Charles Robert Anderson

“ The Japanese simply made better use of the local terrain. Aware of the high water table of New Guinea coastal areas, the Americans relied on the fact that the enemy could not construct below-ground defenses. The Japanese proved the fallacy of Allied thinking by cutting trees and raising berms above ground, then concealing strongpoints with kunai grass and tying them together with interlocking fields of fire. As a result, approaching troops could not see the enemy bunkers until they were only about twenty feet away, by which time the Japanese had opened fire. ”

“ In Tunisia the United States Army for the first time had to operate far inland on the African continent. The task brought Americans into terrain much different from what they had found in Morocco and Algeria. Some 400 miles east of Algiers, Tunisia enclosed a much smaller area, stretching only 160 miles from east to west and 500 miles from north to south. Hills and mountains in the north leveled to sandy expanses in the south, the northern reaches of the Sahara Desert. With the northern coast of Tunisia obviously accessible to the Axis, most combat would be there. ”

“ The next morning General Anderson deployed his troops in a four-battalion front and began moving south along the coast to assembly areas for the attack on Casablanca, scheduled for the third day ashore. The American command hoped the French would not mount an all-out defense of the city, for with a population of over two hundred thousand, Casablanca was more than ten times larger than any other urban area encountered by Western Task Force. If the French chose to defend every sizable building and narrow street, casualties would be high and the battle long. ”

“ Over the next twenty days the Allies overcame Japanese resistance with repeated artillery barrages, tank assaults, and infantry envelopments. The only slowdown in the Allied advance occurred when the enemy knocked out three tanks with special ammunition—ammunition that intelligence officers had ported as totally expended. The poor state of the enemy contributed as much to their defeat as did the Allies' gradually improving tactics. Without resupply for weeks, Japanese troops had only a few cartridges per man, and their rice ration ran out during the second week of January. ”

“ To liberate Tunisia from Axis influence, the Allies would have to conduct operations whose character was entirely different from those at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers. The Allies had entered northwest Africa by executing simultaneous amphibious operations at separate points. But in Tunisia Axis air power based in Sicily would make an amphibious assault risky, necessitating an overland advance from Algeria, the only route that provided a secure base of support. Major Allied objectives were the port cities of Bizerte and Tunis, only forty miles apart. ”

“ Combat support in nearly all facets fell short of needs during much of the campaign. Military intelligence, the basis of all operational planning, failed to provide a true understanding of the enemy on New Guinea. In two notable failures, SWPA underestimated the Japanese determination to take Port Moresby and, later, the number of enemy troops at Buna. These two errors led to the unrealistic expectation that the campaign could be completed by 1 December. Also, for too long MacArthur believed better leadership could overcome any obstacle presented by enemy or terrain. ”

“ With few exceptions, French units in North Africa had been more intent on upholding national honor than inflicting casualties and damage; those that offered determined resistance were at a marked disadvantage in terms of weapons, equipment, supplies, and numbers. In Tunisia, however, American soldiers found themselves faced with well-trained, battle-tested units skillfully using the most advanced weapons and innovative combined arms tactics repeatedly to frustrate Allied plans. ”

“ In the middle the 2d Battalion Landing Team stopped to await naval gunfire support, was then hit hard by a French counterattack, and was pushed back almost to the beach with heavy losses. While the Navy was firing on the Mehdia fortress, troops ashore did not yet have enough artillery to quiet the French batteries, whose fire kept tank lighters from landing and forced transports to move out of range, thus lengthening the route to shore. By nightfall on D-day the Americans occupied precarious positions miles from the airfield they so desperately needed. ”

“ The generally unreliable supply situation during the campaign seriously damaged troop morale, already threatened by the climate of New Guinea. Troops who had to carry most of their supplies on their backs, who opened tins of meat only to find it rancid, who could not drink the water all around them because they had no purification equipment, and who ran out of ammunition soon became exhausted, demoralized, hungry, and vulnerable to disease. The 32d Division's experience with illness shows how the climate became an adversary itself. ”

“ Greater success with armor came when panzer tactics were adopted: a deliberate tank-infantry advance preceded by intensive reconnaissance and heavy artillery. In the latter stages of the campaign a formula was laid down: one tank battalion in the attack should have three artillery battalions in support.
The greater lesson for armored units in Tunisia was to maintain concentration of tanks. Too often, armored units were dispersed to fill gaps or served as emergency reaction forces. ”

“ By daylight, American troops controlled all port facilities, the post office, telecommunications station, petroleum storage tanks, all roads leading into town, and the civil police force. Reinforced by continuing waves of landing craft, American troops extended their beachhead inland against little more than sniper fire. Sunrise made possible more accurate naval gunfire, and by 1045 all French batteries were out of action. Most resistance to Blackstone infantry advancing through town came from a walled barracks, headquarters to the garrison of fewer than 1,000 men. ”

“ Short of aircraft carriers after Midway, the Japanese decided to attack Port Moresby by an overland advance from Buna instead of around Milne Bay by sea. This plan dictated a push through some of the most forbidding terrain in the world. The Papuan peninsula of eastern New Guinea is dominated by the Owen Stanley Mountains, a saw-toothed jungle range reaching a height of 13,000 feet. High temperatures and humidity near the coasts contrast with biting cold above 5,000 feet. Rainfall is typically torrential and can amount to as much as 10 inches per day during the rainy season. ”

