Battle of Kasserine Pass

The Battle of Kasserine Pass was a series of engagements which took place from 19–24 February 1943 around 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. The Allied forces were from the U.S. II Corps (Major General Lloyd Fredendall), 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 participating American battalions 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. British forces were also driven back, losing all 11 of their tanks in the process. After these reverses, Allied reinforcements backed by strong artillery support halted the Axis offensive at Djebel el Ahma and Thala. By this point, Rommel was overextended and low on reserves, fuel and ammunition. Faced with such logistical problems alongside Allied counterattacks, Axis forces relinquished all their territorial gains and withdrew under heavy bombardment 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. 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 and some types of equipment.