Ironfall (Kirov Series Book 30)

by Schettler, John

  “One more thing,” said Bradley. “Terry Allen’s 1st Infantry Division fights like hell when they get at the Germans, but otherwise they run around like drunken schoolboys. I’ve had complaints from every Mayor in Algeria, and when that division moved through Tebessa, they practically razed the whole damn city. Discipline starts at the top…” Bradley let that hang there, and Patton’s eyes narrowed with this, for he was fond of Allen’s fighting spirit, and Bradley hadn’t run this one by him before voicing it like this, right before Eisenhower.

  “You’re asking me to replace Allen?” said Ike.

  “I think we ought to take a look at that,” said Bradley.

  “Now hold on here, Brad, we never discussed this.” Patton was quick into the ring on this one. “Allen’s got the kind of fire in the belly I need out here. He did a damn good job holding the line at Kasserine and Tebessa.”

  “Right, and then they tore the place apart.”

  “Come on Brad, it wasn’t that bad. Hell, I’ll personally see that anyone who suffered damage unrelated to combat gets full restitution. You’ve got to remember that fight was against Rommel, and two good Panzer Divisions.”

  “Well those troops have more than fire in the belly,” said Bradley. “They’ll sniff out a bottle of whiskey better than a bloodhound could, and half the time they just run amok. I know Allen’s as good as they come, but he doesn’t train or drill those troops any more, and frankly, the whole damn division has a big fat chip on its shoulder.”

  “Who would you want to replace Allen?” asked Eisenhower.

  “What about Huebner? He’s a straight shooter, and a damn good soldier too.”

  “George?” Eisenhower looked at Patton, always the diplomat.

  “Ike, I think we should stay with Allen. I know that division has been a little loose, but when it counts, I can rely on those sons-of-bitches to get the job done. That’s all that matters. Now I’m not one to tolerate loose discipline, but I’ll admit I’ve given the 1st Infantry a lot of latitude. Tell you what…. I can put on my war paint and scowl with the best of them. What if I hash this out with Allen after this operation? You don’t whip a dog before you put him into a fight. Once this settles down, you give me a week or two and I’ll tighten things up with the Big Red 1. This isn’t the time to relieve a man like Allen, not on the eve of battle. What do you say, Brad?”

  “George, you can scowl with the best of them, and if you think you can straighten that bunch out, be my guest. But if we do get to Tunis and Bizerte anytime soon, I don’t want 1st Infantry anywhere near them. I’d like to see both cities still standing when we get ready for the jump to Sicily.”

  “Leave it to me,” said Patton, and Eisenhower deferred any change of command pending the outcome of this new operation. Patton was correct—changing the man at the top just before a fight wasn’t the best idea, but he privately took Bradley aside and told him he would consider what he asked.

  No one knew it at the time, but this little affair was another small point of divergence, and one that would matter. Allen was supposed to go back to the States, get his face on the cover of Time Magazine in August of 1943, and then take command of the Fighting Timberwolves—the 104th Infantry, the following year. That unit would become one of the toughest and hardest fighting US divisions of the war. Allen would make sure they lived up to their motto: “Nothing can stop the Timberwolves!”

  In this history, he would never meet them.

  Chapter 11

  The plan Eisenhower had laid out was unorthodox and daring, though it was not where the Americans had hoped to attack in March. Their original plan had been to secure Ghafsa, El Guettar, and then to demonstrate to threaten Maknassay further east. It was Ryder’s meeting engagement with Rommel’s 15th Panzer Division that had unhinged plans on both sides. After that sharp check, Ryder’s 34th Infantry Division had taken up defensive positions and dug in, its advance on Ghafsa clearly not possible. But this had compelled Rommel to leave most of 15th Panzer there, while the rest of the division had to move south through Gafsa to stop the advance of the French.

