9/3/2023 0 Comments Crack german tank forceWaters and Drake could do just to hang on until help arrived that is, if it ever did. The Battle of Sidi Bou Zid was the opening clash by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel’s German-Italian Panzer Army against Maj. The 900 American troops holding this hill, as well the 1,700 men under Colonel Thomas Drake at Djebel Ksaira, would soon find themselves overrun by the German panzer spearheads. John Waters, the executive officer of the 1st U.S. ![]() The American forces defending Djebel Lessouda consisted of the 2nd Battalion/168th Infantry Regiment of the 34th Infantry Division, a company of tanks, and a platoon of tank destroyers. The other two battle groups moved south to envelop Sidi bou Zid. One of these moved around Djebel Lessouda its mission was to knock out American artillery and encircle the hill. When more American tanks advanced in a vain effort to stem the panzer onslaught, the crack German panzer troops destroyed six more American tanks.Ī few miles further, von Broich’s column split into three Kampfgruppen, or battle groups. The panzer troops took the crews of 10 American tanks by surprise while they were cooking their breakfast and knocked out six tanks in short order. The panzers in the vanguard overran a squad of American troops a few miles west of Faid so fast that the Americans had no opportunity to use their radio or even fire a signal rocket as a warning. The vanguard of the 10th Panzer Division sped past the village of Faid and continued westward. American forces holding Sidi bou Zid remained unaware of the German forces bearing down on them. Meanwhile, Colonel Hans Georg Hildebrandt’s 21st Panzer Division debouched from the Mazil Pass bound for Djebel Ksaira, 10 miles south of Djebel Lessouda. Generalmajor Friedrich Freiherr von Broich’s 10th Panzer headed for Djebel Lessouda. ![]() Just as the sun hazily began to rise above the mountains, the tanks and vehicles of the 10th Panzer Division rolled out onto the flatland. From there Rommel’s panzers would head toward the Kasserine Pass. Between the two hills ran Highway 13 from Faid to Sebeitla. The first objective of his two powerful panzer columns was to strike at a pair of prominent hills, known locally as djebels, 10 miles apart that bracketed the strategic crossroads of Sidi bou Zid. More than 100 tanks and halftracks and trucks packed with infantry rumbled through the Faid Pass in the Eastern Dorsal of the Atlas Mountains. Ignoring the swirling sands stirred up by the fierce winds of the Sahara Desert in the early morning hours of February 14, 1943, Generalleutnant Heinz Ziegler ordered his panzer columns forward to attack the American forces deployed in central Tunisia.
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