To make matters worse, the other two regiments of the US 45 Division had pushed up Highway 4 from Bou Aziz and taken the mountain town of Maktar. That had been the redoubt held by KG Huder, along with an independent infantry battalion, but they simply could not hold against two full regiments. This left a massive gap in the German line between Maktar and Fondouk, a distance of some 60 kilometers, and it was now screened by only three battalions.
The Germans were in desperate need of infantry.
The 164th Light had been relieved on the Mareth line by the Italian 80th La Spezia Airmobile Division, and it was the first to board the trains just north of Gabes. It would hasten north through Sfax, then turn northwest on the rail line running parallel to Highway 13, bound for Faid Pass. The armor was defending the lowland, but infantry was needed to hold the thin ridge that jutted north from Faid like a stony sword. The stronger 90th Light would be right behind it, but this would still leave nothing for that gap between Maktar and Fondouk.
At his wits end, Kesselring gave orders for the 20th and 24th Marsch Battalions to move from their positions on the northern coast. He would attempt to throw together a Kampfgruppe, ordering the Tigers on the line with the 337th Infantry to move to Maktar, and then bringing up that infantry in support. There was no place on the front that was not under some pressure, and in need of reserves that simply were not there. Nehring is correct, he knew. We should get everything back into one bridgehead in the north. Then I can call it Festung Tunis. Hitler will like that.
The Axis forces had now created two armies. Kesselring commanded 5th Panzer Army in the north, and Meese had the 1st Italian Army in the south. As the Germans predicted, the Italians had no plans to try and hold Ghafsa without direct German support. They immediately began pulling back, with one group passing through the defile at El Guettar, and another screening the secondary roads to the north of the mountain ridges in that region. The rail line ran east to Maknassi above this terrain, and the Superga Mountain Division was holding in that sector.
Without those two German infantry Divisions, the line at Mareth came under increasing pressure. O’Connor saw the German troops pull out, and then quickly ordered up the 4th Indian to back up the units he already had forward on the line. Now he reasoned that he could mass 23rd Armored Brigade and simply break through, and he was correct. Trento Motorized Division had already abandoned its positions on the high country to the west and it was motoring north, ostensibly to support the Italian positions there. The remaining three Italian divisions would not hold long. Which would soon lead to a general withdrawal towards Gabes.
In Patton’s sector, 82nd Airborne was on the road from Kern’s Cross, coming right for that town when they encountered a kampfgruppe from 15th Panzer near Lessouda. Both sides quickly started an artillery duel while Ridgeway sent out patrols to try and gauge the strength of the defense. It was found to be a full battalion of Panzergrenadiers, backed by tanks, a pioneer company, and artillery in Faid Pass. Behind it, on the first trains to arrive from Mareth, the 164th Light infantry had finally arrived. US aerial recon saw them along Highway 13, and photographed many more troops and vehicles behind the long north to south ridge line that connected Faid in the south with Sidi Faid in the north. This barrier stretched for some 30 kilometers, the last bulwark of defense before the Allies would reach the coastal plain.
The Germans had finally concentrated. Those troops were the bulk of von Bismarck’s 21st Panzer Division, with von Manteuffel’s 7th Panzer to their north holding around Sidi Faid. Patton came riding up the road along Highway 3 and came upon Task Force Abrams at El Tarig a little over 15 kilometers behind the front lines.
“Abe, what’s your situation?”
“There’s no room on the line,” said Abrams. “So Harmon told me to wait here in reserve.”
“No room?”
“Yes sir. They’ve got both 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions side by side, and things are packed in tighter than sardines in a tin. I’ve got to radio Harmon just to get permission to move east on this road.”
Patton nodded. Harmon knew what he was doing, and just looking around, he could already see the great mass of service vehicles, munitions and fuel trucks, artillery carriers and other vehicles cluttering up this rear area. But there was Abrams, as good a cavalry officer with the armor and they came, and he was just sitting. In fact, the advance thus far had been so restricted that his troops had fought only one brief engagement. He looked at his map.
“Abe,” he said. “I may have another job for you. Are your boys fueled up and ready to roll?”
“Yes sir, we’ve just been sitting here.”
“Alright, here’s what I want you to do. Middleton has two RCTs of the 45th up here, and he just took Maktar. There’s a big hole in the German lines up that way, but now the Germans are trying to plug it with some of their heavy armor—Tigers. Middleton asked me for tank support this morning, and you’ve got the job. So I want you to move back the way you came through Ket el Amar to Sibiba, and then take Route 71 north through Bou Aziz. That’s where you hang a right on Highway 4 to Maktar. Got that?”
“Yes sir. We can move right away.”
“Outstanding. I’ll square things with Harmon. You just get your tanks rolling and when you get there, give the bastards hell.”
Abrams saluted, and he was on his way.
The entire battle was becoming fluid in many places now, yet the main effort of Patton’s attack was encountering increasing difficulties. The Germans were now concentrating their three Panzer Divisions on defense near Faid, and that pass would not be taken easily. To make matters worse, the rains were bringing more misery and mud.
Patton’s order to Abrams was going to heavily reinforce the effort along Highway 4, into the weakest sector of the German position. But Abrams learned that if he moved east, along a road skirting the flanks of Djebel Kessera, that he could then push into the Ousseltia Valley, towards the Karachoum Gap and eventually Highway 3. It was a game changer that would compel the Germans to abandon their defense at Faid Pass and move rapidly north.
It would also mean that most of Southern Tunisia would simply have to be abandoned, and the Italians clearly perceived their peril, making rapid withdrawals from Gabes behind a thin rearguard. Germany had promised them Tunisia to compensate for the loss of Libya, then summarily gave them all of Southern Tunisia, but they could not hold it alone.
These developments saw the gravity of the battle shifting north. Hitler would learn of the withdrawal to Gabes, the loss of Ghafsa, the battle shifting to Faid Pass, and he was predictably angered by the situation. Yet von Arnim’s ploy would work. Kesselring would simply send a message indicating command in the south had passed to the Italian 1st Army, and that it was the Italians who ordered the withdrawals. His forces were now concentrating to secure the main bridgehead in the north, and little by little, the Allies were creeping ever closer to their old historical rendezvous with the Germans at Tunis in May of 1943.
Part V
Eisenfall
“Strike! While the Iron is hot!”