On January 24 Marshall, King, and Somervell came to Algiers to see for themselves America’s largest overseas base. Somervell brought with him the best possible news—he had five thousand trucks which he could ship to North Africa if King could provide a convoy for them. King said he could, and the gears began to grind back in the War and Navy Departments in Washington. Within three weeks the first trucks began to arrive. When the last one had been shipped, one of Somervell’s assistants at SOS cabled the news to Eisenhower. In a final sentence that summed up the amount of work involved, he declared, “If you should happen to want the Pentagon shipped over there, please try to give us about a week’s notice.”24
Marshall’s visit went well. He was glad to see and talk with Eisenhower, delighted at getting out of Washington, and anxious to see his men. Marshall had been slaving at building the U. S. Army since 1939, but this was his first opportunity to see it in the field facing the enemy. He flew to the front, then returned to spend the night in Algiers, where he and Eisenhower discussed command arrangements, strategy, and the performance of the American soldier. Marshall asked Eisenhower to have a talk with Clark and see what could be done about toning down Clark’s ambition. He also mentioned that he was putting Eisenhower in for a fourth star. Butcher noted that Marshall’s “whole attitude toward Ike was almost that of father to son.” The Chief told Butcher to see to it that Eisenhower got more rest, had a masseur who would give him a rubdown every evening, and got some horseback riding for exercise. “He may think he has had troubles so far, including Darlan,” Marshall said, “but he will have so many before this war is over that Darlan will be nothing.”25
When Butcher produced a masseur soon after, Eisenhower protested that he had no time for such nonsense. Butcher said he was acting under orders, so Eisenhower, grumbling, submitted to one rubdown. He then fired the masseur. He did let Butcher acquire a villa for him fifteen miles outside Algiers, a secluded place which overlooked the sea and provided access to a wooded area. A British officer obtained three Arab stallions for Eisenhower, and he went riding frequently.26
Shortly after Marshall left, Churchill, Brooke, and entourage arrived. The Prime Minister had been flying all over North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. He had been to Cairo, then on to Turkey, where he talked with the Turks in an effort to induce them to enter the war (this will-of-the-wisp continued until 1945, but the Turks’ price, equipment for over forty divisions, was always too high), returned to Cairo and then on to Tripoli, where he reviewed the Eighth Army.
On February 5 Churchill came to Algiers. Eisenhower had a luncheon for him, with all the leading French, British, and American personalities in the theater present. In the evening Eisenhower, Cunningham, and Churchill had dinner together. Eisenhower thought that finished his obligation, but to his dismay the Prime Minister announced that he was so pleased with the sunshine and comfortable quarters that he had decided to stay overnight. Rumors of possible assassinations abounded in Algiers, and Eisenhower did not like the responsibility.
Churchill rested and talked the next day. That evening he was supposed to fly to Gibraltar, but when he got to the airport a magneto failed on one of his motors and he had to stay yet another day. One of Eisenhower’s staff officers suspected that Churchill liked quiet, peaceful Algiers so much that he had sent one of his aides out to the airport to remove the magneto wire. On the morning of the seventh, Butcher had wakened Eisenhower to tell him the Prime Minister was still in Algiers; throwing on his clothes, Eisenhower hurried over to Cunningham’s villa to entertain the unwelcome guest. Churchill shut off the storm of protests Eisenhower raised at his remaining in Algiers by filling Eisenhower with praise. He told the general to take care of himself, that he was doing a magnificent job, that there was no one in sight who could possibly replace him except Marshall, and Marshall was needed in Washington.
Eisenhower let him run on for an hour or so. Finally the general exclaimed that, while the Prime Minister was worth two armies to the Allies when he was in London, when he was in Algiers or any other unsafe place he was just a liability. Churchill liked that. He left at noon on a happy note.27
With Churchill’s departure the last of the Casablanca visitors was gone. Eisenhower was pleased with the results. His theater would remain the center of Allied activity. With the inclusion of the Middle Eastern forces, his command would be a large one. He had Cunningham, Tedder, and Alexander under him and was confident he could work out the command structure to his satisfaction. On the Tunisian front, his forces were building. The trucks Somervell was delivering would be a great help. His talks with Marshall, Roosevelt, and Churchill had all gone well and he felt he had solid support at home, the best evidence being Marshall’s promise of a fourth star. At Casablanca De Gaulle and Giraud had taken the first step toward getting together. January had been a good month.
