Page:Charles Robert Anderson - Tunisia - CMH Pub 72-12.djvu/30

 theater to support all combat units but the system of requesting air support was cumbersome as well, with ground commanders having to go through several echelons of control. Tactical commanders pressed for the assignment of specific squadrons to specific regiments or divisions, but air commanders successfully argued against this policy as wasteful of air resources. The results on the ground were too often confusion and higher casualties. Air support had to be scheduled hours or days in advance and on a few occasions was postponed or canceled altogether, as the 34th Division found at Fondouk el Aouareb on 8 April. When air strikes did occur they were of limited duration, so that if the infantry and armor achieved a breakthrough, aircraft were often no longer overhead when the opportunity for exploitation developed. Only in the last stage of the campaign did air support take forms satisfactory to ground commanders: interdiction attacks on enemy assembly areas and routes of approach. Solution of the air support problem would have to await increased aircraft availability.

With victory in Tunisia, the Allies had expelled Axis forces from North Africa and thereby taken a giant step toward victory in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. The United States Army had contributed mightily toward that accomplishment. The victory in northwest Africa, however, did not come cheaply. Of 70,000 Allied casualties, the United States Army lost 2,715 dead, 8,978 wounded and 6,528 missing. At the same time, however, the Army gained thousands of seasoned officers, noncommissioned officers, and troops whose experience would prove decisive in subsequent campaigns. These seasoned soldiers of all ranks would not have long to wait or far to go, for the next test was only two months and 150 miles away: the island of Sicily.