  With 7th Panzer near Thelepte, and most of 21st Panzer at Kasserine, those three divisions had formed a solid defense against any move of the kind initially anticipated. Stopped at Kasserine, it was Patton’s bold shift to the northeast in the effort to reach Bou Aziz that had set up the opportunity now to be pursued in Operation Hammer. That move had forced the Germans to cover all the passes through the Western Dorsal, and this task had fallen to the 21st Panzer Division while both 7th and 15th Panzers still remained to the south. None of those passes were strongly held, except Kasserine.

  The main body of 21st Panzer remained at Kasserine Pass—four Panzergrenadier battalions and four companies of panzers. The closest pass was the Douleb Gap, about 25 kilometers NE of that force, manned by a company of pioneers and one panzer company. A similar force held further northeast at Sibiba, and the division recon and AT battalions held at Rohia, the pass closest to Bou Aziz. Once reconnaissance confirmed the passes were lightly held, Eisenhower saw his opportunity.

  The lightning strike by the 82nd Airborne was debated by Eisenhower’s staff, and General Mark Clark. Some thought the risk too high, for the Germans still had potent fighter defenses, but the plan to surge Allied fighter support was laid in, and Eisenhower eventually opted to take the risk.

  To prepare for the attack, the 34th Infantry was finally ordered to pull back and assume defensive positions screening Tebessa. This allowed Terry Allen, chastened by Patton, to deploy his 1st Division on the ridgeline opposite the Germans holding Kasserine. Allen was expected to attack that pass as part of the plan, with 1st Armored on the secondary road from Thala to the north, and Harmon’s 2nd Armored striking from Bou Aziz through the pass at Rohia.

  All the American armor had been in reserve, largely deployed on the road that Patton had used to race for Bou Aziz, and all these passes connected to it. The element of surprise could therefore be maintained until the night of the attack, when the armor would leave their reserve positions and begin to move to the passes. The transports were positioned at airfields very close to the front, Tebessa, Les Bains, Le Kouf, each to embark one regiment of the 82nd. All the artillery would be lifted from further back at El Boughi. In all there would be 9 battalions of paras dropped, with one engineer battalion and two artillery battalions.

  It would be the largest Allies airborne operation to date, a brief hop of no more than 100 kilometers from the nearest airfield at Tebessa, and the gamble would pay off handsomely. A few German fighters at the airfield east of Kasserine got up to cause a few problems, but they were quickly pounced on by the thick roving bands of Allied fighters. Ridgeway’s men largely got through intact, though three transports were shot down. Yet by dawn that day, the German supply hub at Sbeitla was completely surrounded by the 82nd Airborne Division. The only question now was whether Patton could get to them before the Germans could.

  But the new man on the scene, Walther Nehring, was shocked by the reports coming in that morning. The first was a frantic radio call saying that there were American troops at Sbeitla. He assumed it was a commando raid, until the full scale of the attack was reported twenty minutes later. Then, when von Bismarck reported that all the passes on the Western Dorsal were under heavy attack, the situation became clear, and very disconcerting. Von Bismarck’s entire division was engaged, but there was no action at all in front of Funck’s 7th Panzer Division near Thelepte. So he immediately called to order a kampfgruppe assembled and sent to Sbeitla at once.

  That would send a motorcycle recon battalion, one company of panzers down the road, through Kasserine and on to the airfield 15 kilometers northeast. There they ran into 3/509 Para battalion, which had landed and stormed that field in the predawn hours, shooting up several Stukas before the remaining planes could take off. A battery of SPG artillery and 1st Battalion of the 6th Panzergrenadiers was right behind those lead elements, and Ridgeway’s morning would start to heat up
very soon.

  Yet that move was nothing more and an expedient measure, the least Nehring could do given the shock and surprise of this attack. He was going to need something more than a kampfgruppe, and now the withdrawal of the US 34th Division would figure heavily in the outcome of this battle. It basically left 15th Panzer free in the south, and Nehring had already ordered it north the previous day, as the Italians had sent up the Littorio Division to keep an eye on the French southwest of Ghafsa.