* Jacob spent New Year’s Eve with Eisenhower at a dinner party at Eisenhower’s villa. Jacob decided to make a small speech to cheer Eisenhower up, for “he has such an exuberant and emotional temperament that he goes up and down very easily, and a small thing like this might well have a large effect in restoring his self-confidence.” The speech went well, Jacob thought; afterward, Eisenhower played bridge. “He finished the evening at 1:30 A.M. by calling and making a grand slam vulnerable, which put the seal on his happiness.” Jacob diary, January 1, 1943.
CHAPTER 12
Kasserine Pass
War is many things, but to those who fight it is above all a learning experience. Professional soldiers cannot practice their trade in peacetime and war games are at best a poor substitute for active combat. Many soldiers feel that they can learn or teach more in one week of combat than in months of training. The process was called “blooding” the troops. It sounded harsh, but the officers who used the phrase realized that until their men had been blooded they could not fight the Wehrmacht on equal terms.
The Battle of Kasserine Pass matched veterans against neophytes. Since the German veterans had local numerical superiority, an American defeat was almost inevitable. The real problem, before and during the battle, was whether or not the Americans could prevent a tactical defeat from turning into a strategic disaster. In this they succeeded. The problem after the battle was whether or not they could learn from their mistakes. From the top to the bottom, from Eisenhower to the lowest G.I., they did. The Army—and its leader—that emerged from Kasserine was far superior to the one that went into the battle.
For Eisenhower, there was an element of frustration about the battle, for he could sense it coming and foresaw some of the results, but he could do little or nothing about it. While Rommel was moving into Tunisia, Montgomery was pausing at Tripoli to repair the port. He was a week or so behind the Germans and in the pursuit from El Alamein had failed to hurt Rommel significantly. With a prepared position waiting for him at the Mareth Line, Rommel could afford to combine his forces with Von Arnim in Tunis and strike out against Eisenhower’s forces.
“I anticipate that the enemy will continue to make a series of limited attacks in Tunisia,” Eisenhower told the CCS in early February. The Germans’ aim was to widen the bridgehead. Eisenhower ordered Anderson to concentrate his mobile forces in the south so that he could “counter any enemy move immediately,” but this was difficult because of the lack of transportation, both to get the troops near the front and to support them once there.1
On February 2 Eisenhower flew to one of his small forward airfields to have a conference with Anderson. Both men were worried because the line was thin everywhere. The major immediate threat was that the Germans would break through the passes of the Eastern Dorsal and get into the rear of the British and American forces. Eastern Tunisia is divided into two parts by the Eastern and Western Dorsals of the Atlas Mountains, which form an inverted “V” running southwest from Tunis. Eisenhower’s forces were along the line of the Eastern Dorsal; in the plain between the two dorsals the Allies had supply bases and forward airfields. If the Germa
ns could push through the passes of the Eastern Dorsal they could raise havoc in the central plain. If they could then move through the passes of the Western Dorsal, of which Kasserine was one, they could conceivably continue right on to Bône or even Algiers itself, cutting off the entire British First Army.
Von Arnim was not thinking in such ambitious terms. His attacks against the French, which had gained him the Eastern Dorsal passes at Fondouk and Faid, were designed to gain room, not to destroy the enemy. He only wanted to make sure that the Allies could not use the passes to descend on his flank or to break through to the Gulf of Gabès or Sousse and cut him off from Rommel. With Rommel moving into Tunisia, however, the Germans might be tempted to try something bigger than limited, spoiling attacks against the French.
