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Following their defeat at the Battle of Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in North Africa On February
20th 1943, the American army was in headlong disorganized retreat. The battle represented
the first major engagement between American troops and Axis troops in the Second World War,
and it was a significant defeat for the Americans. Now historians have tended to
talk about the significance of the Battle of Kasserine Pass in terms of the important
reforms that were forced upon the US Army as a result of the defeat, but that perspective
ignores a frightening fact, and that is the battles around Kasserine Pass also offered the
possibility of a war changing setback for the Allies. But immediately following the
defeat at Kasserine Pass there was an astounding stand in front of the Tunisian town of Thala,
and while the Battle of Thala is usually seen as not much more than an afterthought in terms
of the larger battles around Kasserine Pass, in fact it was a valiant and unlikely defense
that prevented a disaster for the Allies. And so today I'd like to take some time to appreciate
the unlikely and underappreciated defense of Thala on February 21st and 22nd 1943.
The American army had landed in French Morocco in November of 1942 during Operation Torch and
had met only light resistance. By January of 1943 they were pushing through Tunisia
intent on cutting off the German supply at the port city of Tunis. The German commander,
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, decided that he would attack the massing allied American French
and British troops. His goal was not just to blunt their expected attack on Tunis however.
Rommel thought that he had the opportunity to take advantage of the green American forces
and force a breakthrough that would give him access to the Allied supply depots in Algeria,
which would have been an event that could have changed the course of the war in North Africa.
Initial attacks by the Afrika Korps and the fifth Panzer army threw back the Allied lines more than
50 miles, and made them defend just a few passes between Tunisia and Algeria, and on February 19th
and 20th, Rommel's forces shattered the Americans who were defending a place called Kasserine Pass.
The Axis victories to that point had a lot to do with an untested American army that made
significant operational and coordination errors in the face of veteran German and Italian troops.
Kasserine pass was seen as a significant defeat for the Americans, that highlighted the need to
make significant organizational changes. But Kasserine Pass itself did not open the road to
the Allied supply depots in Algeria, but Rommel recognized the opportunity and immediately made
a dash with the powerful 10th Panzer Division for the Tunisian town of Thala and it's critical
crossroads. You have to understand the importance of the Tunisian town of Thala, while it's just a
small mountain town, it controlled crossroads that go both north into the rest of Tunisia and West
into Algeria. Had Rommel taken those crossroads, he would have been able to cut off thousands of
American troops that were trying to regroup to the north, cut off from supply that would have forced
a surrender of significant Allied forces, but even more, that would have left open the Western
Road which could have allowed Rommel to take the supply depots in Algeria and use those as a base
to drive the Americans out of their bridgehead in North Africa. Simply put, Thala was critical.
But Thala was only defended by remnants of shattered American forces that had been defeated
at Kasserine Pass and some detached elements of the British 6th army. As the American tanks had
all been destroyed or abandoned at the Battle of Kasserine, the only armor that the Allies had to
defend the pass against the powerful tanks of the 10th Panzer Division were a few units of bridge
valentine tanks which were outdated. And there was nothing else, there were no allied reserves
to reinforce Thala, that's all that face down Rommel and the tenth Panzer Division. Thala was
surrounded by a group of defensible ridge-lines and the troops of the British 26th armored
brigade, regiments of a 17 and 21st Lancers and the Derbyshire Yeomanry, defended each
ridge-line valiantly but their Valentine tanks were outgunned, and they could only defeat the
German tanks at point-blank range, and slowly they were pushed back ridge-line by ridge-line,
losing ever more of their dwindling supply of Valentine tanks. They barely held on through
the day of the 21st and then were attacked again at night, the Germans decided upon a night attack
and a ruse. They led their attack with a captured British Valentine tank that fooled the screening
infantry and allowed the German army to get very close to the British tanks before they even knew
they were under attack. They were given no choice but a desperate counter-attack that while it
pushed back the German assault, left the British with only a dozen operable tanks. They knew that
they could not possibly survive another attack, the Battle of Thala seemed to have been lost.
At the end of their rope, the beleaguered defenders of Thala expected to be brushed aside in
the morning, when almost as if by miracle, a large column came up the road from Algeria. It was the
divisional artillery for the American 9th Infantry Division which was regrouping to the north and had
called for their artillery train. The artillery had made an 800-mile forced march trying to rejoin
their unit but when they arrived in Thala, their commander Brigadier General S. Leroy
Irwin appreciated how important the defense of Thala was and so ignored his orders to go north,
and join the defense of Thala. In the morning Rommel expected to brush aside dispirited forces
and instead was met by a massive artillery barrage from the combined British and American
artillery. Concluding that the Allies must have received substantial reinforcements in
the night Rommel decided that he could not win the fight and withdrew, not just from Thala,
but short on fuel, he decided to push all the way back to southern Tunisia. Miraculously,
the defenders of Thala, right at the point of their defeat, had emerged victorious.
By the end of February the Allies had retaken all the ground that Rommel had gained in his
offensive, and while Kasserine Pass was seen as a great defeat for the Americans, in the end the
Allies had prevented that great breakthrough, so close to Rommel's grasp, that could have changed
the course of the war in North Africa. The defeats in the Tunisian campaign forced the Americans to
make significant organizational and leadership changes, and even Rommel was impressed with how
quickly an Americans learned their lessons, but that all would have been irrelevant if Rommel
had taken the crossroads at Thala and pushed the Americans out of North Africa before they could
even regroup. And yet surprisingly, the defense of Thala is usually not much more than a footnote in
any discussion of the Tunisian campaign, and that's too bad because the valiant defenders
of Thala who fought an unequal battle, with inferior equipment, deserve to be remembered.
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