With his opening moves largely unchallenged, Monty decided it was time to push on up the coast. He would soon find that he had to contend with more than the Germans. January rains can be quite heavy in Algeria and Tunisia, particularly on the coast.
With Patton determined to flank Constantine to the south and east, Monty assigned his dogged 43rd Wessex Division to take the place, attacking through Ain Kerma to the northwest. It was an old Roman town, perched high in the mountains, with sheer cliff walls of stone bridged by steel spans in places, and low stone bridges over steep defiles and gullies. Known as ‘The City of Bridges’, if the Germans decided to destroy them, they could make the place largely impassible to vehicle traffic. It had been conquered by the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs and Turks over the long centuries. Then the French came, followed by the Germans, and now the British.
The sand colored building seemed to rise from the tops of the cliffs, as if carved out of the mountains and then smoothed and sanded for human habitation. The place had been taken with little fighting in the old history, but now the Germans had moved in their 15th Infantry Division, a veteran unit that had fought in Poland, France and Russia. They had deployed in an arc about ten kilometers outside the city, blocking all the major roads through the rugged mountains.
The 43rd was advancing on Highway 2 from the west, and also coming up on Route 27 from the coast. Both roads ran along the north and south banks of a river, and there were really no suitable roads moving due east from that point to El Kantour. Everything ran up through Constantine, and Monty’s supplies would have to do so as well, so the place had to be taken.
5th Wiltshire Battalion was up early that cold morning, climbing out of their ‘funk holes’ in the damp earth and hoping there would be no more rain. They huddled about their camp fires while they got the char brewed up, a mix of tea and milk. It was bully beef as usual for breakfast, but today they got biscuits and jam as well.
“We’re moving out in an hour,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Roberts to Sergeant Knowles as he finish up a cold shave. One always had to meet the enemy looking like a proper gentleman. “No lying doggo today, Sergeant. We’ll be on the road all morning up to Constantine.”
“Very good sir. Is our lot in the van again today?”
“Of course, the fighting 5th. And I’ll want the men sharp this morning. These mountain roads can be treacherous—a perfect place for an ambush or two. I’ll want patrols out and flankers to look for Jerry as soon as we get moving.”
They would see the first 20 kilometers under foot easily enough, with no sign of the enemy. Then they reached the small village of Ebm Ziad, and the infantry began to move in, squad by squad, the men silent and cautious, expecting a fight. The Germans had abandoned that town, but found better positions in the hills just beyond it. 5th Wiltshire came right up on them, and the Lieutenant ordered an immediate attack.
Soon the harsh cut of MG fire tore through the cold mid-day air, and the pop of mortar fire punctuated the action. 4th Wiltshire Battalion was second in line under Lt Colonel Edward Luce, reaching the village in the thick of that engagement. They moved into the high ground to the south, thinking to find a way to flank the German position, and joined the attack. 4th Somerset was the last of the brigade, commanded by Brigadier George Mole, the “Mighty Mole” as the men called him, because he always had the men dig in at night whenever the division halted for the day.
That initial scrap was going to take all afternoon, for the German infantry was well positioned, with good overlapping fields of fire for their machineguns. The rest of the division was advancing to the north, with one regiment on a secondary road through Ain Kerma, and the other on Route 27. Both those roads joined about two kilometers northwest of the city, and that is where the German 106th Regiment waited on defense. Stopped by the stalwart enemy, the British would resort to their artillery in an attempt to blast the Germans from their stony fox holes.
To the south of Constantine, General Anderson’s 3rd US Division had sent its 30th regiment toward the city, but only as a screening force to allow the Allies to organize the airfield at Telergma. The other two regiments swung due east around a high spur of mountains, heading for Ain Fakrour, along the rail line from Constantine that ran down to the larger settlement of Ain Beida, and then on through Meskiana, Les Bains and eventually reaching Tebessa. That was the rail line Patton wanted to reach as soon as possible, for it had a spur that ran southwest to the town of Khlencheld, and that could be served by road from his forward depot at Batna. The rail line from Batna itself ran directly up to Constantine, and Patton smirked to Bradley as the two men rolled forward behind the long column of the 9th Infantry Division.
“Monty won’t take Constantine any time soon, which is why I need to clear that rail line from Ain Fakrour to Tebessa. I’ve got the two armored divisions on that road to Khlencheld right now, and Terry Allen is coming up on the place from the south. I think we’d better get over there, as there’s likely to be one hell of a traffic jam.”
“George, it will be a week to ten days before you can use that rail spur? How will you get rolling stock there?”
“We don’t need that. There’s a perfectly good road following that rail line. That and the hard rail bed will save us from this goddamned mud. I’ll want Allen to take his 1st Infantry due north to Ain Beida from there, while the armor continues east towards Tebessa.”
The infantry were taking the available roads around the Chott country, low depressions that were overgrown with scrub, with wadis and sand pits mixed in. The Armor would bypass the worst of it to the south, but Patton’s three infantry divisions would deploy to take that strategic rail line, with General Eddy’s 9th tasked with taking the vital road and rail hub at Ain Beida, and Terry Allen’s 1st following the armor further east towards Tebessa.
“Leave it to me, Brad. I’ll hand Ike Tebessa before Montgomery has Constantine, let alone Bone on the coast. You’ll see.”
Chapter 9
The Luftwaffe had seen what Patton was up to, and now it was time for Generalleutnant Fischer of the 10th Panzer Division to decide what to do about it. The rail line Patton wanted from Constantine to Tebessa was his watch, and he had his division strung out all along it, from Ain Fakrour in the north to Ain Beida, where he set his HQ. The bulk of his defense had been in the north, where his Panzergrenadiers had dug in through the old ruins just south of Ain Fakrour, to the fortified rail station there, and on down to the air strip at El Boughi. He had his three Panzer battalions in reserve, but when the Americans were reported massing at Khlencheld to the south, he was quite surprised.
Fischer was in a bad mood that day, possibly feeling the shadow of Death over his shoulder. If the old history had its way, he would have only a month left to live, for he had been killed when his staff car hit a mine in an unmarked Italian minefield near Mareth. The explosion would take one arm and both legs, leaving him stunned and bleeding to death. Yet he remained conscious, ordering that pen and paper be brought to him, and with is one remaining good arm, he managed to write a page and a half to his wife before he lost consciousness and died.
A man of war, he spent his last minutes with the one woman on this earth that he had truly loved, and not in giving orders to his troops as to who would take command, and what he wanted done. But he was nowhere near that hidden mine today, yet Death still had a month to lure him to his fate. Now that his enemy was doing something he had not expected, Fischer was even more grumpy.