An Army at Dawn (105 page)

One British general
: David Fraser,
And We Shall Shock Them
, 251 (
“plain cook”
); “Personal Diary of Lt. Gen. C. W. Allfrey, the Tunisian Campaign,” Feb. 7, 1943, Allfrey Collection, LHC (
Sunshine
); Chandler, 778n (
GROUCH
); Boatner, 9; Jordan, 137; DDE to GCM, Oct. 10, 1942, Chandler, vol. I, 628 (
“he studies”
); K.A.N. Anderson to DDE, Dec. 23, 1948, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 5 (
“a queer sort”
); Anderson to DDE, Jan. 19, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 5 (
“good medicine”
).

Anderson’s most ambitious
: “General Anderson’s Plan, 19 September 1942,” Kenneth Anderson file, DDE Lib, box 5; “Possible Variations to Plan Y,” First Army, Nov. 7, 1942, PRO, WO 175/50;
NWAf
, 277.

A battalion of the Royal West Kent
: AAR, Inshore Squadron, H.M.S
Bulolo,
Dec. 8, 1942, NARA, AFHQ micro, RN Operations, R 17-A.

Two bombs hit
: David Rolf,
The Bloody Road to Tunis
, 34 (
“swimming frantically”
); AAR, Inshore Squadron, H.M.S.

Bulolo
, Dec. 8, 1942, NARA, AFHQ micro, RN Operations, R 17-A (
lowered boats without orders
); Pack,
Passage to Africa,
102.

Most soldiers and sailors
: Roskill, 337; Macksey,
Crucible of Power,
87.

Things went better
: Baedeker, 301; Saunders, 80 (
“I’ll have”
);
NWAf,
278.

Unfortunately, Bône
: “At the Front in North Africa,” U.S. Army Signal Corps, 16mm; Moorehead, 81; Meyer, IV-13; Cyril Ray,
Algiers to Austria,
8; Rame, 280 (
“In this force”
).

Having chased Napoleon
: Shelby Foote,
The Civil War,
vol. III, 29;
Destruction,
169; Ray, 9, 32; AAR, 26th Armoured Bde, PRO, WO 175/211; Howe,
The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division,
54; George Forty,
Tank Action,
110.

“had no appeal”
: Blaxland, 91.

And then, they were in Tunisia
: Parris and Russell, 209; Marshall,
Over to Tunis,
45 (
“cold country”
); R.L.V. ffrench Blake,
A History of the 17th/21st Lancers, 1922–1959,
91, 113 (
“The most important thing”
); Liebling, 38; Gustav A. Mueller, ASEQ, ts, n.d., 13th AR, 1st AD, 249.

To protect Anderson’s
: Edson D. Raff,
We Jumped to Fight,
74, 79; William A. Carter, “Carter’s War,” ts, n.d., CEOH, IV-6; William F. Powers, OH, Aug. 1985, Herbert Hart, CEOH, 45 (
“stamped the hell”
).

But most of the Allied force
: Ray, 55; Ford, 46 (
said to be feuding
); Robinett,
Armor Command,
77 (
Santa Claus
); Daniell,
The Royal Hampshire Regiment,
vol. 3, 89.

With Anderson’s approval
: AAR, “Operation of 1st Bn., Parachute Regiment,” E.W.C. Flavell, and S Company report, Jan. 18, 1943, in Lt. Gen. Sir Charles Walter Allfrey Collection, LHC, 3/4; J. Hill, “Operation TORCH,”
Army Quarterly and Defence Journal
, Jan. 1946, 177 (
all 3,000
); Macksey,
Crucible of Power,
93 (
“non-existent preponderance”
).

They cheered again
: J.R.T. Hopper, “Figures in a Fading Landscape,” ts, 1995, IWM, 97/3/1.

Then Stuka dive-bombers
: Hill, “Operation TORCH,”
Army Quarterly and Defense Journal,
Jan. 1946, 177; AAR, 1st Derbyshire Yeomanry, n.d., PRO 175/293; Saunders, 83–86; Blaxland, 105 (
local enthusiasm faded
); Lowell Bennett, 123.

Medjez-el-Bab

“Whoever has Medjez-el-Bab”
: Kühn,
German Paratroops in World War II,
162 (
“master of all Tunisia”
); Austin, 31 (
tobacco and salt
); Baedeker, 329; Homer,
The Iliad,
trans. Robert Fagles, 160.

Medjez-el-Bab’s strategic value
: author visits, Sept. 1996, Apr. 2000; Moorehead, 71.

