Death and Honor

On 31 January 1943, Hitler promoted von Paulus to field marshal and suggested to him that if he did wish to become the first German field marshal ever to surrender, there was the option of suicide. Von Paulus declined, and within hours was captured by the Red Army. The very last of his troops surrendered on 2 February.

Not two weeks later, on 14 February 1943, the German army, under General Eric Rommel, fought U.S. forces for the first time. The Germans proved a far tougher adversary than the French. The German counterattack to stop the American drive across North Africa lasted six days, ending 20 February in a bloody defeat of the U.S. II Corps’s Fourth Infantry Division and its supporting forces at a two-mile gap in the Dorsal Atlas Mountains in central Tunisia called the Kasserine Pass.

German Tiger and Mark IV tanks mounting 88mm cannon were far superior to the U.S. M3 and its 75mm weapon, which was nontransversing and, moreover, riveted rather than welded. When hit, the rivets came loose and ricocheted around the tank interior, usually killing all of the crew.

German battlefield discipline proved far superior to American.

One thousand Americans died and hundreds more were taken prisoner, and most of their artillery and heavy equipment was lost.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the overall commander, took drastic action. The II Corps commander was relieved, and George S. Patton, promoted to lieutenant general, was rushed to Tunisia to replace him and turn the situation around. He began to do so by ordering the immediate application of the cavalry tactic that officers lead from the front.

Patton also understood the tactical use of aviation. On 23 February, a massive U.S. bombing attack on Rommel’s forces drove him back through the Kasserine Pass, on a retreat that ended only when he reached prepared positions on the Mareth Line.

There was no longer any question whether the Americans could successfully fight the Germans.

Or that they could stay in North Africa.

The war was going on, too, near the southern tip of the South American continent, in Argentina and Uruguay. Cities were not being bombed into rubble, cannons were not roaring, and no one was going hungry or freezing to death. But both the Axis and the Allies realized the importance of these “neutral countries” both to the war effort and, as importantly, to what would happen when victory and defeat came.