Eisenhower was also fearful that Fredendall would strike out against the enemy and get himself and his men into a tenuous position. On February 4 Eisenhower cautioned him not to get too involved with the Germans, especially since he was not sure the American troops could handle the Wehrmacht yet. “I particularly would like to avoid, during the coming weeks, the joining of battle on terms that will result in a bitter and indecisive fight,” Eisenhower said. “My motto is to take a regiment to whip a squad, if you can get the regiment together.”
Although Eisenhower had told Marshall that he was generally satisfied with Fredendall, certain characteristics about the general bothered him. Fredendall had made some pointed cracks about the British, something Eisenhower would never stand for in his command. He warned Fredendall that “our Allies have got to be partners and not people that we view with suspicion and doubt” and reminded him that so far the Americans had done nothing to brag about. He asked Fredendall to so conduct II Corps operations “as to enhance the reputation of the American Army with the British … and create in them a confidence in our armed forces that will have a beneficial effect throughout the remainder of the war.”2
Another disturbing feature about Fredendall’s behavior was his excessive concern with the safety of his command post. American doctrine was to place command posts near crossroads and close enough to the front so that visits back and forth would be convenient. Near Tebessa, however, Fredendall had placed his command post miles to the rear and far up a canyon in a gulch that could be entered only by a narrow, twisting road constructed by his corps engineers. Down between towering mountains he had dug or blasted underground shelters for himself and his staff. Two hundred engineers worked at the project for three weeks. “Most American officers who saw this command post for the first time,” an observer later wrote, “were somewhat embarrassed, and their comments were usually caustic.”3 Fredendall rarely left it. When Eisenhower paid a visit he asked an engineer who was working on a tunnel if he had first assisted in preparing front-line defenses. A young II Corps staff officer accompanying Eisenhower spoke up: “Oh, the divisions have their own engineers for that!”4
Eisenhower tried to lead through persuasion and hints rather than direct action, and although he was worried about Fredendall’s burying himself outside Tebessa, all that he did about it was to tell Fredendall that “one of the things that gives me the most concern is the habit of some of our generals in staying too close to their command posts,” and asking him to “please watch this very, very carefully among all your subordinates.” Eisenhower then gave a brief lecture on the advantage of knowing the ground, knowledge which could come only through personal reconnaissance and impressions. Eisenhower did point out that “generals are expendable just as is any other item in an army.” The lecture did no good. Fredendall did not change his habits, and within two weeks the American forces would pay for it dearly.5
On February 12, Eisenhower left Algiers for Tebessa. His G-2 officer, British Brigadier Eric E. Mockler-Ferryman, reported that Von Arnim intended to beef up his forces with Rommel’s troops in order to make a major attack through the pass at Fondouk. This was at the dividing line for British and French troops and thus represented a weak position in the line.
Eisenhower was also worried about the II Corps, which stretched from Gafsa on the south to near Fondouk on the left flank. The corps had moved all the way south to Gafsa on Eisenhower’s orders; he later felt this was one of his major mistakes.6 He had ordered the move to protect his forward airfield at Thélepte, which was just south of Kasserine and just east of the Western Dorsal. Thélepte was the best airfield the Allies had. It lay in a well-drained sandy plain and operations from it were never interrupted by rain. Still, it could have been protected by sending small detachments to Gafsa, keeping larger formations farther to the north. As it was, holding Gafsa in strength seriously weakened other portions of the II Corps line. The situation did not seem to be serious, however, since G-2 information indicated that the German attack would come north of the II Corps line.
