{
 "slug": "kasserine-pass",
 "title": "Battle of Kasserine Pass",
 "status": "draft",
 "era": "WWII and later",
 "date_text": "14–24 February 1943",
 "start": "1943-02-14",
 "end": "1943-02-24",
 "war": "World War II",
 "cdb90_war": "WORLD WAR II",
 "place": {
  "name": "Kasserine Pass and the Sidi Bou Zid plain, Western and Eastern Dorsal, Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid Governorates, Tunisia",
  "lat": 35.2596,
  "lon": 8.7424,
  "wikidata": "Q327099"
 },
 "lede": "Between 14 and 24 February 1943 German and Italian armour broke US II Corps in central Tunisia, from Sidi Bou Zid through Kasserine Pass, before Allied guns held them at Thala and Djebel el Hamra. It was the US Army's hard first lesson against Germany.",
 "result": "Axis tactical victory; the offensive was halted short of Thala and Tébessa",
 "result_cdb90": "attacker win",
 "belligerents": [
  {
   "role": "attacker",
   "name": "Germany and Italy (Fifth Panzer Army's 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions, Kampfgruppe DAK of the German-Italian Panzer Army, and elements of the Italian Centauro Armoured Division)",
   "commanders": [
    "Field Marshal Erwin Rommel",
    "Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen von Arnim",
    "Field Marshal Albert Kesselring",
    "Generalleutnant Heinz Ziegler",
    "General Friedrich von Broich",
    "Colonel Hildebrandt",
    "General Karl Bülowius"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 22000,
    "low": 22000,
    "high": 22000,
    "source": "s1"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 989,
    "low": 989,
    "high": 989,
    "source": "s3"
   }
  },
  {
   "role": "defender",
   "name": "Allies (US II Corps, with the British 6th Armoured Division's 26th Armoured Brigade and 1st Guards Brigade, the US 34th Infantry Division and French XIX Corps troops)",
   "commanders": [
    "Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson",
    "Major General Lloyd Fredendall",
    "Major General Orlando Ward",
    "Brigadier General Raymond McQuillin",
    "Colonel Robert I. Stack",
    "Brigadier General Paul Robinett",
    "Colonel Alexander N. Stark",
    "Brigadier Charles Dunphie",
    "Brigadier Cameron Nicholson"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 30000,
    "low": 30000,
    "high": 30000,
    "source": "s4"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 6300,
    "low": 6300,
    "high": 10000,
    "source": "s4"
   }
  }
 ],
 "sections": {
  "background": "The Anglo-American landings in Morocco and Algeria on 8 November 1942 (Operation Torch) were followed by a race for Tunis that the Allies lost. German and Italian troops flown and shipped in from Sicily built a bridgehead around Tunis and Bizerte under Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen von Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army, while Rommel's German-Italian Panzer Army retreated across Libya to the old French Mareth Line in southern Tunisia. Tripoli fell to Montgomery's Eighth Army on 23 January 1943.\n\nThe Allied front ran north to south: Anderson's British First Army in the north, the poorly armed French XIX Corps in the centre and Fredendall's US II Corps in the south, holding the passes of the Eastern Dorsal. From there the Americans threatened to drive to the coast at Sfax or Gabès and split the two Axis armies. On 30 January 21st Panzer Division took Faïd Pass from the French, and American counterattacks failed.\n\nRommel proposed on 4 February to strike before Eighth Army reached Mareth and before the Americans grew stronger, ideally under one commander and as far as Tébessa, II Corps' supply base in Algeria. What emerged was a compromise: two separate operations under different commands. Von Arnim's chief of staff, Heinz Ziegler, would take Sidi Bou Zid with 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions (Operation Frühlingswind); Rommel's Kampfgruppe DAK would then take Gafsa (Morgenluft). Allied intelligence, leaning on intercepts, expected the main blow farther north at Fondouk, so First Army kept 1st Armored Division's Combat Command B in reserve near Maktar.",
  "forces": "The Axis striking force was small but veteran. 10th Panzer Division (von Broich) had about 110 tanks and 21st Panzer (Hildebrandt) 91, with a few Tiger tanks attached; Kampfgruppe DAK, under Liebenstein and then Bülowius, combined the Panzer Grenadier Regiment Afrika with tanks and Bersaglieri of the Italian Centauro Division. Their 88-mm guns and long-barrelled Mark IVs outranged American armour, and the Luftwaffe held the air over the battlefield for most of the fighting. Their weakness was command: Rommel and von Arnim pursued different aims, and Kesselring and Comando Supremo co-ordinated rather than commanded them.\n\nUS II Corps was green and dispersed. Ward's 1st Armored Division was broken into combat commands under McQuillin (A), Robinett (B) and Stack (C), with B held by First Army. Its M3 light tanks were fit only for reconnaissance, its 37-mm anti-tank guns ineffective against Mark IVs except at very close range, and its half-track tank destroyers vulnerable. The 168th Infantry of the 34th Division, a National Guard regiment largely from south-western Iowa, was posted on isolated hills. Fredendall ran the battle from a headquarters near Tébessa and rarely visited the front. Behind them stood the British 6th Armoured Division, whose 26th Armoured Brigade still had Valentine and Crusader tanks awaiting replacement by Shermans, and a 1st Guards Brigade.",