At this bucolic place: Kriegstagebuch,
Division Lederer, Nov. 17 and 20, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225 (
“throw the enemy back”
); Kühn,
German Paratroops in World War II,
162; “Notes by Major Burckhardt on Tactics in Africa,” NARA RG 407, E 427, “Pre-Invasion Planning,” box 24348; Wilhelm Knoche, “Meine Erlebnisse im Tunesien-Feldzug,” FMS, D-323, 12, 19–20 (
“Think what’s at stake”
); Kesselring,
Memoirs,
142.

At four
A.M.
on November 19
: Hill, “Operation TORCH,” 177; AAR, “Operations of 1st Bn., Parachute Regiment,” Jan. 18, 1943, Allfrey Collection, LHC, 3/4.

Barré passed word
: AAR, 1st Derbyshire Yeomanry, n.d., PRO, WO 175/293; AAR, First Army, PRO, WO 175/50.

An apricot dawn
: Knoche, 28; Edward A. Raymond, “Some Battle Lessons,”
Field Artillery Journal,
Feb. 1944, 104 (
“The war”
).

West of town
: Hill, “Operation Torch,” 177 (
“guns of all calibers”
and
“gun teams had worked”
).

The balance of the day
: Howard A. Smith, Jr., “Among Those Baptized,”
Field Artillery Journal,
Apr. 1944, 214 (
“Poor buggers”
); James Lucas,
Panzer Army Africa,
143.

By late afternoon: NWAf,
287; DDE, “Commander-in-Chief’s Dispatch, North African Campaign, 1942–1943,” 19; Raymond, 104; Knoche, 29, 31; Kühn,
German Paratroops in World War II,
168; Lucas, 143.

This disagreeable news:
Howe,
The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division,
52 (
Anderson had resisted
);
NWAf,
291.

Neither side
: Liebling, 3; Lowell Bennett, 130 (
“a funny sort of front”
).

But Axis forces: Kriegstagebuch,
90th Panzer Armee Korps, Nov. 22, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225 (
“There is no time”
); Hinsley,
British Intelligence in the Second World War,
abridged ed., 270; AAR, 17th/21st Lancers, PRO, WO 175/292 (
“Alice”
); Anderson to DDE, Nov. 16, 1942, NARA, AFHQ micro, R-5-C;W. S. Chalmers,
Full Cycle: The Biography of Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay,
151 (
“Huns are beating”
).

Never hesitant to play
: John Kennedy,
The Business of War,
274 (
“like a peacock”
); Jenkins,
Churchill: A Biography,
681 (
“not as good fighters”
); Danchev and Todman, eds., 243 (
“totally unfit”
).

Eisenhower maintained
: DDE to H. H. Arnold, Nov. 21, 1942, Chandler, 751; memo, DDE, Nov. 22, 1942, Chandler, 761 (
“It would be wrong”
); Hinsley,
British Intelligence in the Second World War,
abridged ed., 263, 270 (
25,000
); DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 18, 1942, Chandler, 734 (
“If we don’t”
).

Most disheartening
: Anthony Farrar-Hockley, “The Follow-up to TORCH,” Basil Liddell Hart, ed.,
History of the Second World War,
vol. 3, 1228.

Allied fighters, by contrast: NWAf,
293; Richard G. Davis,
Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe,
139;
AAFinWWII,
121 (
“rather appalling”
), 127; DDE to GCM, Nov. 22, 1942, Chandler, 759; asst. G-3 inspection report to AFHQ, Dec. 1942, NARA, AFHQ micro, R-5C.

Troops learned to their sorrow
: Warren, 14; Charles Messenger,
The Tunisian Campaign,
13 (
crew chiefs sat
); John S. D. Eisenhower, 204; Tibbits, 119 (
crews wielded
); L. F. Ellis,
Welsh Guards at War,
27 (
“a loving type of mud”
).

On November 24
: W. J. Jervois,
The History of the Northamptonshire Regiment: 1934–1948,
119;
NWAf,
302.

The other prong
: ibid.; Ray, 12–13; Farrar-Hockley, 1228; Lucas, 144; Macksey,
Crucible of Power,
94; Ford, 17.

Fat Geese on a Pond

With both brigades
: Rolf, 36 (
“Armor for Tunis!”
); AAR, “Operations of 1st Bn., Parachute Regiment,” Jan. 18, 1943, Allfrey Collection, LHC, 3/4; Saunders, 88 (
“great ebony warriors”
); Waters, SOOHP, 1980, MHI (
“tank-infested”
); Blaxland, 104, 108.

son of a Baltimore banker
: Waters, SOOHP, 54, 66.

Waters’s fifty-four light tanks
: Arthur Robert Moore, ASEQ, ts, 1993, 1st AD; Forty,
United States Tanks of World War II in Action,
42–51; Daubin, 6 (
“squirrel rifle”
and
“hat box”
).

The battalion rolled
: Waters, SOOHP, 611 (
“I’m scared to death”
); Daubin, 16 (
“three-day growth”
); Howe,
The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division,
66.

