An Army at Dawn (121 page)

Hill 609 would change hands
: Maraist and Hains, transcript, SM, MHI (
“No one”
); Ankrum, 274 (
“God bless all of you”
), 276 (
“Tell my mother”
); B. A. Dickson, OH, SM, MHI; Bradley, 87; AAR, “Operations of This Company While on Detached Service,” Co I, 1st AR, May 14, 1943, possession of Roger Cirillo; AAR, “Operations Following the Battle of Fondouk,” 1st Bn, 133rd Inf Regt, June 30, 1943, Iowa GSM; Hougen,
The Story of the Famous 34th Infantry Division
; Larson, ed., 84–86.

“Jerries approach”
: log, “16th Inf., Beja-Mateur Campaign,” May 1, 1943 (
“A panorama”
); Robert R. Moore quoted in
Villisca
(Iowa)
Review,
n.d., Iowa GSM (
killed by such treachery
); Robert R. Moore, “Tunisian Stand,” ts, Oct. 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 103; “The Tunisian Campaign, 34th Division,” Dec. 1943, Iowa GSM; Brandt, “The Operations of the 1st Battalion, 135th Infantry at Hills 609 and 531” Ankrum, 282; Bradley, 94 (
“few prisoners”
); “Dennis Frederick Neal, Soldier,” ts, n.d., Iowa GSM, 68 (
“literally covered”
); “German Tanks Trapped,”
Times
(London), May 5, 1943 (
“thick as currants in cake”
); Pyle,
Here Is Your War,
259 (
“Those who went”
).

Ryder put his losses
: “The Tunisian Campaign, 34th Division,” Dec. 1943, Iowa GSM; Marshall, ed.,
Proud Americans,
96 (
“shoes hanging”
); log, “16th Inf., Beja-Mateur Campaign,” May, 1, 1943 (
“no prisoners will be taken”
); “German Tanks Trapped,”
Times
(London), May 5, 1943 (
“At our feet”
).

Outside Béja
: CBH, May 1, 1943, MHI (
“smoothing the sparse gray hair”
).

Mateur fell on May 3
: AAR, “Report of Operations, 23 Apr.–9 May,” 1st AD, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 14767; Hoy, “The Last Days in Tunisia,”
Cavalry Journal,
Jan.–Feb. 1944, 8;
NWAf,
645;
To Bizerte with the II Corps,
36.

The land here
: Austin, 138–39 (
Bismarck
); Fred H. Salter,
Recon Scout,
76–85; Harmon,
Combat Commander,
132 (
“let the men live”
); Middleton, 282 (
“Tell the sons of bitches”
).

Many thousands had retreated
: Hannum, “The Thirty Years of Army Experience,” ASEQ, 91st Armored FA, 1st AD, 40; Gardiner, ts, USMA Arch, 134; unsigned narrative of Mateur-Bizerte action, ts, n.d., PMR, GCM Lib, box 12 (
“Arab shacks”
); L. P. Robertson, ASEQ, 1st AR, MHI, 343 (
“a tin goose”
), 347 (
“Some of the enemy”
); msg, Eddy to 9th ID and Corps Franc d’Afrique, Apr. 29, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 7334 (
“Here is our chance”
).

The 1st Armored Division
: Howze, “Tank Action,” ts, 1943, Ward papers, MHI (
“monkey’s paw”
); Bradley, 92 (
“Can you do it?”
).

Yet Harmon nursed
: letter, E. N. Harmon to G. F. Howe, Oct. 16, 1952, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225 (
“crybaby outfit”
); Harmon memo, Apr. 14, 1943, in “History of the 91st Armored FA Battalion” (
“lack of discipline”
); Robinett, “Among the First,” PMR, GCM Lib, box 28, 474–75 (
“damned all past performance”
); Robert Simons, OH, July 1976, OW, MHI (
the temerity to boo
); S. J. Krekeler, ASEQ, ts, n.d., 91st Armored FA, 1st AD, 92.

Now they had reached
: Robinett,
Armor Command,
227 (
“Will the damned”
); Robinett memo to CCB, May 5, 1943, PMR, GCM Lib, box 12 (
“Towards the rear”
).

After that unpromising prelude
: letter, Harmon to WD G-1, May 23, 1943, Harmon papers, MHI; Harmon, OH, Sept. 16, 1952, SM, MHI (
“Hell, that fellow”
); Robinett,
Armor Command,
228–29 (
“looking hard”
).

Tunisgrad

The most intense
: Blaxland, 252; Middleton, 287; Anderson, “Operations in North West Africa” Nicholson,
Alex,
190 (
“The muzzle flashes”
).

