Retreat in North Africa
While the full reorganisation to Sonderverbänd began in Germany, the decision was taken to raise Koenen’s North African force to roughly battalion strength. Kuhlmann’s coastal raider platoon, which was clearly no longer required for an attack on Malta, was to be sent to North Africa, coupled with the 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion, currently engaged in anti-partisan operations near Dorogobuzh in the Smolensk area. The men were to be immediately transferred to Germany for medical examination and inoculation to determine their fitness for tropical warfare before flying to Trapani in Sicily and then onwards to Tunisia. The existing Brandenburger presence in North Africa had already begun to withdraw westwards, when Montgomery’s heavily reinforced army launched Operation ‘Lightfoot’ on 23 October with a five-and-a-half-hour artillery barrage. Though this second battle at El Alamein would rage for nearly two weeks, it resulted in a final collapse of the Axis lines, beginning the start of a general Axis retreat from which they would ultimately not recover.
Allied forces then landed in Morocco and Algeria in Operation ‘Torch’ on 8 November 1942 and the Axis found itself fighting on two North African fronts. From Chad, General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque began his advance into Libya following the victory of El Alamein and on 16 December 1942 with 500 European and 2,700 African troops in 350 vehicles he began his move north. On 12 January 1943, he took the oasis town of Sabha and Mizdah ten days later before finally reaching Tripoli on 26 January, where he linked up with the advancing Eighth Army.
Meanwhile on 12 November, Koenen’s forces received the nomenclature ‘Tropical Abteilung von Koenen’. Kuhlmann and his men had arrived by Ju 52 transport in Tunis by 8 November and by Christmas 1942, Koenen’s forces were on coastal guard duties in Tunisia while undergoing advanced training to increase both the cohesiveness of his unit as a whole and to allow specialised training for those men who had been earmarked for further operations against Allied communications and supply lines. By 21 December, Tropical Abteilung von Koenen was declared operational.
At Koenen’s villa headquarters in the town of Hammamet south-east of Tunis, plans were made for the best method by which to accomplish fresh missions assigned to the Brandenburgers by Oberst Fritz Bayerlein, Rommel’s Chief of Staff. Their objectives were three Tunisian bridges that spanned rivers and wadis at Sidi Boubaker (Gafsa), Kasserine and Tozeur, carrying railway lines vital to Allied supply routes and which had proven impervious to Stuka attacks. Combined with the railway track itself, telephone and telegraph wires also followed this route and cutting them had the potential to cause major disruption to the Allied offensive. Tunisian topography varied between verdant date plantations, marshland, mountains and wadis, and a complicated network of roads and bridges were essential for military forces to traverse the country in strength. A US Army report of the North African campaign describes the difficulties of Allied logistical concerns in Northwest Africa.
Morocco is dominated by the Atlas Mountains … the coast line is rugged; it offers no natural harbors and strong winds cause heavy swells and surf, making landings precarious. The artificial ports of Safi, Port-Lyautey and Casablanca were essential, with Casablanca the key port. The limited railroad system consisted of a standard gauge main line … Algeria is dominated by high plateaus with steep-sided valleys and large rocky areas. Movement is principally confined to roads or railroads, except along the coastal rim. Vehicular movement from west to east is limited to the coastal road and one parallel interior route. These roads were capable of handling approximately 25-ton loads; most other roads would not handle heavy traffic even in dry weather … Tunisia, like Algeria and Morocco, presents war fighters with a challenging terrain. Cross-country movement along the coast was favorable, but in the interior, movement was confined to primitive roads through the passes. The interior was dominated by rocky alluvial plains connected by gorges and high mountains. The principal interior ranges were the western and eastern Dorsals. These dominating ranges would force operations along roads or railroads linking the towns, from north to south, of Beja, Le Kef, Thala, Kasserine and Gafsa in western Tunisia; with Mateur, Port du Fahs, Faid and Gabes in eastern Tunisia; to the critical coastal towns of Bizerte and Tunis. The main railroad and highway followed the coastline from Tunis to Algeria.2
Koenen and his officers finalised their plans. The first of three attacks was made on 27 December 1942 on the bridge at Wadi el Kbir and was led by Koenen in three DFS 230 gliders, towed by Ju 52 transport aircraft. Due to the lack of large landing sites, barbed wire was wrapped around the gliders’ skids to reduce the space required for a successful touch down. Unteroffizier Heinzel piloted the lead glider which carried Koenen, interpreter Reginald Bade and seven other men. The floor between their cramped bucket seats was filled with weapons and explosives. The remainder of the small attack force was carried in the two remaining gliders which were all airborne by midnight of Boxing Day.
