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How artillery beat Rommel after Kasserine - World War II - the Red Fox

FA Journal, May-August, 2002 by Robert C. Baldridge

Two great feats of the US Army Artillery in World War II were the February 1943 emergency forced march of the 9th Infantry Division Artillery (Div Arty) into Tunisia, North Africa, and the division's resulting victory in the battle against a German panzer division of Field Marshall Irwin Rommel at Thala Pass. Furthermore, the 9th Div Arty fought without the division's three infantry regiments present. The 9th Artillery had been too far away to help stop the crushing German breakthrough of the Allied lines near the village of Kasserine and the mountain pass there. (1) But it arrived in time to beat Rommel's forces near Thala Pass.

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The Thala Battle. Rommel's panzers had decimated the slim line of mostly American defenders in the Kasserine area--mainly the US 1st Armored, 3d Armored and 34th Infantry Divisions. The experienced Germans kept on, quickly forging ahead toward another important pass at Thala, 30 miles northwest of Kasserine. (See the map.)

The raw, untested troops of the then soundly beaten US II Corps retreated westward in an undisciplined and unorganized disarray. Officers, even colonels, made little or no effort to recover. Vehicles and ambulances were filled with the wounded and infantrymen without their equipment. All were heading west.

When questioned by the 9th Div Arty column arriving from the west, these officers and soldiers replied that they had been overrun at Kasserine by superior numbers of German tanks and infantry and that they had been ordered to retreat to try to reconstitute somewhere in the rear. (2)

By the time the Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ-Eisenhower) knew of Rommel's ferocious attack, there were no reserves nearby to throw into the defense at Kasserine. There was no uncommitted infantry or armor to call upon.

However, most of the 9th Div Arty was some 800 mountainous miles to the west at Tlemcen, Algeria. AFHQ began sending whatever combat units they could to stop Rommel from penetrating further. (3) If he got to the important supply junction at Tebessa, just across the border in Algeria, he could seriously threaten the Allies in the north and delay plans to conquer North Africa and Sicily by weeks or even months.

So, should the 9th Div Arty have been sent to fight Rommel's panzer forces without their 9th Division infantrymen? Without question, the emergency demanded it.

By the time the 9th Div Arty could get into the area, Rommel's General Baron Friedrich von Broich's 10th Panzer Division was driving hard up the road from Kasserine to Thala. (4) Only a few British infantry platoons were in position to slow the panzer tanks and infantry. Mid-February had witnessed a major disaster for the US Army at Kasserine, and another worse disaster appeared to be looming at the western passes beyond Kasserine.

The Forced March. On the morning of 17 February, the 9th Div Arty Commander, Brigadier General S. LeRoy Irwin, hurriedly received orders to move out immediately with all his available artillery (one of his 105-mm battalions was too far away at the time) plus two regimental cannon companies that were nearby. He was to "force march" to Tebessa, meaning, "Go!--and don't let anything stand in your way." By late afternoon, a long column of artillery started on its now famous trek with General Irwin commanding. (5)

Because its 155-mm howitzers were the heaviest and the slowest, the 34th Field Artillery Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William C. Westmoreland and his Executive Officer, Major Otto Kerner, Jr., led the Div Arty column. Closely following was Lieutenant Colonel Clinton Adams 60th Field Artillery Battalion and the Division Artillery's Headquarters Battery. On the way near the village of L'Arba, the column picked up Lieutenant Colonel Justin W. Stoll's 84th Field Artillery Battalion.

The column consisted of 12 155-mm, 24 105-mm and 12 75-mm howitzers mounted on half tracks and two platoons of anti-tank 37-mm guns from the two regimental cannon companies plus 36 various caliber weapons manned by British stragglers picked up along the way. The tortuous motorized column was 11 miles long and carried 2,170 officers and men in4l 1 jeeps and trucks pulling guns and maintenance equipment and supplies. This was a strong combat artillery force, one to be reckoned with--if it got there in time.

Moving slowly, but almost constantly, the column would take several hours to pass by a single point. Making only short stops for brief rests, gas and rations at depots, they made the 800 miles to Tebessa and then Thala in less than 100 hours.

The winter weather was the worst--cold and rainy in the lowland plateaus and frigid, icy and snowy in the 3,000foot high Atlas Mountains. The ancient trade roads were narrow, clay-like and slightly tilted from the middle down to the gullied sides for drainage, which caused the howitzers to slide.

At night the tight, snaky curves in the mountains made it almost impossible to see more than 20 yards ahead. Headlights were blacked out with only "cat-eye" slitted hoods. Mud in the plains and ice in the mountains covered the roads. (6) Miraculously, only two of the 9,000-pound 155-mm howitzers, pulled by big Diamond-T movers, slid off the road into the ditches or the gullies as the howitzers swung behind the trucks on curves.

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How artillery beat Rommel after Kasserine - World War II - the Red Fox

FA Journal, May-August, 2002 by Robert C. Baldridge

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