“ By mid-April Axis forces had been pushed into a perimeter at the northeast corner of Tunisia, an area about the same size as their bridgehead of six months before. The initiative in North Africa had clearly swung toward the Allies. While Allied forces had gained experience and strength over the last six months, Axis units had been increasingly hampered by growing Allied air and naval raids on their supply line from Sicily, with supplies reaching North Africa falling below the minimum needed to sustain operations. ”

“ While two reinforced U.S. Army divisions fought along the Atlantic coast, other large units moved against objectives hundreds of miles away in the Mediterranean Sea. On the same day that Western Task Force troops ran across beaches near Casablanca, Center Task Force landed one reinforced division at Oran, and Eastern Task Force put ashore two regimental and one battalion landing teams at Algiers. In the Mediterranean, the U.S. Army had to deal with a condition absent from the situation on the Atlantic coast: large-scale British participation. ”

“ On the Urbana front, where the terrain did not support tanks, the fighting remained a desperate tree-by-tree, bunker-by-bunker struggle. Extremes of heroism were called for, and the troops responded. On the day before Christmas, Company I, 127th Infantry, had just cleaned out an enemy bunker only to be pinned down by a supporting strongpoint nearby. ”

“ In a three-hour fight, the first of the Tunisia Campaign, the Allies lost more men than the Axis but drove the enemy back toward Bizerte with a loss of eight tanks. For the next week similar encounters occurred at several sites as both sides tried to determine the location of each other's forward elements and to break up concentrations of men and equipment that could evolve into attack spearheads. Despite these actions and German air raids on Allied positions as far west as Algiers, Evelegh had his three brigades in position by 24 November. ”

“ The assignment of an aircraft carrier to each landing site gave the task forces a great advantage: Allied aircraft could prevent reinforcement of enemy garrisons, but the French could not prevent Allied buildups ashore. Only at Safi and Algiers did lone sorties of French aircraft inflict damage, and both were quickly driven off.
Naval gunfire provided essential support in neutralizing coastal batteries. In coordinating with friendly troop movements ashore, however, problems arose. Most landings took place near urban areas, which placed troops in civil-military minefields. ”

“ The Southwest Pacific Area was deeply concerned at the failure of the 32d Division's November attacks. Two weeks of offensive operations had produced 492 American casualties, and the enemy still held its positions. Staff officers wondered how much longer the underfed and diseased troops could keep fighting the Japanese and the climate of New Guinea. The international alliance that SWPA represented also showed strain, as Australians and Americans traded disparaging comments on their respective fighting abilities. ”

“ In the southern half of the American sector the 1st Infantry Division found strong opposition but maintained pressure to prevent the enemy from reinforcing other areas. Next to the British sector, the 34th Infantry Division proved it had overcome its tactical inexperience by taking a key pass on the road to Tunis. As II Corps units pushed on to cut the Bizerte-Tunis road, they found Axis units in a state of collapse. Enemy troops were surrendering in such large numbers that they clogged roads, impeding further advance. ”

“ Even on beaches without sandbars, lighters frequently bottomed some distance from the shoreline and had to discharge vehicles into several feet of water, disabling electrical systems. Problems such as these provoked a spiral of unloading delays and forced troops ashore into a tactical disadvantage during the crucial early hours of the landings. Reaching shore sooner than tanks and artillery, infantry units on D-day often found themselves attacking French coastal batteries and armored units with little more than rifles and hand grenades. ”

“ The Allies gained their major objective: French forces in North Africa would immediately assist American and British forces in liberating Tunisia and, later, metropolitan France. Political fragmentation in the French armed forces was for the moment subordinated to the common purpose of defeating Axis armies. General Eisenhower quickly cabled his approval of the Clark-Darlan agreement, and Allied field commanders added French units to their operational plans. ”

“ In the absence of heavier artillery, tanks would have greatly aided infantry advances in the early months of the campaign. Attacking troops badly needed a weapon to help them overcome well-prepared Japanese defensive positions, and tanks would have been the best choice. Despite the swampy terrain, tanks had shown their value in the December attacks on the Warren front. At the very least, tanks held the promise of reducing, in a matter of minutes, enemy positions that could for days hold units armed only with rifles and hand grenades. ”

“ For advancing units ashore, a more immediate tactical problem with naval gunfire occasionally arose. In the Fedala area a conflict in calls for support almost caused the tragedy of American fire landing among American troops. As troops of the 7th Regimental Landing Group neared an objective they requested continuation of naval gunfire. At the same time, 30th Regimental Landing Group officers asked the ships to hold fire for the moment, since their troops were nearing the impact zone. ”

“ American infantrymen deserve much praise for the persistence they showed against a skilled enemy, most notably on 23–24 April when the 2d Battalion, 18th Infantry, had to take the same objective three times before the enemy quit the fight. One week later the 1st Division continued the successful attack on Hill 523 despite crippling casualties in the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry. The weakest aspect of infantry operations was coordination with other arms. Too often, gaps opened between troops and tanks, forcing armor to pull back and slowing the tempo of the attack. ”