Their course crossed Cape Bon and headed south towards Sfax and then Gabes, before heading west to the landing zone, the path masked by a squadron of Ju 88 bombers that accompanied their flight for a large part of the journey. However, one glider mistakenly followed the bombers beyond the planned separation point and was compelled to make a forced landing north of Sfax once their error was realised. Koenen’s assault group was now reduced to two gliders.
The remaining DFS 230s released their tows at the agreed distance from their target at approximately 0200hrs, using thermal currents from the cooling earth to drift silently towards the objective and landing on target near the clearly visible 300m bridge span. Rapidly unloading, the men took nearby cover while Koenen and Stabsfeldwebel Neumann went ahead to reconnoitre the target. It was only then that they realised that they were a glider short due to absolute radio silence having been observed while airborne. The bridge appeared deserted and virtually unguarded, the French sentries sheltering from the cold night air in and around the small station building of Sidi Boubaker.
The subsequent planting of explosives was directed by Neumann; two 8lb charges on the bridge upper works; a further 6lbs on the track at each end of the bridge; the final 160lbs in two separate charges attached to the bridge’s centre pile. A Bavarian member of the team climbed a telegraph pole and hacked down the lines with a hatchet, swearing loudly as he nearly fell to the ground with them, provoking frantic arm-waving from his commander urging him to be quiet lest he attract guards to the scene. However, all remained silent.
It was only once they had attached all the charges that the Germans realised that their fuses were still packed in the third glider. The exasperated Koenen was placated by Neumann who habitually carried several spare fuses, though only of sixty seconds duration each. While the remainder of the party retreated, three men at each explosive point simultaneously lit the fuses under Neumann’s direction and jumped into the wadi below. As Neumann himself attempted to run, his feet became entangled in the scattered telegraph wires and he fell, Feldwebel Norbert Slouka jumping from the bridge into the wadi to assist him but spraining his ankle as he did so. Neumann recovered and untangled himself to drag Slouka clear just before shattering explosions blew their bridge apart.
Koenen immediately ordered all men to rendezvous at the gliders which were then set on fire. Two men were missing but with French troops arriving on the scene there was no time to wait for them and the Brandenburgers withdrew, guided by two Arabs. The injured Slouka apparently volunteered to await the arrival of the two men and became separated from the group, never to be seen alive again.3 The escaping Germans had nearly 130km to cross and opted at first to travel by night and rest during the hours of daylight. Near dawn the following morning they had halted in a small wadi near Djebel bou Ramli when a small group of Arabs were spotted approaching their position. Koenen’s Tunisian guide made cautious contact and discovered one of the Arabs actually to be one of the missing Brandenburgers, a German Palestinian named Berger whose mastery of the language had enabled him to contact anti-French Arab
s who subsequently reunited him with Koenen. The second missing man, Hannes Feldmann, would later arrive in Gafsa six days after the attack, riding an Arab donkey and looking particularly well fed. Koenen’s men force marched for six days until finally reaching the Italian garrison at Maknassey from where they returned by truck to Hammamet. Following the success of his mission, on 1 January 1943, Friedrich von Koenen was promoted to Hauptmann.
A second Brandenburger glider attack also took off from the Bizerta airfield at the same time as Koenen’s men. Their target was a road and rail bridge northeast of Kasserine, though the raid would ultimately be a significant failure. Helmut Spaeter’s book on the Brandenburgers includes a letter written to him by one of the mission’s survivors, Willi Clormann:
For my operation: we also flew with ten men in a glider. The glider pilot was a Luftwaffe Oberleutnant from the Fliegerführers Staff in Tunis (name unknown). Operation commander was a Leutnant who came to us before the mission, Leutnant Hagenauer, Führer der Pioniergruppe nicknamed ‘Poldi’. We were supposed to have three gliders, but only ended up with two because one had to back out. In the two remaining gliders, engineers were needed primarily and so I, who was a leader of a security group, had to leave my people behind and could only take with me one man as cover for the engineers armed with an MG42 machine gun.