Eisenhower planned to spend a few days at the front to personally see to the disposition and prepare for Von Arnim’s attack. On the afternoon of February 13 Eisenhower arrived at Fredendall’s headquarters. After a talk with Anderson and Fredendall, Eisenhower left for an all-night tour of the front. He was disturbed by what he saw. The American troops were complacent. The men of the 1st Armored, 1st Infantry, and 34th Infantry were green and unblooded. They had not received intensive training in the United States, as they were among the first divisions to go to the United Kingdom in 1942. It had taken months for their equipment to catch up with them so training in England was difficult. Then they shipped out for North Africa, where operations were just active enough to prevent training but not enough to provide real battlefield experience. Officers and men alike showed the lack of training.7
Eisenhower was also upset at the disposition of the 1st Armored Division. It had been split into two major segments, Combat Command A and Combat Command B (CCA and CCB), and was incapable of operating as a unit. Anderson had insisted upon keeping CCB near Fondouk to meet the expected attack there, while CCA was to the south near Sidi-bou-Zid, just west of the Faid Pass. The division commander, Major General Orlando Ward, had practically nothing left under his own command. The problem of a split division was compounded because Fredendall had told Brigadier General Paul M. D. Robinett of CCB to keep in close touch with corps headquarters. This meant that Ward often did not know what Robinett was doing, while Robinett himself never knew whose command he was under. During the week that followed, he alternately thought he was under Eisenhower, Anderson, Fredendall, Ward, or Juin.8
In addition to all this confusion, Robinett was sure that the information Mockler-Ferryman had was wrong. When Eisenhower visited him during the night of February 13–14, Robinett said he did not expect an attack at Fondouk and pointed out to Eisenhower that his patrols had penetrated all the way across the Eastern Dorsal without encountering any major enemy build-up. Robinett said he had reported these facts to his superiors, but they did not believe him. Eisenhower did, and promised to change the dispositions the next day.9
After his talk with Robinett, Eisenhower went on to visit CCA. Everything seemed to be in order and just after midnight he went for a short walk into the desert at Sidi-bou-Zid. The moon shone on a quiet desert. Looking eastward, he could just make out the gap in the black mountain mass that was the Faid Pass. Nothing moved.
Shaking off the mood of the desert, Eisenhower returned to CCA headquarters and then returned to Tebessa. He reached Fredendall’s headquarters around 5:30 A.M. The Germans, he learned, had attacked out of Faid Pass toward Sidi-bou-Zid an hour and a half earlier.
It was said to be only a local, limited attack, however, and CCA would hold with no difficulty. Climbing into the car, Eisenhower drove back toward Constantine. He stopped along the way to visit the famous Roman ruins at Timgad and did not reach Constantine until the middle of the afternoon.
The news he received when he reached his advanced command post was bad. The German attack out of Faid turned out to be a major one. The enemy had destroyed an American tank battalion, overrun a battalion of artillery, isolated two large seg
ments of American troops, and driven CCA out of Sidi-bou-Zid back toward Sbeitla. Eisenhower immediately abandoned his plans to return to Algiers and said he would remain at Constantine until the situation was crystallized.10
For most of St. Valentine’s Day confusion reigned. Anderson still insisted that Mockler-Ferryman was right and the main attack would come at Fondouk. He refused to release Robinett’s CCB. The result was that CCA, badly outnumbered, had to try to stand off the Germans alone. Eisenhower spent most of February 14 trying to speed the flow of men and equipment to the front. His main strategic reserve was the U. S. 9th Infantry Division, but it was unable to move with any speed because he had taken its organic truck transport earlier to give to front-line units.11
Because the Allied reserves could not participate and because the inexperienced American troops could not match their German opponents, CCA suffered badly. German attacks on February 15 again drove CCA troops back with heavy losses, although the situation was so confused that Ward could report to Fredendall that night, “We might have walloped them, or they might have walloped us.” It soon became clear as to who had walloped whom. CCA had lost 98 tanks, 57 half-tracks, and 29 artillery pieces. It had, in effect, been destroyed.12
On the afternoon of February 15 Anderson telephoned Eisenhower and asked permission to evacuate Gafsa. The “very exposed southern flank,” he said, threatened the whole Allied force. He wanted to withdraw to the main ridge of the Western Dorsal, starting first in the Fondouk area. Anderson felt that holding the Western Dorsal would be impossible if the Allies lost heavily while being driven out of their positions. Eisenhower asked if First Army could launch a diversionary attack in the north to lighten the enemy pressure in the south. Anderson said no, he did not have enough resources. Eisenhower gave Anderson permission to pull back, establishing a new main line of resistance from Feriana, just south of Thélepte, to Sbeitla. He ordered Anderson to hold there at all costs, since any further withdrawal would lose the Thélepte airfields.13