Supreme Commander (29 page)

Eisenhower tried to lead through persuasion and hints rather than direct action, and although he was worried about Fredendall’s burying himself outside Tebessa, all that he did about it was to tell Fredendall that “one of the things that gives me the most concern is the habit of some of our generals in staying too close to their command posts,” and asking him to “please watch this very, very carefully among all your subordinates.” Eisenhower then gave a brief lecture on the advantage of knowing the ground, knowledge which could come only through personal reconnaissance and impressions. Eisenhower did point out that “generals are expendable just as is any other item in an army.” The lecture did no good. Fredendall did not change his habits, and within two weeks the American forces would pay for it dearly.
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On February 12, Eisenhower left Algiers for Tebessa. His G-2 officer, British Brigadier Eric E. Mockler-Ferryman, reported that Von Arnim intended to beef up his forces with Rommel’s troops in order to make a major attack through the pass at Fondouk. This was at the dividing line for British and French troops and thus represented a weak position in the line.

Eisenhower was also worried about the II Corps, which stretched from Gafsa on the south to near Fondouk on the left flank. The corps had moved all the way south to Gafsa on Eisenhower’s orders; he later felt this was one of his major mistakes.
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He had ordered the move to protect his forward airfield at Thélepte, which was just south of Kasserine and just east of the Western Dorsal. Thélepte was the best airfield the Allies had. It lay in a well-drained sandy plain and operations from it were never interrupted by rain. Still, it could have been protected by sending small detachments to Gafsa, keeping larger formations farther to the north. As it was, holding Gafsa in strength seriously weakened other portions of the II Corps line. The situation did not seem to be serious, however, since G-2 information indicated that the German attack would come north of the II Corps line.

Eisenhower planned to spend a few days at the front to personally see to the disposition and prepare for Von Arnim’s attack. On the afternoon of February 13 Eisenhower arrived at Fredendall’s headquarters. After a talk with Anderson and Fredendall, Eisenhower left for an all-night tour of the front. He was disturbed by what he saw. The American troops were complacent. The men of the 1st Armored, 1st Infantry, and 34th Infantry were green and unblooded. They had not received intensive training in the United States, as they were among the first divisions to go to the United Kingdom in 1942. It had taken months for their equipment to catch up with them so training in England was difficult. Then they shipped out for North Africa, where operations were just active enough to prevent training but not enough to provide real battlefield experience. Officers and men alike showed the lack of training.
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Eisenhower was also upset at the disposition of the 1st Armored Division. It had been split into two major segments, Combat Command A and Combat Command B (CCA and CCB), and was incapable of operating as a unit. Anderson had insisted upon keeping CCB near Fondouk to meet the expected attack there, while CCA was to the south near Sidi-bou-Zid, just west of the Faid Pass. The division commander, Major General Orlando Ward, had practically nothing left under his own command. The problem of a split division was compounded because Fredendall had told Brigadier General Paul M. D. Robinett of CCB to keep in close touch with corps headquarters. This meant that Ward often did not know what Robinett was doing, while Robinett himself never knew whose command he was under. During the week that followed, he alternately thought he was under Eisenhower, Anderson, Fredendall, Ward, or Juin.
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In addition to all this confusion, Robinett was sure that the information Mockler-Ferryman had was wrong. When Eisenhower visited him during the night of February 13–14, Robinett said he did not expect an attack at Fondouk and pointed out to Eisenhower that his patrols had penetrated all the way across the Eastern Dorsal without encountering any major enemy build-up. Robinett said he had reported these facts to his superiors, but they did not believe him. Eisenhower did, and promised to change the dispositions the next day.
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After his talk with Robinett, Eisenhower went on to visit CCA. Everything seemed to be in order and just after midnight he went for a short walk into the desert at Sidi-bou-Zid. The moon shone on a quiet desert. Looking eastward, he could just make out the gap in the black mountain mass that was the Faid Pass. Nothing moved.

Shaking off the mood of the desert, Eisenhower returned to CCA headquarters and then returned to Tebessa. He reached Fredendall’s headquarters around 5:30
A.M
. The Germans, he learned, had attacked out of Faid Pass toward Sidi-bou-Zid an hour and a half earlier.

