Battle of Kasserine Pass

Battle of Kasserine Pass
Part of the Tunisian campaign of World War II
Men of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division march through the Kasserine Pass and on to Kasserine and Farriana, Tunisia February 26, 1943.
Date February 19–24, 1943 Location Kasserine Pass, Kasserine, Tunisia 35°15′35″N 8°44′33″E / 35.2596°N 8.7424°E / 35.2596; 8.7424 Result Axis victory
Belligerents
United States  United Kingdom  Free France	Germany  Italy
Commanders and leaders
Lloyd Fredendall Kenneth Anderson Alphonse Juin	Erwin Rommel Hans-Jürgen von Arnim Giorgio Calvi di Bergolo
Strength
30,000[1]	22,000[1]
Casualties and losses
United States 3,300 killed and wounded[2] 3,000 POWs[2] 183 tanks lost 616 vehicles lost 208 guns lost[1][3][4] (Including Sidi Bou Zid)  Free France 500 killed and wounded[5] Total: 10,000 casualties[1]	989 killed or wounded[6] 608 captured[5] 20 tanks lost[5] 67 vehicles lost[5] 14 guns lost[5] (Including Sidi Bou Zid)

The Battle of Kasserine Pass took place from 18-24 February 1943 at Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. It was a part of the Tunisian campaign of World War II.

The Axis forces, led by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, were primarily from the Afrika Korps Assault Group, the Italian Centauro Armored Division and two Panzer divisions detached from the 5th Panzer Army, while the Allied forces were from the U.S. II Corps (Major General Lloyd Fredendall),^[7] the British 6th Armoured Division (Major-General Charles Keightley) and other parts of the First Army (Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson).

The battle was the first major engagement between U.S. and Axis forces in Africa. The initial handful of American battalions were inexperienced and poorly led; they suffered many casualties and were successively pushed back over 50 miles (80 km) from their original positions west of Faïd Pass, until they met an advancing brigade of the U.S. 1st Armored Division.^[7] British forces were also driven back, losing all eleven of their tanks in the process. After the initial defeat, Allied reinforcements with strong artillery support stopped the Axis advance, and recaptured the mountain passes in western Tunisia, defeating the Axis offensive. The Axis force was overextended and pinned down by the Allied artillery. Facing counterattacks and airstrikes, they withdrew from the Kasserine Pass by 24 February.

Anderson was subsequently criticised by his contemporaries for, among other things, dispersing the three combat commands of the 1st Armored Division, despite the objections of the divisional commander, Major-General Orlando Ward.^{[8][9][10][11]} As a result of lessons learned in this battle, the U.S. Army instituted sweeping changes in unit organization and tactics, and replaced some commanders^[7] and some types of equipment.