The Company A party decided to cut southwest across a wadi. The men soon spotted six German tanks moving slowly toward the main clump of retreating Americans. Bereft of firepower, the men dispersed and hid in the grass. The panzers passed, and the TD men could soon hear their cannons firing.
A radio message informed Hightower of the attack. He tried to reach some of his tanks up ahead but had no luck. The colonel ordered his driver to stop, and he traversed the turret and engaged the enemy himself. Although the Sherman was struck several times, he and his crew continued to slug it out. Finally, when he had only three rounds left, a German shell penetrated the Sherman and set it on fire. Hightower escaped with his crew and made it back to American lines. He had seven tanks left. According to the men from Company A, Hightower knocked out several of the panzers and saved the column.18
The remnants of Company A also made it back to American lines. They left behind two officers killed, one officer who was both wounded and missing, five enlisted men killed, six known captured, and forty-two missing in action.
On 14 February, the 1st Armored Division operations report recorded, “Enemy tank attack started on wide front. Djebel Lessouda surrounded by more than forty tanks. Our positions held even though Djebel Ksaira surrounded by more tanks and infantry. The whole operation was supported by continuous and heavy air bombardment.” By the end of the day, American commanders realized that the Germans had broken out of Faid Pass, and that strong enemy thrusts were directed at Sidi bou Zid and out of Maizila Pass.
Combat Command A estimated that it had been hit by a tank force twice its own size. Division intelligence identified elements of the 10th, 15th, and 21st Panzer divisions and Panzer Abteilung 601 (Tigers) in the attacking force. The 15th Panzer Division was not there, and the Schwere Panzer Abteilung was actually the 501st, but the division correctly deduced that it faced a substantial portion of all German armor in North Africa.19
This was the very scenario imagined by the brain trust back in the Tank Destroyer Command. Now was the time for the tank destroyer battalions to sweep to the penetration and annihilate the panzers. There was only one problem. The companies and even platoons of the only battalions in the vicinity—the 701st, 601st, and newly arrived 805th—were scattered like thrown pebbles across the front.
Responding to battle reports during the morning hours, II Corps shifted a single company—A/805th Tank Destroyer Battalion—and an attached reconnaissance platoon from Feriana to Sbeitla.20
At 1930 hours, 1st Armored Division artillery reported that one of its officers had established contact with the 805th Tank Destroyer Battalion. They were discussing a plan for offensive operations by the outfit to back up the shaky line.21
The remnants of CCA rallied at dusk near Djebel Hamra and reorganized for the defense of Sbeitla. Allied commanders underestimated the size of the German offensive and decided to keep CCB near Fondouk. Nevertheless, in accordance with previous assessments that Gafsa could not be held against a major assault, they ordered an orderly evacuation of the town for the night of 14–15 February. The tank destroyers of B/805th had only just arrived in the vicinity on 9 February, their first deployment at the front. The TDs had taken up positions at Zannuch Station about twenty miles east of Gafsa. Almost daily, a few enemy tanks appeared at a distance and retired after exchanging a few rounds with the M3s. The company screened the evacuation of Gafsa and was the last unit to leave the town.22
Just after noon on 15 February, CCC/1st Armored Division, reinforced by the 2d Battalion of 1st Armored Regiment and led by Reconnaissance Company of the 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion, counterattacked from assembly areas northeast of Djebel Hamra in the direction of Sidi bou Zid thirteen miles away.23
Lieutenant Arthur Edson and the men of B/701st mounted their vehicles. “Glasscock, follow Milo!” Edson bellowed. The TDs would move so frequently over the next ten days—and Edson yell that order as many times—that the phrase would become a company slogan.
Combat Command C advanced through clear, dry afternoon air, raising clouds of dust behind it. Tanks took the lead. The tank destroyers of 3d Platoon, under Capt Robert Whitsit, took up position on the right flank, while Lieutenant Edson’s vehicles swung behind the center with orders to move to the left flank if needed. 1st Platoon protected the rear.
Repeated German air strikes slowed the advance. The official U.S. Army history records that one of the TD platoons was destroyed in a Stuka attack on the village of Sadaguia. If men died there, they were not from the tank destroyer force.
The tanks became engaged in a wild battle against emplaced 88s and panzers. The Germans executed a well-conceived multi-pronged envelopment, striking around the flanks toward the American rear. Whitsit’s platoon engaged German tanks that appeared on the south flank. A few moments later, a panzer column led by Tigers maneuvered to cut off escape from the north. German practice was to put a Tiger at the center of an attacking formation with lighter tanks on the wings; one flank of the formation would be stronger than the other.24 Edson ordered his M3s into action. They could see the panzers, but the only passage across an intervening wadi was blocked by a crippled American tank. The tank killers took up position under some trees and opened fire at long range. Whitsit’s TDs returned to help deal with this more serious threat.
A third German tank column appeared, and the command found itself under fire from four different directions. Fortunately, the radios worked this time, and Company B received orders to extricate itself.
All elements that were not too far forward beat a hasty retreat westward. During what the TD men would later characterize as a rout, one M6 and one jeep were abandoned. Remarkably, only one man in Company B had been hurt, a gun commander in Edson’s platoon who fell victim to a shell that burst over the hood of his M3. When the day was over, only four American tanks had returned from the inferno. The 1st Armored Division had lost an entire tank battalion.
Late on 15 February, Lieutenant General Anderson instructed II Corps to withdraw to the Western Dorsale mountain range and insure the security of Sbeitla, Kasserine, and Feriana.25 Accordingly, the 1st Armored Division gave ground, under orders from II Corps to use tank destroyers from the 701st and infantry as the rear guard. That night, LtCol John Waters was captured as his command tried to exfiltrate from Djebel Lessouda.
Delaying Actions: Sbeitla and Feriana
By 16 February, the 1st Armored Division had pulled back to Sbeitla, where it prepared to make a stand. It had already lost nearly one hundred tanks, almost two hundred men killed or wounded, and nearly one thousand men missing or captured.26
Combat Command B—with the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion (less Company C and Reconnaissance Company) in tow—rejoined the division and rushed to shore up the other battered elements gathered at Sbeitla. Combat commands A and C manned the northern half of the division’s defensive arc before Sbeitla, and CCB moved into positions to the south. Fredendall verbally ordered Ward to hold the line there at all costs until 1100 hours, 17 February, an order subsequently amended to an indefinite period. The Allies needed time to move British forces and the American 34th Infantry Division to Sbiba and Thala, northwest of the breakthrough; bring the American 9th Infantry Division’s artillery forward to support them; and concentrate the 16th Regimental Combat Team (RCT) of the 1st Infantry Division at a new line to the rear.