Between 14 and 25 February 1943 the German and Italian armies in Tunisia made their last great offensive against the Allies. Fifth Panzer Army's 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions overran U.S. Combat Command A at Sidi Bou Zid, destroyed a counterattacking tank battalion and cut off two infantry battalions; the U.S. II Corps under Major General Lloyd Fredendall gave up Sbeitla, Gafsa, Fériana and the Thélepte airfields. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel then forced Kasserine Pass, held by an improvised force of engineers and infantry, and pushed toward Thala and Tébessa, but was stopped by British armor and infantry at Thala, by the massed guns of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division artillery, and by the 1st Armored Division's Combat Command B at Djebel el Hamra, and withdrew. It was the U.S. Army's first major battle against the Germans and its costliest defeat of the campaign, and its lessons reshaped American command, training and the use of armor and artillery.
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Before dawn on St Valentine's Day, out of the morning mist, two German panzer divisions of Fifth Panzer Army fall on the U.S. 1st Armored Division's Combat Command A around the village of Sidi Bou Zid. The 10th Panzer Division comes through Faid Pass: Group Gerhardt swings north-west round Djebel Lessouda while Group Reimann drives down the Faid-Sbeitla road. From Maizila Pass, some twenty miles south, the 21st Panzer Division sends Kampfgruppe Schuette north and Group Stenkhoff on a 25-mile loop through Bir el Hafey. The Americans are spread thin on isolated hills, as II Corps had directed: Lt Col John Waters' Lessouda Force on Djebel Lessouda, the 168th Infantry on Djebel Ksaira and Djebel Garet Hadid. Hightower's tank battalion goes out to meet the panzers near Poste de Lessouda and is outranged by 88-mm guns and Tigers; Stuka attacks wreck the 155-mm howitzers of the 2d Battalion, 17th Field Artillery. By about 1700 the two German pincers meet west of Sidi Bou Zid.
Combat Command A has fallen back to Djebel Hamra, thirteen miles west, after losing (by the official history's count) 44 tanks, most of its tank destroyers and nearly all its artillery; some 2,000 infantrymen are left marooned on Lessouda, Ksaira and Garet Hadid. Ordered to retake Sidi Bou Zid and relieve them, Combat Command C sends Lt Col James Alger's 2d Battalion, 1st Armored Regiment, across the flat, open plain in a formal attack, bombed and strafed on the way. Near Sidi Salem, about three miles short of the village, it runs into antitank guns and the two closing pincers, Stenkhoff from the south and Gerhardt from the north. Alger is captured when his tank is set on fire; by one account only four of his Shermans come back. Gafsa, far to the south-west, was evacuated the night before.
On the night of 15-16 February part of the Lessouda garrison slips through the German outposts: 231 men reach Djebel Hamra; Waters is among those captured. On the night of 16-17 the Ksaira and Garet Hadid groups, out of food and water, destroy their heavy weapons and walk about fifteen miles across the plain; at dawn German motorized troops catch them a few miles short of safety, and about 1,400, including Colonel Drake, are taken. 1st Armored Division makes a stand east of Sbeitla, CCA north of the road and CCB south of it; a night of panic follows, and on the afternoon of the 17th, after Gardiner's tanks ambush the 21st Panzer's lead, the Americans withdraw past the Roman ruins. In the south Rommel's Afrika Korps battle group takes Fériana and the abandoned Thélepte airfields. The Germans claimed 2,546 prisoners and 103 tanks for the four days.
Rommel now strikes for the Western Dorsal passes. At Kasserine Pass, a gap between Djebel Chambi and Djebel Semmama where the Hatab river runs toward Kasserine, Colonel Alexander Stark of the 26th Infantry takes command at 0730 of an improvised 'Stark Force' of about 2,000 men: Colonel Moore's 19th Engineers on the Tebessa-road side, the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry on the Thala-road side, with 105-mm guns, a French 75 battery and tank destroyers, behind hastily laid mines. The Afrika Korps battle group's Panzer Grenadier Regiment Afrika climbs Semmama to Hill 974 and probes the Tebessa road; five German tanks are knocked out in the minefield. Some 27 miles to the north-east, the 21st Panzer Division's thrust toward Sbiba stalls in mines and more than 100 artillery concentrations, losing 10 to 12 tanks. Rommel switches the 10th Panzer Division to Kasserine.
After a night of infiltration, the attack resumes at 0830 with Nebelwerfer rockets; Italian Bersaglieri and Centauro tanks join in. A British detachment under Lt Col A. C. Gore (eleven tanks, a motor company and guns) has come down from Thala to stiffen the line, and the 3d Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry climbs Semmama to cover the north flank. Before noon Germans get between two of Moore's companies and through the minefield. At 1630 Rommel sends 10th Panzer over Hill 974 onto the valley floor and the Afrika Korps group along the Tebessa road: the defense collapses, Gore Force is overrun, and the engineers and infantry fall back in disorder toward Djebel el Hamra and Thala, leaving guns and vehicles behind. Robinett's CCB is ordered south from Haidra toward the Tebessa road.
Beyond the pass the Axis splits. On the Thala road the 10th Panzer Division meets Brigadier Dunphie's 26th Armoured Brigade, whose light, short-gunned tanks fight a delaying action on a ridge about nine miles south of Thala, losing 15 tanks, until about 1600, then fall back behind the 2/5th Leicesters on the last ridge before the town. At about 1900 German tanks, led by a captured Valentine, follow the British through the gap and open fire from inside the infantry position; by Howe's account about 700 prisoners are taken before the fight dies down. On the Tebessa road the Afrika Korps group and Centauro are halted short of Djebel el Hamra by Robinett's CCB, its 2d Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment and the 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry blocking the Bou Chebka passes. At Sbiba the 21st Panzer goes over to the defensive.