It was said to be only a local, limited attack, however, and CCA would hold with no difficulty. Climbing into the car, Eisenhower drove back toward Constantine. He stopped along the way to visit the famous Roman ruins at Timgad and did not reach Constantine until the middle of the afternoon.

The news he received when he reached his advanced command post was bad. The German attack out of Faid turned out to be a major one. The enemy had destroyed an American tank battalion, overrun a battalion of artillery, isolated two large segments of American troops, and driven CCA out of Sidi-bou-Zid back toward Sbeitla. Eisenhower immediately abandoned his plans to return to Algiers and said he would remain at Constantine until the situation was crystallized.
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For most of St. Valentine’s Day confusion reigned. Anderson still insisted that Mockler-Ferryman was right and the main attack would come at Fondouk. He refused to release Robinett’s CCB. The result was that CCA, badly outnumbered, had to try to stand off the Germans alone. Eisenhower spent most of February 14 trying to speed the flow of men and equipment to the front. His main strategic reserve was the U. S. 9th Infantry Division, but it was unable to move with any speed because he had taken its organic truck transport earlier to give to front-line units.
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Because the Allied reserves could not participate and because the inexperienced American troops could not match their German opponents,
CCA suffered badly. German attacks on February 15 again drove CCA troops back with heavy losses, although the situation was so confused that Ward could report to Fredendall that night, “We might have walloped them, or they might have walloped us.” It soon became clear as to who had walloped whom. CCA had lost 98 tanks, 57 half-tracks, and 29 artillery pieces. It had, in effect, been destroyed.
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On the afternoon of February 15 Anderson telephoned Eisenhower and asked permission to evacuate Gafsa. The “very exposed southern flank,” he said, threatened the whole Allied force. He wanted to withdraw to the main ridge of the Western Dorsal, starting first in the Fondouk area. Anderson felt that holding the Western Dorsal would be impossible if the Allies lost heavily while being driven out of their positions. Eisenhower asked if First Army could launch a diversionary attack in the north to lighten the enemy pressure in the south. Anderson said no, he did not have enough resources. Eisenhower gave Anderson permission to pull back, establishing a new main line of resistance from Feriana, just south of Thélepte, to Sbeitla. He ordered Anderson to hold there at all costs, since any further withdrawal would lose the Thélepte airfields.
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Eisenhower had, in short, given up the plain between the two Dorsals and established his troops along the eastern slope of the Western Dorsal. If the Germans could force a breakthrough they would not only get the Thélepte airfields but, more important, would be through the last major barrier between them and the great Allied supply base at Le Kef. Beyond Le Kef, Bone and even Algiers itself were possible targets. The Germans could begin to think in terms of turning a tactical advantage into a strategic triumph. They might even destroy the II Corps and isolate First Army, thereby reversing the entire position in North Africa. If all went well, the Germans could accomplish their objectives before Montgomery got up to the Mareth Line; by the time he arrived, Rommel and Von Arnim could combine their forces and concentrate on him.

There were many “ifs” involved, undoubtedly too many, but Rommel had pulled off miracles before, and Rommel was directing this attack. Fortunately for the Allies, however, the German command situation was as muddled as theirs. Rommel and Von Arnim operated, to all intents and purposes, independently. Von Arnim wanted to confine himself to limited attacks, one of which would hit Fondouk. Rommel was after much bigger things. But Von Arnim was a vain, ambitious man who refused to co-operate. Higher headquarters had ordered him to give his best Panzer division, the 10th, to Rommel for the attack, but he had stalled and it was not committed. In a way, however, this helped Rommel,
for as long as the 10th Panzer was not engaged the Allies felt they had to keep their strongest mobile reserves, CCB, in the north.
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Despite the threat to the Allies, there was no panic at higher headquarters. Anderson was sure Rommel lacked the necessary supplies for a breakthrough all the way to the Mediterranean coast. The enemy would have to succeed quickly, if at all, because Montgomery was coming up on his rear. Anderson wanted to let the Germans expend their energy in a short-term offensive, then counterattack. Eisenhower agreed.

