How the Yanks Fought

The first major action in Tunisia involving U.S. troops was a defeat--the setback from Faid Pass to Kasserine Pass (TIME, March 1). The second action, which ended last week, was a disappointment--the failure to make any appreciable headway in the hills near El Guettar. The third, which began last week, was downright embarrassing--the delaying of the British in the pass before Fondouk by the tardiness of U.S. troops. Out of these actions, U.S. troops have gained humility, determination, and the realization that all the fine points of war cannot be learned on training grounds.

Trouble at Fondouk. The Fondouk action afforded a sharp comparison between British and U.S. troops. The British were assigned to clear the heights to the left of the pass leading to Fondouk, the U.S. troops the heights to the right. These were important preliminaries to getting through to the coastal plain where Kairouan and perhaps some of Rommel's retreating strength could be assaulted. When the British troops reached their first objective at 7:30 the first morning, the U.S. troops had not begun to move. All day the British worked their way efficiently along their ridges; all day the U.S. troops tentatively approached but never stormed the first of their heights. Finally, though the U.S. failure to clear the right flank meant terrible losses, British tanks ran the gamut of the pass, won Fondouk, and later took Kairouan.

"The only way," said a British major general, "is to pick a single objective and hit it with all you have. This morning American infantry and tanks were spread out all over that hill, trying to take the whole hill at once. It was not a question of courage: you just can't do it that way."

Trouble at "Old Baldy." Farther south, a TIME correspondent who witnessed the junction of British and U.S. troops on the Maknassy road wrote:

"These boys had been storming these hills for three weeks, trying to get over to the coast and get in Rommel's rear, but the Germans had refused to budge until this morning when they fled before Montgomery's powerful advance. 'We tried to knock 'em off Old Baldy,' said Sergeant Vernon Mugerditchian of Waukegan, Ill., jerking his head at a rounded bare steep cliff. 'We tried first with one battalion and then another, but we just couldn't. They were lookin' down our throats.'

"These were the same boys who a month ago pushed 1,400 Italians out of Sened and took 600 prisoners. Most of them had Berretta pistols and Italian binoculars, and some of them were wearing Italian officers' silver stars. The Italians had been easy, but the Germans had been a tougher proposition, as these troops are only just finding out.

"There are a lot of other things it seems to me they've yet to find out too. A lot of the boys seem to think they're going home when the Tunisian campaign is finished. Why, I don't know, when some boys in the Eighth Army have been in Africa for years compared to their months. It seems to me that somebody back home must be feeding these boys an awful lot of stupid propaganda. It's a pity too, because guys like this who have been sluggin' away at a hill like Old Baldy for three weeks don't deserve to get wrong ideas."

A Matter of Experience. U.S. ground troops had nothing behind them but training camps and the remote and vicarious experiences of Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, New Guinea. The British troops had been tempered by Norway, France, Dunkirk, Greece, Crete, Burma, many blunders and defeats, a great deal of desert and two years against the master, Rommel. The first U.S. phase in Tunisia was a time of learning, a waking up. Said an officer attached to Lieut. General George S. Patton's II Corps: "All this will be great practice for the next show."

Units new to battle had to learn how to force missions through to completion on schedule. Junior officers had to learn to do their jobs under fire. The troops had to learn to deal with mines--U.S. units borrowed British sappers to teach them mine-spotting techniques. The men of the II Corps learned what they had often been told, but needed to be shown: that artillery barrages are not enough; the enemy must be driven from his foxholes at the point of the bayonet. They learned that some objectives call for casualties, and if the objective is worth taking, so are the casualties, cruel as they are.

One thing the U.S. troops were learning was a healthy respect for the British. Said one American who watched the action at Fondouk: "I wish that those American strategists who beef about the British in the Stork Club could have breathed the dust of this valley today."

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