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love
dad
Sunday, February 2, 2025
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
Sunday, January 26, 2025
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
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
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
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Algiers
The politics among French generals, their jealousies
and feuds with one another, often determined the greeting
received by the Americans. How did you feel about Petain -
patriot or puppet? Did being anti-Nazi make you a traitor?
At the time, only Churchill appreciated Charles de Gaulle's
leadership talents. The Free French cause was still
only a distant rumble.
The game plan for taking Algiers was from the same
blue print used to take Oran, but hopefully without the
resulting lose of life. A destroyer packed with
Allied soldiers made a daring dash, under fire,
the length of the harbor, successfully capturing
their objective . The landed infantry were soon
surrounded, surrendering only when their
ammunition had run out.
Mistakes were made up and down the line.
No one escaped the harsh judgment of reality.
How do you feel about a game using
human lives as chess pieces?
Can you make a decision on the basis of little
knowledge and a good deal of hunch?
Under these circumstances a desk in Washington
is the preferred destination for most.
The Allied goal was to take nearby Tunis, quickly
ending the war in North Africa. Despite the sometimes
hideous cost of inexperience, the risks taken
were worth it. On the job training errors
produced fatalities. Give it a curse word
of disgust, then move on.
Success validates the cost.
The six engine Gigant provided Hitler with overnight
delivery of combat infantry and vehicles. It was a
short hop from Sicily to Tunis. German troops
were already making their presence know in Tunisia
even as the Yanks were mopping up Vichy
opposition in Algiers.
Hitler just upped the ante with these troops added
to his pile of North African poker chips.
They were a real fun bunch.
The Yanks would soon meet up with them
just down the road at a mountain pass
named Kasserine.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
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