  One look at the map told the division commander, Heinz von Randow, what the Americans were planning. Randow, like von Bismarck in the 21st Panzer, was living a charmed life. Both men had lost their lives to land mines by this time in the war, but here, they were both still alive and well. Now he saw that he could take the main road through Kasserine, following the KG sent earlier, but instead, he shifted his division onto a secondary road that led due east from Thelepte. It would swing around a ragged mountain ridge and then approach Sbeitla from due south. That was where he wanted to make his counterattack.

  No one had ordered him to do this, but the move was a typical example of how experienced German officers would exercise their own initiative and react with lightning quick reflexes in a crisis. If the Americans took the considerable risk of making this parachute attack on Sbeitla, then it was clear to Randow what they wanted to do. From that town, Highway 13 led directly to Faid Pass, continuing on to the coast at Sfax. Randow therefore wanted to interpose his division east of Sbeitla, astride that road, and also controlling the key junction at Kern’s Cross, where Highway 3 crossed Highway 13.

  The American Army had built up like water behind a great dam, he thought. Those mountain passes through the Western Dorsal are the spillways, and if that dam breaks, then they can sweep right down the valley into the coastal plain. It is an audacious plan, one that Rommel would appreciate if he were here, and I know exactly how he would move to stop it. Everything will rest on my division at the outset. I must establish a good blocking position, and then get after those paratroopers. So I will send the Pioneers and a battalion of infantry down this road and up through Kern’s Cross to cover the easternmost flank. Von Funck is already moving up through Kasserine. It’s as good a plan as we can devise for now, but we will have to watch our left, particularly at Ghafsa.

  One of the spillways had collapsed. The weight of Harmon’s 2nd Armored Division, had broken through the defense at Rohia, and now a torrent of mechanized wrath was flowing down the narrow river valley of the Hathob towards Sibiba. There the river would run almost due east and up over an arcing series of highland ridges again, a secondary levee that could become a very difficult obstacle. There was but one narrow gap in that wall of stony hills, at a place called Ket el Amar, which was being defended by the Recon Battalion of 21st Panzer.

  The Americans brought up engineers to cross the river to the southern bank, and began to organize an attack with a company of engineers, armored cav backed by Shermans. At the same time, the 157th RCT had found a track leading east north of the river where it flowed above the easternmost portion of the ridgeline, Jebel Abiod. It would be tough going, through that narrow river gorge flanked by the ridge to the south, and heavy woodland to the north, but if they could get east that way, they would eventually reach Highway 3 where it ran southwest from Fondouk towards Sbeitla. They would be joined by 1st and 4th Ranger Battalions under Colonel Darby, the best scouts they might have.

  The torrent pressed relentlessly on when Sibiba fell and the scant German defense there retreated south. CCA of 1st Armored pursued them aggressively, while CCB kept hammering its way through the Douleb Gap. Tanks would push through there, hastening along the narrow road that led down onto the valley floor. They would arrive just in time to support the hard pressed men of the 82nd Airborne, now under attack by a KG from 7th Panzer from the west, and Randow’s 15th Panzer from the south.

  The plan was working.

  By the 17th of March, the Americans had all the passes through the Western Dorsal except Kasserine, moving south and east, engaging any Germans they encountered, and flowing around these boulders in the flood, hell bent for Patton’s stated objecting—Highway 3. When the General received news that 2/82nd Recon had reached the gap at Ket el Amar, he could smell the victory he was after here, and ordered the special reserve Combat Command under Abrams to follow 2nd Armored.

  Von Bismarck was at the town of Kasserine when he learned the Americans were now well behind his position at the pass as they pushed down from the Douleb Gap and Sibiba. The KG that von Funck had sent was already dueling with tanks that were now moving to support the American paratroopers. Reports were scattered and sometimes fragmented, but a shot up Luftwaffe fighter soon landed at the airfield at Thelepte, reporting to von Funck there, and he was quickly on the phone to von Bismarck.

  “My front is stable,” he said “but the Luftwaffe says there is a massive enemy column up at Ket el Amar! It stretches all the way back to Bou Aziz! Can you stop it?”

  “Stop it?” said von Bismarck. “Most of my division is at Kasserine Pass. I’ve only got the recon battalion left up that far north, and it’s trying to fight its way out of that gap even now.”