We landed in a different valley as planned on 26 December 1942, after being towed by Ju 52 aircraft at a height of about 2000m following violent anti-aircraft fire that made our Oberleutnant pilot throw some wild manoeuvres. The pilot broke both wrists and had to be left behind at the crate. [Arabs discovered him the next day and he was then captured by Allied troops.] We nine had a lot of trouble, our leader was heavily wounded as well as the Engineer NCO and we took them on our march with us. I had taken over leading the company, because I knew the map and the course of our planned action. We were able to orientate ourselves the same night that we landed and we were about 20km south-west of the target. During the day, we rested, tended our wounded and divided all the crates, explosive cords, ignition cables so that we could carry them in the early afternoon. At dusk, I was able to find a dromedary rider with his animal, who naturally had to take over our load. This knowledgeable guide took us in the right direction, but unfortunately he did not miss a trick and after he had already received a lot of Francs from us, betrayed us to the Frenchmen in Kasserine and was probably paid money for our heads there.4
After reaching striking distance of their target, the struggling group remained hidden by day following the Arab’s departure. Hagenauer ordered Clormann and his subordinate Obergefreiter Franz Wodjerek to move ahead independently and reconnoitre the bridge and the two men dutifully crept forward with only the essentials to study the objective through field glasses. After about two hours they heard gunfire from behind them and observed French troops moving towards their comrades’ position. The firing did not last long and it was obvious that the remainder had either been killed or captured. With little choice, the pair opted to strike out for German lines. With 180km to cover they carried only sixty-seven cigarettes, two boxes of matches, one can of the sugary drink Cola Dalma, one tin of heavily caffeinated Chocacola chocolate, and two pistols with seven bullets between them. After six days, their hunger was acute, though a sympathetic Bedouin they encountered shared couscous and chicken with them before leading them to a German outpost at Pichon. After the two gaunt and bearded men managed to convince the sceptical garrison that they were members of the Wehrmacht, they were transported back to Tunis.
Attempts to attack a pair of railway bridges between Morsott and Tebessa on 30 December by men of Fallschirm-Pionier Bataillon 11 (airborne engineers) also failed after inexperienced pilots put the Germans aground miles from their targets, resulting in their swift capture. Only the commanding officer, Oberleutnant Friedrich, and one Tunisian guide escaped captivity by jumping over the tailboard of an Allied truck as they were hauled away. However, one further Brandenburger raid was successfully mounted, on 10 January 1943 against the railway bridge over Wadi el Melah north-east of Gafsa.
Leutnant Luchs planned to take eight men for the mission, using two captured British 1.5-ton Bedford trucks, known to the Germans as ‘Flitzers’, rather than using glider assault. Travelling via the Italian outpost on the elevation Djebel el Morra, Luchs was informed by the garrison’s commander of French horsemen – Spahis, drawn from the indigenous population – and armoured vehicles near the bridge. Following a difficult journey over frequent patches of loose sand in which the trucks became periodically bogged down, they arrived to within 2km of the bridge. Leaving the remainder of his men in concealment, Luchs and Feldwebel Klima approached on foot clothed in Arab garb. They surveyed the bridge, but also spotted Spahis behind them that had discovered their tyre tracks and were approaching the concealed trucks. Quickly rejoining their men, a brief firefight followed before the Brandenburgers successfully escaped with their vehicles intact.
Rather than abandon the mission, Luchs opted to regroup at el Morra before repeating the attempt, reasoning that the French would be celebrating their victory over the foiled German raid and unlikely to expect a second attempt. In this he was correct. Retracing their path, the two trucks halted 1km from the bridge and the men disembarked to approach on foot and scout the situation, finding their target completely undefended. Returning later with one of the trucks loaded with explosives, Luchs, Klima and two others attached explosives to the central span, upper bridge works and tracks while the remaining five men fanned out to act as lookouts and provide covering fire if required. Unhindered by the enemy, they eventually drove away leaving ten-minute fuses burning behind them. Even though the captured British chemical fuses burnt slower than expected in the cold night air, turning them unexpectedly into twenty-five-minute fuses, the resultant blasts destroyed the bridge completely, a locomotive and two wagons later seen by aerial reconnaissance photos to have subsequently crashed into the wadi below.