  "course": "**Sidi Bou Zid, 14 February (CDB90 602).** At 06:30, in mist and blowing sand, 10th Panzer's groups Gerhardt and Reimann came through Faïd Pass. Gerhardt swung round the north of Djebel Lessouda, where Lieutenant-Colonel John Waters' force was posted; Hightower's 3rd Battalion, 1st Armored Regiment, met them on the open plain, was outranged and lost most of its tanks. From Maïzila Pass to the south, 21st Panzer's group Schuette pressed north while group Stenkhoff made a 25-mile sweep through Bir el Hafey and came on Sidi Bou Zid from the south-west. McQuillin's Combat Command A fell back towards Djebel Hamra with the loss of 44 tanks and most of two artillery battalions; at 17:05 the two panzer divisions joined west of the village. Waters on Lessouda and Drake's 168th Infantry on Djebel Ksaïra and Garet Hadid were left marooned.\n\n**The counterattack, 15 February (CDB90 603).** Ward sent Stack's Combat Command C, with Alger's 2nd Battalion, 1st Armored Regiment, to relieve them. At 12:40 the tanks set off in parade-ground order across 13 miles of open plain. Stukas struck them, steep-sided wadis broke up their formation, and at about 16:30 German armour closed from north and south. Only four tanks of Alger's battalion came back; Alger was captured. Over the next two nights some 230 men from Lessouda reached Djebel Hamra, but Drake's groups, caught on the plain at dawn on 17 February, were rounded up, about 1,400 men in all.\n\n**Withdrawal to the Western Dorsal, 15–18 February.** Anderson ordered a general fallback. Gafsa was evacuated, and DAK entered it on the 15th. At Sbeïtla, night fire on 16–17 February set off a panic in Combat Command A, but Combat Command B held until the afternoon of the 17th. The Germans entered Sbeïtla that evening; DAK took Fériana and the Thélepte airfields.\n\n**The Axis argue, 18 February.** Rommel urged a deep thrust through Tébessa; von Arnim refused. Kesselring backed Rommel, and near midnight Comando Supremo gave him both panzer divisions, but aimed him north at Le Kef, not Tébessa.\n\n**Kasserine Pass, 19–20 February (CDB90 604).** Colonel Stark's improvised force held the mile-wide pass: an infantry battalion on the Thala road, the 19th Engineers on the Tébessa road, about 2,000 men behind thin minefields. On the 19th Panzer Grenadier Regiment Afrika took Hill 974 on Djebel Semmama and lost five tanks on the mines; at Sbiba, Allied artillery stopped 21st Panzer. Rommel switched his weight to Kasserine. On the 20th, from 08:30, German infantry with new Nebelwerfer rockets, Italian Bersaglieri and 10th Panzer's motorcycle battalion broke the engineers. In the evening the British Gore Force fought until its last tank was destroyed, and the pass fell.\n\n**Thala and Djebel el Hamra, 21–22 February.** DAK turned towards Tébessa and was stopped by Robinett's Combat Command B at Djebel el Hamra. Rommel drove 10th Panzer up the Thala road himself; Dunphie's 26th Armoured Brigade fell back ridge by ridge, and at dusk German tanks followed it through the Leicesters' line, taking about 700 prisoners. That night Brigadier General Irwin's 9th Division artillery arrived after an 800-mile march. Its barrage on the 22nd convinced von Broich to wait, while at Bou Chebka the US 16th Infantry drove a lost DAK column back. Rommel and Kesselring agreed to withdraw; the Axis had pulled back through the pass by the 23rd.",
  "aftermath": "About 30,000 Americans had fought under II Corps; roughly 300 were killed, 3,000 wounded and 3,000 missing, and 183 tanks were lost. German losses from 16 to 24 February were 989 men and 20 tanks; Italian losses are unknown. The Allies re-entered the empty pass on 25 February.\n\nHowe, the US Army's official historian, judged it an Axis tactical success rather than a strategic victory: the Allies were back on their old ground within days and their power to attack was not seriously impaired. He blamed the Axis failure above all on divided command, and on Rommel's splitting of his force between Sbiba, Thala and Tébessa. Blumenson called the series of defeats from Faïd onwards a disaster for the US Army, but noted that Combat Command B and the 1st Infantry Division had blocked the Tébessa road while the British held at Thala.\n\nThe Allies reorganised. Alexander took over 18th Army Group; Eisenhower replaced Fredendall, and Patton took command of II Corps on 6 March with Bradley as his deputy. Anderson was criticised for scattering 1st Armored Division. The lessons were concentration, commanders forward, deeper foxholes, better anti-tank guns, training in mines, and air and ground working together. Rommel became commander of Army Group Africa on 23 February, and on 6 March struck Eighth Army at Medenine, where he was repulsed.",