Determined to bury
: Tuker, 367–69 (
“stunning weights”
);
Destruction,
450–51; Stevens,
Fourth Indian Division,
251–53; Marshall,
Over to Tunis,
118 (
“you could almost”
); “Military Reports of the United Nations,” Sept. 15, 1943, Military Intelligence Division, WD, NARA RG 334, box 585; Messenger, 113–14 (
“a roof of shells”
).

Behind the guns
: “Report on Participation of the Allied Air Force in the North Africa Campaign, Apr. 11–May 14, 1943,” n.d., NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 BA, box 103;
NWAf,
649.

Well before dawn
: Tuker, 367; Stevens, 249; Horrocks, 168 (
“chalk from cheese”
).

Four tank battalions
: Anderson, “Operations in North West Africa”
NWAf,
645–49; North, ed., 38–39 (
“into the heart”
).

“The whole valley”
: MacVane,
On the Air in World War II,
180; Blaxland, 252; Daniell,
History of the East Surrey Regiment,
vol. IV, 173; “Military Reports of the United Nations,” Sept. 15, 1943, Military Intelligence Division, WD, NARA RG 334, box 585 (
“thick pall”
); Nicholson,
Alex,
191 (
“baker’s boy”
).

Allied eavesdroppers
: Skillen, 333 (
medics
); Ernst Schnarrenberger, “Situation of the Fortification of Tunis,” March 1947, FMS, D-005; Hinsley,
British Intelligence in the Second World War,
vol. 2, 615;
Kriegstagebuch
V, Fifth Panzer Army, May 6, 1943, RG 319, OCMH, box 226 (
“laid low”
);
Destruction,
450; Nicholson and Forbes, 334 (
“Butter”
), 335 (
“I can see the lily-white walls”
); Roskill, 441; Cunningham, 529 (
“Sink
,
burn”
).

The righteous wrath
: letter, Charles J. Denholm to G. F. Howe, Feb. 20, 1951, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 229; R.W. Porter, Jr., “Report of Interrogation of Recaptured American Soldiers,” May 11, 1943, 1st ID, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 3161; letter, Floyd F. Youngman to parents, June 4, 1943, in Curtiss, ed.,
Letters
Home,
291 (
“like a forest”
);
AAFinWWII,
193; William Munday, “Prison Ship Escapes,”
Tunis Telegraph,
May 10, 1943, in Downing,
At War with the British,
photo; Hill,
Desert Conquest,
318; Edwin V. Westrate,
Forward Observer,
167 (
“hopping around”
); Dawson,
Tunisian Battle,
240–45;
NWAf,
650; Craven and Cate, eds., 193 (
more than one hundred
).

Harmon’s 1st Armored
: Bradley,
A Soldier’s Story,
93;
NWAf,
650, 653; Austin, 151 (
“perambulators”
); Phillips,
Sedjenane,
136; Dickson, “G-2 Journal,” MHI, 64; Crawford, 138; Berens, 69–70; Ohio Historical Society web site, www.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/kilroy.

With the 9th Division
: “18th Infantry, Draft Regimental Wartime History,” Stanhope Mason Collection, MRC FDM; Allen, “A Factual Summary of the Combat Operations of the 1st ID,” TdA papers, MHI; Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes,” MRC FDM.

the 18th Infantry surged
: AAR, “Operations of 18th Inf in Mateur Sector,” n.d., includes 1st, 2nd, 3rd Bn reports, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 5937; Vining, ed., 72–73 (
“Bullets were singing”
); Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes of WWII,” MRC FDM; “18th Infantry, Draft Regimental Wartime History,” Stanhope Mason Collection, MRC FDM; Allen, “A Factual Summary of the Combat Operations of the 1st ID,” TdA papers, MHI; “G-3 Report, Tunis Operation,” 1st ID, May 5–6, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 5759; Knickerbocker et al., 80; John T. Corley, OH, n.d., possession of Paul Gorman, 39–40 (
“bloody foolish”
).

Early on Friday afternoon
:
Three Years,
289 (
“hen”
); DDE to CCS et al., Chandler, 1100, 1108, 1113, 1118; Butcher diary, DDE Lib, A-349 (
“good and drunk”
).

he was sleeping badly
:
Three Years,
310; DDE to GCM et al., Chandler, 1104, 1114, 1115, 1148.

Now the fifty-five-year-old
:
Three Years,
298; Butcher diary, DDE Lib, A-365 (
“How much better”
).

Eisenhower shrugged off
: DDE to GCM, May 6, 1943, Chandler, 1118; Hansen, 5/46 (
“most difficult
), 5/134 (
“Holy First”
); Middleton, “The Saga of a Tough Outfit,”
New York Times Magazine,
Apr. 8, 1945, 8 (
“the finest division commander”
); Bradley, 93–94; D’Este,
Bitter Victory,
271 (
“phony Abraham Lincoln”
); Bradley and Blair, 158 (
“marked man”
).

