French and Italians alike - American soldiers

were pathetic.  They made the most basic of mistakes

in infantry tactics.  Their lack of discipline made

all their other shortcomings irrelevant.


The GIs' needed Come to Jesus moment

was first provided by Rommel, who 

got their attention.

Then Patton taught them what it means

to wear that uniform.


It starts with a kick in the butt.




*  *  *  *  *





©  Tom Taylor






 OVER   EASY



coldValentine