The evening of February 15 Eisenhower reported to Marshall. After giving a realistic presentation of the situation and saying that he intended to “strain every nerve” to hold Thélepte, he discussed the long-range significance of the battle then in progress. “Our soldiers are learning rapidly,” he said, “and while I still believe that many of the lessons we are forced to learn at the cost of lives could be learned at home, I assure you that the troops that come out of this campaign are going to be battle wise and tactically efficient.”
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The first two days of the battle Eisenhower carried a heavy load of work. Smith was in Tripoli seeing Montgomery, Clark was sick, and Alexander and Tedder had not assumed their commands. “I was really busy!” Eisenhower later told Marshall.
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He got the 9th Division artillery started on a 735-mile march for the battlefield, stripped the 2d Armored and 3d Infantry of equipment to send to Fredendall, and cannibalized other units then in training for the invasion of Sicily in order to get trucks, tanks, weapons, and ammunition to the Western Dorsal.
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On February 16 he ordered infantry, anti-tank guns, trucks, and even tanks from CCA sent south to beef up the line. He also told Fredendall “that every position to be held must be organized to max. extent—at once—mines, etc.
Emphasize reconnaissance
.”
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While the battle around the Western Dorsal raged, Eisenhower had to deal with a serious personnel problem. Fredendall and his subordinates were at loggerheads. Robinett charged that no one at II Corps was co-ordinating the units in the field, no one knew what unit boundaries had been assigned, no one knew who was on the flanks or in support, no one was co-ordinating defensive fire or providing military police in the rear areas, and the piecemeal commitment of small units was causing great confusion.
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Ward was even angrier at Fredendall for splitting his division and for his interference with the commanders of CCA and CCB.

For his part, Fredendall wired Eisenhower on February 19, “At present time, 1st Armored in bad state of disorganization. Ward appears tired out, worried and has informed me that to bring new tanks in would be the
same as turning them over to the Germans. Under the circumstances do not think he should continue in command.… Need someone with two fists immediately.”
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The situation was nearly intolerable. Eisenhower could try to patch things up, relieve Fredendall, or relieve all of Fredendall’s subordinates. The last alternative was hardly feasible, and Eisenhower did not want to relieve Fredendall in the middle of a battle. Later in the war, when more was at stake and he had more confidence in himself, he would relieve commanders at the first sign of uncertainty in battle, and Fredendall had already shown many signs of uncertainty. But Fredendall was Marshall’s personal selection and Eisenhower had not yet relieved any officers so he had no precedent. He decided to try to patch things up. He sent Major General Ernest N. Harmon, commander of the 2d Armored Division, to II Corps headquarters. Fredendall could use him in any way that he saw fit. Eisenhower wanted Ward left in command of 1st Armored.
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An hour or so later Eisenhower did ask for the relief of one of his staff officers. He decided that Mockler-Ferryman was too wedded to one type of information, had ignored too much evidence about the build-up around Sidi-bou-Zid, and had to go. He asked Brooke to provide a substitute; eventually Brigadier Kenneth W. D. Strong came to Algiers, to remain with Eisenhower through the remainder of the war as Eisenhower’s G-2.

The same day, February 20, Rommel finally got control of the 10th Panzer Division and attacked Kasserine Pass. By February 21 he was through the pass and in a position to drive west toward Tebessa or north to Le Kef. Eisenhower heard the news just as he finished dictating a letter to Marshall. In a postscript, he assured the Chief of Staff that although he expected Rommel to drive toward Le Kef, “we have enough to stop him.… I am disappointed but nothing worse. We’ll do it—even though it is obviously a major job.”
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His biggest regret was that Anderson had decided he had to abandon the Thélepte airfields.

By evening of the twenty-second it was clear to Eisenhower that Rommel had shot his bolt. The Germans were not going to be able to exploit their breakthrough at Kasserine and, in fact, were now in a perilous position, with all their supplies coming through the narrow gap in the mountains. Eisenhower wanted an immediate counterattack and urged Anderson and Fredendall to hit the Germans with everything they had that night. Both battlefield commanders disagreed. They felt Rommel had enough force for one more offensive and they wanted to keep the
troops around Tebessa together to meet it. Eisenhower did not have a firm grip on the battle and he did not insist on his views or galvanize his subordinates to action. As a result, a fleeting opportunity was lost. Rommel had already decided to withdraw, and that night his troops began to pull back. It was a successful retreat.
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