POOLSIDE FROM OUTER SPACE
love
dad
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Sbeitla
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.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Sidi Bou Zid
Sunday's Panzer beating of US forces
was done by a diversionary force and it was
not the main attack, according to Allied brass
at HQ. The real effort was yet to come further
north. That was why the commander of
1st Armored Division ordered only a battalion
size counterattack for the next morning.
50 Sherman tanks should be enough to handle
whatever lay waiting for them down the road
at Sidi Bou Zid.
Not quite. The Allied generals were deceived
by a German head fake. And the punch wasn't
going to be a jab but a roundhouse right.
Rommel intended to route the beejeebers out of the
amateur American army. He would have them
running all the way back to Casablanca.
That was the greeting Rommel had planned for
the inexperienced Yanks.
Wreckage of all sorts would become the price of
having to learn from one's mistakes.
The counterattack wasn't underway until after noon.
Chaos created by a German dive bomber attack
took two hours to straighten out.
Attacking Sidi Bou Zid was a three company
wedge of the new M4 Sherman tanks.
These were direct from Detroit, where they
would be produced by the thousands.
By contrast the Germans could manage to
produce no more than a dozen Tiger tanks
a week. They were simply too difficult to make.
Flank security was provided by these
tank destroyer halftracks, running along
side the tanks. The shells they fired weren't
designed to penetrate German tank armor.
It didn't help morale when the rounds fired
bounced useless off the enemy tank.
12:40 pm.
Steep-sided desert gullies were obstacles to
Ward's armored formation. So were the Luftwaffe
pilots, busy divebombing once again overhead.
Tanks scattered and chaos ensued. The attack
timetable was further set back. But it wouldn't
much matter. Yankee tankers would soon deal
with far bigger worries.
There isn't time to hook a howitzer to a truck
when a tank is coming. Artillery needs to move
quick, along with the tanks, on an armored battlefield.
3:15 pm
Shells coming in from German artillery hidden
behind Sidi Bou Zid. Panzer tanks, 15 of them,
spring from the village and race directly toward
the charging Shermans.
Jeeps chauffer officers. Army halftracks do
most everything else. They were a Hummer on steroids.
Here it provided the platform for antiaircraft guns.
Other times it would carry the GIs needed for
infantry tank protection. Tanks were nearly blind.
Enemy troops could easily sneak up on them and
carry out their bad intentions.
3:25 pm
14 German tanks appeared suddenly from the shadows
of Lassouda. Dive-bombers struck again.
Still more panzers appeared and joined the fray.
Nothing like disaster to clear your mind.
The Americans had fallen into a trap.
German panzer tanks waited patiently for
the American tank formation to arrive.
A battalion of Shermans charged into the teeth
of two panzer divisions. This became the live-fire
lesson plan for the day.
In two days two battalions of tanks were wiped out,
as were two artillery battalions. And two entire
infantry battalions were swallowed up by a
sea of German troops.
Americans needed a whole new game plan.
Rommel was about to blow through the door.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, February 9, 2025
happy birthday Jessicca!
LOOKS LIKE SATURDAY
APPLE PICKING
LITTLE BROTHER
CHRISTMAS
LATE NIGHT
BEST FRIENDS
EASTER
PUMPKIN PATCH
FIRST DATE
ICE CREAM
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICCA!
love
dad
good morning justin
B - 29 Tail Gun
A small door is provided for the gunner's escape hatch
if the plane suddenly plummets towards Earth.
It beats scrambling halfway down the fuselage
to find another way out.
C - 97 Stratofreighter
An early Cold War cargo plane used by the Army.
The aircraft is basically a B-29 with a different fuselage.
It was called upon to provide a quick reinforcement
capability when US and Soviet tanks confronted
one another during the Berlin crisis of 1961.
B - 17G Chin Gun
Luftwaffe pilots discovered the safest way to attack
the Flying Fortress was to fly head-on towards its front.
Their fire killed those piloting the bomber.
The solution was to add a duel .50 under the nose.
Being a B - 17 pilot became slightly less harrowing.
F - 4 Phantom
The aerial workhorse over Vietnam - both
north and south of the DMZ. Let's say
you're in a firefight too big for your resources.
You radio a call for support. Maybe mortars
from battalion is what you need. If not,
the next step up is regimental artillery or
possibly a Huey gunship. If you're still
taking a beating then keep your head down
because a Phantom is about to unleash
ordinance Hell in front of you.
F - 89 Scorpion
It's mission was to intercept enemy jet bombers.
The sooner the better. You want the speed of
twin jet engines. Dogfight ability isn't needed
to knock a lumbering bomber from the sky.
This is a dart doing nearly 650 mph.
So what's with the windshield wiper?
Everything is swept away by the wind.
B - 52 Tail Gun
The B - 29 had 4 remote control turrets for defense
but they still needed a human cramped in the back
to protect their rear. It lingered into the jet age
until technology caught up with the need.
love
dad
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 Tunisia 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
across an open plain.
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
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