Farther north
: ffrench Blake, 93 (
“sent up a stream”
).

But it was on
: Waters, SOOHP, 611 (
“Right in front of me”
); Robinett,
Armor Command,
65, Daubin, 6–19.

Seventeen Stuarts
: Daubin, 19 (
“fat geese”
); Waters, SOOHP, 611; Rudolph Barlow, OH, n.d., SM, MHI; Lowell Bennett, 197 (
“bounced off like peas”
); Hans Jürgen von Arnim, “Recollections of Tunisia,” 1951, trans. Janet E. Dewey, FMS, #C-098, CMH, 20; Rame, 156 (
shot down or crushed
); Forty,
United States Tanks of World War II in Action,
47, 49; Howe,
The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division,
67; Boog et al., 805.

Panicky, exaggerated reports
: Nehring, “The First Phase of the Battle in Tunisia,” FMS, #D-147, MHI (
“tear open one tactical hole”
);
Kriegstagebuch,
90th Panzer Armee Korps, Nov. 25, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225; Ulrich Bürker, “Einsatz Der 10. Panzer Division in Tunisien, II. Teil,” Dec. 1947, FMS, #D-310, 10; Lucas, 136 (
preparing to burn
).

Kesselring voiced sympathy
: Kesselring, “The War in the Mediterranean, Part II, The Fighting in Tunisia and Tripolitania,” FMS, #T-3, P1, MHI, 13 (
“made a beautiful mess”
); Kesselring,
Memoirs,
143.

Smiling Albert’s assurances
: Chandler, 778n (
DIZZY
and
INCUR
); Nicholson and Forbes, 265; Kennett, 122 (
“never had any bringing up”
).

The key to the door
: Charles Hendricks, “A Time of Testing: U.S. Army Engineers in the Tunisia Campaign of World War II,” paper, Oct. 1999, Colloquium on Military Fortifications and Infrastructure in Tunisia; DDE to GSP, Nov. 26, 1942, Chandler, 774 (
“At this moment”
); DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 27, 1942, Chandler, 777 (
“I believe”
).

CHAPTER 5:
PRIMUS IN CARTHAGO

“Go for the Swine with a Blithe Heart”

From the tall windows
: Raymond H. Croll, ts, n.d., MHI, 116; CBH, Feb. 1942, MHI; minutes, commander-in-chief staff conference, Oct. 26, 1942, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-79-D (
had intended to move
).

“How weary I am”
: DDE to MWC, Nov. 20, 1942, and Nov. 21, 1942, Chandler, 745, 750.

He was hardly
: Croll, 99, 116.

Eisenhower’s own office: Three Years,
199.

A few days before leaving
: DDE to MWC, Nov. 20, 1942, Chandler, 744; Robert Murphy, Col U OHRO, David C. Berliner, OH-224, Oct. 12, 1972, 6–7; “History of AFHQ, Part One, Aug.–Dec. 1942,” n.d., NARA RG 331, box 63 (
400 offices
); Butcher diary, DDE Lib, A-43 (
as much meat
); “Tactical Communication in World War II,” part 1, “Signal Communication in the North African Campaigns,” 1945, Historical Section, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, MHI, 54 (
“reasonable estimate”
); Hansen, 3/40 (
“huge, chairborne force”
); Dickson, “G-2 Journal: Algiers to the Elbe,” n.d., MHI, 30 (
“never were so few”
); Jordan, 180 (
“it’s worth fifty divisions”
).

Algiers already showed
: Croll, 116 (
electric razors
); Moorehead, 65; MacVane,
Journey into War,
85 (
“I am married”
); Rame, 206; both in NARA RG 338, Fifth Army awards and decorations, A 47-A-3948, box 56 (
“Valor, Patience”
).

Oranges
: Carter, “Carter’s War,” ts, 1983, CEOH, III-2, III-14; Lowell Bennett, 295; Jensen, 50.

Indiscipline overwhelmed
: AAR, Dec. 28, 1942, Center Task Force, Staff JAG, NARA RG 407, E 427, AG, WWII Ops Reports, box 244; AAR, II Corps JAG, Dec. 22, 1942, and AAR, HQ II Corps, JAG, Sept. 9, 1943, both in NARA RG 338, II Corps JAG, box 157.

There was folderol
: DDE,
Crusade in Europe,
128 (
Eisenhower was a Jew
); Milton S. Eisenhower,
The President Is Calling,
145 (
“Ike”
); Butcher diary, Nov. 25, 1942, DDE Lib (
Clark gave
); DDE to GCM, Nov. 21, 1942, and DDE to MWC, Nov. 21, 1942, Chandler, 748; John D’Arcy-Dawson,
Tunisian Battle,
66 (
correspondents advised
).