  “Look… This is serious,” said von Funck. “Randow is moving his division up south of Sbeitla. He’s trying to set up a defense east of that town, and I think that is where we need to be now. Unfortunately, that damn American Airborne Division is blocking your retreat through Sbeitla. If you try to take the direct route, you’ll be fighting on three sides the whole way. I think you should fall back through Kasserine, and then come south to Thelepte. We can then follow the route Randow used and take the secondary road east through Bir el Hafey on Highway 3. And we have to move fast! If Randow can’t deal with the situation, the American’s will push all the way to Faid Pass.”

  “Does Nehring know about this?”

  “He must know something, but I only just learned of that big enemy column a moment ago, and right from the Luftwaffe pilot who flew that recon mission. I’ll see if I can get to Nehring and inform him, but we had better move now. I’ll need to recall my Kampfgruppe, so move quickly.”

  “This is a big move… It will mean we give everything up west of Sbeitla. What about the Italians?”

  “I’m ordering them to Ghafsa.”

  “You are ordering them? What about Nehring?”

  “I’ll confirm all this with him soon enough. Just get moving!”

  Von Funck hung up the line, realizing that he was taking a risk by precipitating this general retreat, but he instinctively knew that he could no longer hold where he was, airfields or no airfields. This was time to maneuver, not sit on objectives. He pulled on his gloves, grabbed his map satchel, and walked briskly out the door to give the orders that would set the rest of his division in motion. There were three Luftwaffe squadrons providing most of the close support at the two airfields flanking Thelepte, and he told a staff officer to get word to them immediately.

  It was a big move, the artillery going first before the front line troops. He was gratified later when the first dusty columns of von Bismarck’s troops began to arrive from Kasserine pass. He would order the KG he sent north to act as a rear guard delaying force astride the main road. Otherwise it was up to the fine art of German mobile finesse to carry off this move, a lightning quick redeployment to the east, and on a moment’s notice.

  Von Funck found a Kubelwagon and collared a driver. We could have held Kasserine and Thelepte indefinitely, he thought. But this attack over a hundred kilometers to the north has just taken them both. These Americans are smarter than we realized, bolder, more aggressive than anyone at OKW ever thought they could be. General Patton must be behind all this. There will have to be a day of reckoning with that man. He beat Rommel at his own game, putting on quite a show, and now this attack has our entire Korps running for the exits!

  Nehring was at the other airfield, but as von Funck started east, he saw him come riding up in another staff car. “What is
happening?” he said, clearly upset.

  Von Funck related everything he had learned, and told him how he advised von Bismarck.

  “You ordered all this on your own initiative?”

  “Someone had to act. Time is of the essence in a matter like this.”

  “My God! Are those von Bismarck’s troops? Very well, Herr General. You can write the report to Kesselring tonight. Understand? And when Hitler finds out that we just handed the Americans Kasserine and Thelepte, it will be your name on the order!”

  He drove off, also heading east on that same road, and von Funck gave the man a half sneer as he went. Where were you when I was running with Rommel to the French coast, he thought? Yet Nehring’s threat frightened him more than the Americans ever could. He was not in Hitler’s good graces—in fact the Führer had a particular dislike for von Funck. He had served as adjutant under another man who had fallen out of favor, Werner von Fritsch, and he later went to Spain as a liaison to Franco. Hitler seems to have painted von Funck with the same distaste he had for the Spanish leader, and barely tolerated him, only because he was said to be a highly skilled officer.

  So it was that the shift first initiated by General Randow to get east of Sbeitla, now became a general retreat of the entire southern front. Von Funck’s timely order may have been in the interest of trying to save the front line in central and southern Tunisia, but he would end up trading his career in the army for his impetuous initiative when Hitler found out what had happened. While German forces advanced everywhere else, in Iraq and the Caucasus, the report that von Funck had retreated from Kasserine, leaving the place unfought, sent the Führer into a rage. The General was recalled to Germany the following week, and OKW sent another man to Tunisia to lead the 7th Panzer Division. His name was Generalmajor Hasso von Manteuffel.