  "wargaming": "Kasserine is a run of distinct actions, each a good scenario. Sidi Bou Zid on 14 February suits company- or battalion-level play at 15mm or 1:300: one American tank battalion on an open plain, isolated infantry on the djebels, and German groups converging from two passes on a timetable they may or may not keep. The Combat Command C counterattack is a near-certain loss over open ground cut by wadis, best played for how many tanks the American can bring home.\n\nKasserine Pass itself rewards attention to terrain. The fight turns on the shoulders (Hills 974 and 1191 on Djebel Semmama, 712 and 812 opposite), on fog and rain that ground the Luftwaffe and blind counter-battery fire, and on thin minefields covering a mile-wide floor. A Thala scenario is a fighting withdrawal by outgunned Valentines and Crusaders, ridge by ridge, until the 9th Division guns arrive.\n\nAt operational scale, the 14–22 February campaign works with battalion units and a command-friction rule: the Axis player should not control both armies freely. The what-ifs are rich: First Army releases Combat Command B on the 14th; von Arnim sends his Tigers; Comando Supremo lets Rommel go for Tébessa rather than Le Kef; Dunphie commits his whole brigade at the pass on the 19th; or Irwin's guns arrive a day late."
 },
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   "caption": "Tunisia, 30 January – 10 April 1943: the Eastern and Western Dorsals, Faïd, Sidi Bou Zid, Kasserine and Thala.",
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   "caption": "The Axis thrust through Kasserine Pass, 19–22 February 1943.",
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   "credit": "Book: ( https://web.archive.org/web/20120927070247/https://history.army.mil/html/books/006/6-1-1/CMH_Pub_6-1-1.pdf ) Map: ( https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-NWA/maps/USA-MTO-NWA-IX.jpg )",
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   "file": "File:Kasserine Pass.jpg",
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   "caption": "Men of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, US 1st Infantry Division, march through Kasserine Pass on 26 February 1943, after the Axis withdrawal.",
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   "file": "File:1stArmorDivKasserineTunisia1943.jpg",
   "kind": "photo",
   "caption": "An M3 medium tank of the US 1st Armored Division moving up during the Kasserine fighting, 1943.",
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   "artist": "Pirath, Helmuth",
   "credit": "This image was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive (Deutsches Bundesarchiv) as part of a cooperation project . The German Federal Archive guarantees an authentic representation only using the originals (negative and/or positive), resp. the digitalization of the originals as provided by the Digital Image Archive .",
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  {
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   "caption": "Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in North Africa with troops riding a captured American M3 half-track.",
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 "sources": [
  {
   "id": "s1",
   "title": "Battle of Kasserine Pass (Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kasserine_Pass",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s2",
   "title": "Battle of Sidi Bou Zid (Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sidi_Bou_Zid",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s3",
   "title": "George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West, chapters XXI–XXV (United States Army in World War II, Mediterranean Theater of Operations; Office of the Chief of Military History, 1957), HyperWar transcription",
   "url": "https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-NWA/USA-MTO-NWA-21.html",
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s4",
   "title": "Martin Blumenson, 'Kasserine Pass, 30 January–22 February 1943', in Charles E. Heller and William A. Stofft (eds), America's First Battles, 1776–1965 (University Press of Kansas, 1986), reprinted in Kasserine Pass Battles: Readings, vol. I, part 1 (US Army Center of Military History)",
   "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100608084141/http://www.history.army.mil/books/Staff-Rides/kasserine/Vol-I-Part_1.pdf",
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s5",
   "title": "Charles R. Anderson, Tunisia, 17 November 1942 – 13 May 1943 (US Army Campaigns of World War II, CMH Pub 72-12; US Army Center of Military History, 1993)",
   "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2017/http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/tunisia/tunisia.htm",
   "kind": "book"
  }
 ],
 "cdb90": [
  602,
  603,
  604
 ],
 "order": 158,
 "url": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/kasserine-pass/",
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