As Eisenhower and Bradley
: letter, C. P. Eastburn to OCMH, June 6, 1947, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 103.

a dead city
: interrogation report, Anatole Cordonier, chief naval engineer, Bizerte, by 9th ID, May 7, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 7334; Pyle,
Here Is Your War,
281 (
“Bizerte was”
); letter, Donald Peel, May 16, 1943, ASEQ, 9th ID, MHI (
“You walked through”
); “Statement by BG Laurence S. Kuter,” Pentagon, May 22, 1943, NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 BA, box 103; Clifford, 439; letter, Thomas Riggs to parents, June 25, 1943, PMR, LOC, box 4.

As Colonel Eastburn
: letter, Eastburn to OCMH, June 6, 1947; Stannard, ed., 173; Curtiss, ed., 63; Austin, 152 (
“Quite ridiculous”
); Martin, 59 (
“Everybody was standing”
).

By dawn, the last Germans
: Phillips,
Sedjenane,
133; Abbott, 90; Berens, 70; Howe,
The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division,
247 (
“hundreds of vehicles”
); Gardiner, ts, USMA Arch, 150.

Tunis fell at 3:30
P.M.
: Clarke,
The Eleventh at War,
299–300; AAR, 1st Derbyshire Yeomanry, PRO, WO 175/293;
Destruction,
452; J.R.T. Hopper, “Figures in a Fading Landscape,” ts, 1995, IWM, 97/3/1.

“The streets were full”
: F. Stephens, “Collapse in Tunis,”
Military Review,
Apr. 1945, 69 (
“Astonished Germans”
and
“complete with Buick”
); Blaxland, 256; MacVane,
On the Air in World War II,
185–86 (
“Stop that shooting”
); Jordan, 254 (
“Get
out your weapons”
); Powell,
In Barbary,
17; D’Arcy-Dawson, 235; Noel F. Busch, “The Fall of Tunis,”
Life,
May 1943, 35 (
a windsock
).

Into the city
: Marshall,
Over to Tunis,
149 (
“Men were singing”
); Blumenson,
Kasserine Pass,
317–18; Hastings, 232; Anderson to DDE, May 10, 1943, PP-pres, DDE Lib, box 5 (
“pernicious rivalry”
); Hughes diary, May 7, 1943, “Allied High Command,” MHI, micro, R-5 (
“our egos”
); “S Force Operation Instruction No. 1,” Apr. 1943, “Special Preparation Capture of Tunis 1943,” NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-81I; “Intelligence at HQ First Army, Nov. 1942–May 1943,” May 23, 1943, ts, National Archives of Canada, RG 24, vol. 01, Intelligence 10719.

For months, Eisenhower had worried
: Harmon,
Combat Command,
138; Parris and Russell, 346 (
“we will kill”
); Jensen, 73–74; Pyle,
Here Is Your War,
277 (
“Winning in battle”
).

II Corps casualties
:
To Bizerte with the II Corps
, 51–52; “Operation of II Corps, Northern Tunisia, 23 Apr.–9 May 1943,” NARA RG 407, E 427, box 3113; Bradley and Blair, 159.

For the British
: Richard Feige, “Relationship Between Operations and Supply in Africa,” 1947, FMS #D-125, MHI, 11; Webster Anderson, “Organization and Functioning of the Petroleum Section, AFHQ,” Aug. 10, 1943, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 162;
Destruction,
423; Hunt, 181–82 (
“We are waiting”
);
Kriegstagebuch
V, Fifth Panzer Army, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 226; Nicholson and Forbes, 343 (
wristwatches
).

At Hammam Lif
: Clifford, 443; Ellis,
Welsh Guards at War,
123; Parris and Russell, 354 (
“like a steamboat”
); Howard and Sparrow, 142; Nicholson and Forbes, 339; Blaxland, 257; Quilter, ed., 54.

Like Terry Allen on the Tine
: Messenger, 117–18; Blaxland, 259; ffrench Blake, 148; Lindsay, 91; P. Royle, ts, n.d., IWM, 66/305/1 (
“Looking back”
); Nicholson and Forbes, 343–44 (
“dotted with points”
); Horrocks, 172 (
“I have waited”
).

The prisoners came
: John Mayo, OH, ASEQ, 1987, 1st AR, MHI; film, “At the Front in North Africa with the U.S. Army,” Dec. 1942, NARA RG 111, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, #1001; AAR, 16th/5th Lancers, May 12, 1943, PRO, WO 175/291; Martin, 59–60 (
“going to a wedding”
).