Overnight the U.S. 9th Infantry Division artillery under Brigadier General S. LeRoy Irwin arrives at Thala after a march of more than 800 miles in four days: twelve 155-mm and twenty-four 105-mm howitzers, with 75-mm guns, are emplaced before dawn. Nickforce's tanks counterattack at first light and lose at least five, but von Broich, believing he faces a strong force, waits; his attack, postponed to the afternoon, gets nowhere under the massed guns and Allied aircraft. Near Djebel el Hamra, Panzer Grenadier Regiment Afrika seizes Hill 812 and cuts off Battery C, 33d Field Artillery; at 1600 the 3d Battalion, 16th Infantry with Company G, 13th Armored retakes the hill and the guns, and Robinett's tanks catch the 5th Bersaglieri near Hill 732. That afternoon Rommel and Kesselring agree to call off the offensive.
Comando Supremo's order to retire comes just before midnight on the 22nd. Covered by mines, demolitions and a 10th Panzer rearguard, the Axis forces are back through the pass by the forenoon of 23 February; the Afrika Korps group relieves Centauro around Fériana and Thélepte, and the 21st Panzer lets the Allies back into Sbiba after about a day. Allied pressure is cautious: Nickforce is dissolved on the evening of the 23rd, and by 1000 on 25 February General Ward is at the Tebessa-Kasserine defile and the pass is clear of the enemy; men of the 16th Infantry clear the road of mines on the 26th. U.S. losses for the battles are commonly given as more than 6,000 men and 183 tanks; the Axis lost about 2,000. Within weeks Patton replaces Fredendall in command of II Corps.
At Kasserine Pass: Tiger company with Group Reimann at Faid and Sidi Bou Zid.
Tigers of the 501st Heavy Panzer Battalion came through Faid Pass with Group Reimann on 14 February 1943, among the first Tigers to meet American troops. Their 88 mm gun outranged every Allied tank in Tunisia.
At Kasserine Pass: Long-gunned Panzer IVs in both panzer divisions.
The long-gunned Panzer IV 'Special' formed the hitting power of the 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions in Tunisia. With Panzer IIIs it caught Alger's Shermans in the open near Sidi Bou Zid on 15 February.
At Kasserine Pass: 88 mm guns used against tanks.
The German 88, designed as an anti-aircraft gun, was used in North Africa as a long-range tank killer. Group Reimann brought an 88 platoon through Faid Pass; Americans came to call almost every German gun an '88'.
At Kasserine Pass: Panzer grenadier machine guns.
Built largely from stamped steel parts, the MG 42 was cheap to make and fired so fast that its sound was often likened to ripping cloth. Its quick-change barrel let a crew keep up heavy fire, and its design lives on in postwar guns such as the MG3.
At Kasserine Pass: Standard German rifle.
A shortened, modernized descendant of the Gewehr 98, the Kar98k was the standard rifle of the German armed forces in World War II. Accurate and robust, it was produced in the millions.
At Kasserine Pass: 2nd Bn, 1st Armored Regt lost most of its Shermans on 15 February.
The Sherman was the most widely used American tank of World War II, valued for its reliability and ease of production. Specialized versions included the Duplex Drive (DD) amphibious tank and flamethrower conversions.
At Kasserine Pass: Still in 1st Armored Division service.
The tall, riveted M3 still equipped part of the 1st Armored Division in February 1943. Its hull-mounted 75 mm gun could only traverse a few degrees, so a crew had to expose the whole tank to fire it.
At Kasserine Pass: Half-track tank destroyers.
A First World War-pattern 75 mm field gun mounted on a half-track, used as a stopgap tank destroyer. Tank destroyer battalions with M3 GMCs fought at Sidi Bou Zid and Kasserine; the thin armor left crews exposed.
At Kasserine Pass: U.S. infantry rifle.
The M1 Garand was the first semi-automatic rifle adopted as a nation's standard infantry weapon. It gave the American rifleman much more firepower than a bolt-action rifle, and General George Patton called it "the greatest battle implement ever devised."
At Kasserine Pass: First combat use came in Tunisia.
The bazooka was one of the first shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons to use a shaped-charge warhead. Infantry used it against tanks and also against bunkers, gun pits and fortified buildings.
At Kasserine Pass: 105 mm howitzers of the field artillery battalions.
The M2A1, later redesignated M101A1, was the standard US light field howitzer from World War II through Vietnam. In Vietnam it was often lifted by helicopter into firebases to support air-mobile infantry.
Free for everyone every year on its anniversary: February 14–24.
Howe's Northwest Africa (U.S. Army in World War II) gives the battle at battalion and combat-command level, day by day; Blumenson and Atkinson are cited as standard accounts.
Towns, the pass and Djebel Chambi are fixed; Djebel Lessouda, Ksaira, Garet Hadid and Faid Pass were re-checked against elevation data and OpenStreetMap; Djebel el Hamra, Hill 812, the Bou Chebka passes and the Thala-road positions are placed from distances in Howe.
Routes and blocking positions follow Howe's narrative; Axis groups are drawn at the strength and route he gives.
Accounts agree on the sequence; casualty totals vary and are given as commonly cited.
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