“Get up there and give them your left shoulder. Montgomery isn’t going to horn in on my road to Tunis. Let him find his own way there.”
Angered at what he saw as Patton’s “impudence,” Montgomery ordered three battalions of tanks to swing over the open country just south of Highway 6, where they pushed back a thin screen of Tigers and raced for the city. The Germans had seven AP rounds left, in a company of an equal number of tanks, and were little more than ominous looking mobile pill boxes now, their machineguns being the only real weapon they could use. So by dusk that day, elements of 8th and 10th Armored Brigades of the 10th Division were just outside Medjez al Bab.
Not to be outdone, Patton ordered the Armored Cavalry tanks of CCA’s, 2nd Armored, to race past an outlying fort still held by the Germans, and get to Medjez al Bab come hell or high water. They would face a little of both as they advanced. First a red face British Lieutenant from 3rd RTR was spitting invectives at the troops of light M5s when they scooted right in front of his own tanks forming up for the attack.
“Look,” shouted an American Sergeant. “You’re sitting there in our goddamned Grants and Shermans. We thought you were ours, and it’s our job to scout ahead of the medium armor.” That was a convenient lie, but it was already too late to do anything much about the incident. The American Stuarts, like the old swashbuckling cavalry officer they were named for, were already in the van. “Come on after us,” shouted the Sergeant. “We’ll show you the way.” Then he whistled, rapped on the top of his M5, and it sped off in a cloud of dust.
“Bloody Americans,” said the Lieutenant. “Thought we were yours, is it? Where were you in ’41 when we had the whole war on our shoulders. Come on lads, get after them!”
It wasn’t entirely clear who the British tanks were supposed to “get after” with that order, the upstart Americans or the Germans.
The American M5’s overran the airfield near Medjez al Bab, but the Germans were deeply nested in the city, about 2 kilometers to the east. To their north, the British 43rd RTR was right on the finish line with the Americans, nose to nose. Both sides had reached the town at the same time, but neither had taken it. The British were breaking through to the north, and the US 2nd Armored was pushing past the town to the south, heading for the old Roman Road that led directly to Tunis, no more than 60 kilometers to the northeast.
The Germans held on to Medjez al Bab until the 16th of May. On the 17th Montgomery was organizing one final blow, massing his artillery to pound the city, when 2nd Armored broke through the crumbling German resistance to the south, and raced up the old Roman Road. They went all the way to Bourg Amri, the headquarters of General von Arnim, the mass of the column so great that the General took one look at it, and then sent a messenger out to seek terms. Tanks, halftracks and other vehicles were grinding past the airfield to the north and south even as he surrendered.
That breakthrough by Hell on Wheels was the decisive moment of the campaign, wide and deep on either side of the Old Roman Road. Its spearheads would find themselves no more than ten kilometers from Tunis on the night of the 17th of May, effectively cutting off Nehring’s entire command to the south. Patton was elated.
“While old Montgomery is lining up his guns to pound Medjez al Bab, my boys went right for the jugular—right down the road to Tunis. I told you I would beat that ‘gentleman’ to the punch. Now’ we’ll have those two panzer divisions south of the city in a vise, and I intend to squeeze them.”
The hour was lost.
The British 43rd Wessex Division had also pushed through an unguarded hole north of Medjez al Bab, and was driving on Bizerte, taking the vital road and rail junction at Mateur. This would cut off the 327th and 15th Infantry on the northern coast, and they now began a hasty retreat to Bizerte. General Conrath, his division largely destroyed, fled as fast as he could to that city, thinking to get himself to Sicily on a plane.
Walther Nehring had other ideas. He had been trying to get through to von Arnim on the telephone, but the lines were suddenly cut. Kesselring was in Berlin, and though Nehring did not yet know it, he was now the senior Commanding officer on the field in Tunisia. News quickly claimed that the Americans had broken through and were on the old road to Tunis, which set Nehring in motion.
His 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions had been holding the line in the south, and with the support of several Italian divisions, they had managed to stop O’Connor’s drive up the coast. Nehring knew the end was near. But he still had a fairly cohesive force, and a reputation that was already under the shadow of Hitler’s criticism. Some back home had labeled him a defeatist, so he decided that if this battle would be lost, he would try and redeem himself with one last counterattack.
Nehring got to a telegraph station and sent off a signal to Berlin. “Unable to communicate with v.Arnim. Americans breaking through to Tunis. My Korps mow moving to counterattack. – Nehring.”
The remnants of the once proud 5th Panzer Army would move north that night, a long march that would bring them to the village and airfield of Oudua, about 18 kilometers south of Tunis. When Nehring got there, he saw the last of the planes forming up on the airfield to flee from the scene. An aide ran to him.
“Herr general! There is room on that transport. It will take you to Sicily.”
Nehring could already hear the artillery of 15th Panzer opening fire on the forward flank of the American penetration around Bour Amri. “No,” he said. “My men are fighting, and so I stay here and fight with them. You go in my place, Hans. Get to OKW—that is an order—and tell them that General Walther Nehring fought with his Korps to the last.”
The man was shocked, but saluted stiffly, and then ran off into the growing chaos on the airfield. As dawn broke, a flight of three American fighters came swooping down and began strafing the field, and his plane would never get off the ground. Three planes exploded, sending dark acrid smoke up into the grey dawn, and the bright hot orange fire of the aviation fuel lit up the field.
The Germans would find 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment and give it a bruising wallop that morning, along with Company A, 1/66th Cavalry in the 2nd Armored Division. It was the last German counterattack on anything approaching a division scale level of the war in North Africa.
Just a few brief months ago, five German Panzer divisions had surged against the American lines, driving through Faid Pass to Kasserine, and on to Tebessa, where they were finally stopped by Terry Allen’s 1st Infantry Division, General George Patton, and a lot of guts. After that, the dark rain fell heavily on Rommel’s command car, and he was soon gone, off for one last gallant ride through the Syrian desert to Damascus.
The men he had fought with, von Bismarck, Fischer, Randow, von Arnim and so many others, would all soon come to the bitter end in Tunisia. Walther Nehring had never been fated to be captured there, having been posted to the Ostfront before this happened. This time, his determination to go down fighting would see him join von Arnim in an Allied prison camp for the duration of the war. That last attack, which would soon be countered by CCA of 2nd Armored, would be known as the ‘Battle of Morraghia’ the deepest penetration the Germans made on the flank of Patton’s drive. It would end at the Old Roman Road, the thoroughfare of another conquering army, so very long ago.
When Hitler received the news of the sudden collapse of the entire northern front in Tunisia, he went into a rage. Kesselring was there at the time, trying to convey the urgency of the situation in Tunisia, but to Hitler, the lines noting positions on the map were all he could see. The Hermann Goring Division was still on its front line, but Hitler did not know it had been largely destroyed by the time Kesselring arrived. The same could be said for other German divisions that suffered heavily, like the 164th Light in the center, or 327th Infantry on the north coast. To Hitler’s eye, all seemed in order. He was therefore shocked when word came, in the midst of his conference with Kesselring, that the front in the north had collapsed and a general retreat to Tunis was now underway.