Page:Charles Robert Anderson - Tunisia - CMH Pub 72-12.djvu/15

 General Grant Medium Tank M3 in the Kasserine Pass area. (DA photograph)

have to move through the passes; to prevent the linkup, the Allies would have to block them.

In late December and mid-January the French took important gaps in the mountains near Ousseltia, but in a retaliatory strike the Germans inflicted over three hundred casualties. A more serious challenge developed in late January when Axis units attacked at the juncture of the British and French sectors and pushed the line ten miles west. The French took the brunt of this assault, losing 21 tanks, 52 artillery pieces, and over 200 vehicles as well as 3,500 troops missing. The American Combat Command B, 1st Armored Division, was also involved in this action, taking 202 casualties while destroying 9 tanks and capturing 211 enemy. While not a major attack, the action alarmed the Allies because it exposed coordination problems at the critical points where national sectors joined.

In their January attacks Axis units puzzled Allied commanders by limiting their own advances and abandoning key positions. Soon, however, the enemy displayed more determination. On 30 January the 21st Panzer Division blasted through French defenders at Faid Pass, then drove off an American relief column the next day. The attack on Faid interrupted preparations for an assault by the U.S. II Corps on