Though the effect of these sabotage missions was negligible to the outcome of the North African campaign, they played on the nerves of Allied railwaymen. The existing French railway system in their North African territories was small and inadequate throughout. Within Tunisia, the topography arguably placed even greater demands on transport infrastructure than neighbouring regions. Though new American rolling stock was arriving in North Africa, the railway’s capacity remained limited and trains were overburdened to make the best use of what was available. Unable to effectively counter German sabotage operations, railwaymen were never sure if bridges were standing or track undamaged as they hauled their cargos without lights through the Tunisian nights.
The British too attempted a commando mission to destroy a valuable bridge still in German hands: this time a high, vulnerable, sixteen-span Roman viaduct near Bouficha over which Axis supplies were taken by rail from Bizerta and Tunis to the southern front. The bridge had withstood air attack, being heavily defended by Flak and so Operation ‘Felice I’ (sometimes called ‘Felicity’) was launched. Eight commandos led by Captain J. Eyre of the Royal Engineers were to land from submarine HMS Unbroken in four folboats, make their way inland and sabotage the span. Eyre’s second in command was Lieutenant P.M. Thomas of the Royal East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) while the remainder of the raiding group were Free French commandos.
Through the periscope, the town of Hammamet looked tired, sun-baked, empty and lazy; a cluster of white, low-roofed buildings dried up by the desert sun. As I swept the shore towards Bou Ficha where the commandos were to be disembarked, however, the scene changed. The road was alive with heavy traffic moving south. The beach was filled with patrols, marching singly with bayonets fixed, or driving backward and forward in lorries and open trucks.5
The eight commandos successfully landed on the night of 28 January. Unfortunately, men of the Küstenjäger Abteilung were watching the coast and Gefreiter Heinrich Müller detected the approach of the enemy kayaks and subsequent disembarkation of the men and their
explosives. Brief flurries of gunfire followed that raised a general alert, flares fired which illuminated the beach and kayaks and, offshore, the outline of HMS Unbroken that was still surfaced. With no option but to retreat from the area, the submarine fired a single star shell to signal their intention to the men ashore before diving away from approaching German patrol craft and returning to Malta. All eight commandos were captured.
A second landing that night in the Hammamet area was made by MTB307 that dropped Squadron-Leader Hugh Mallory-Falconer, an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire and Royal Corps of Signals officer before he had enlisted in the Royal Air Force in April 1940. Mallory-Falconer was an SOE signals officer who had been based in Gibraltar and had previously established the North African signals system for the regional SOE and OSS agents and handlers. Codenamed ‘Blue’, Mallory-Falconer and two other men were put ashore but captured almost immediately by Brandenburger men who were by that time on high alert.6
It soon became apparent to the Germans that the British officer was intended to organise resistance around Tunis and subsequent radio messages were sent masquerading as Mallory-Falconer – his headquarters radio contact comprehensively fooled by the ruse as adequate security checks had not been put in place before the disastrous landing. Reinforcements were requested by the Germans and ten Corsican agents and saboteurs were later landed by sea near Kelibia, all of them dressed in civilian clothes.
A local Abwehr officer was given the task of intercepting the scheduled landing: Major Hans-Joachim Rudloff, who had left the Brandenburg Regiment back in November 1940. Following service in Spain and the Soviet Union, Rudloff had been transferred to Tripoli in October 1942 for counter-intelligence duties. It was then that he first encountered the SD in his official capacity. The competition between the Abwehr and SD had intensified by the beginning of 1943 and the regional SD commander Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff was a particularly unpleasant man to work with. Rauff was the head of an SS Einsatzkommando that had been transferred from Athens to Tunis to implement the Third Reich’s policy against Tunisia’s Jewish population. Fortunately, conditions in the bridge-head were never conducive for Rauff to properly begin his work, not least due to outright hostility towards him and his mission from the Italian authorities. Rudloff clashed with Rauff on several occasions regarding the treatment of captured agents and commandos and fortunately it was Rudloff who was responsible for the interception of the Corsican landing party.
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