Kasserine Pass

Kasserine Pass , gap, 2 mi (3.2 km) wide, central Tunisia, in the Grand Dorsal chain (an extension of the Atlas Mts.). A key point in the Allied offensive in Tunisia in World War II, the pass was the scene of an Axis breakthrough (Feb. 20, 1943), but it was retaken with very heavy losses by U.S. forces on Feb. 25. See North Africa, campaigns in .

Kasserine Pass, Battle of a mountain pass where, on February 20, 1943, American forces attempted to force their way past Gen. Erwin Rommel's German and Italian armored units as part of the Allied effort to expel the Axis from North Africa. Rommel turned back the inexperienced American troops, but it proved to be his last major desert victory. Well-supplied Allied forces won back the pass despite heavy losses on February 25.

Kasserine Pass, battle of (see Map 60). In February 1943, at a crucial stage in the North African campaign, Rommel's German–Italian Panzer Army, and Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army, launched a counter-stroke to prevent Eisenhower's Allied forces from reaching the central Tunisian coast and splitting the Axis forces in two. The first phase of this offensive forced the withdrawal of Allied forces to the Western Dorsale mountains, which protected the Allied flank in Tunisia; and to guard the passes which bisected them were the inexperienced reserves of Lt-General Lloyd Fredendall's 2nd US Corps.

A miscalculation, caused by the difficulties of interpreting available ULTRA intelligence, led to the British land commander, Lt-General Kenneth Anderson, deploying the main Allied reserves further north, leaving only a mixed force to guard the pass. It was made up of one battalion of Colonel Robert Stark's 26th US Infantry Division, elements of the 19th US Combat Engineer Regiment, the 33rd US Field Artillery Battalion, the 805th US Tank Destroyer Battalion, and a battery of the French 67th African Artillery. During the first night of the battle these units were reinforced by a battalion from 6th US Armored Infantry Regiment, and by a mixed British force rushed forward from Thala. This miscellany of units proved quite inadequate to cope with an Afrika Korps assault group which was reinforced by part of Arnim's 10th Panzer Division. When Rommel's intentions became obvious Fredendall told Stark to take command at Kasserine and ‘pull a Stonewall Jackson.’ Stark managed to keep the Germans at bay on the first day, 19 February, but that night Rommel switched his attack north-westwards, and by the next afternoon his assault group, with additional support from an Italian armoured division and infantry, was through the pass and heading for Tébessa, while the 10th Panzer Division struck out for Thala. By that time Fredendall's command system was, as one official historian has remarked, a tangled skein of misunderstanding, duplication of effort, overlapping responsibility, and consequential muddle. However, the Germans were also in some confusion. Rommel and Arnim had conflicting strategies, so that Kasserine was only one of three uncoordinated attacks, and after the breakthrough occurred, Rommel was ordered by Comando Supremo to attack towards Le Kef, where the Allied reserves were, instead of towards Tebessa. Heavy fighting continued the next day in the rain storms which fell throughout the battle, but on 22 February Rommel, deterred by the poor terrain for mobile operations, by increasing Allied opposition, and by Arnim's lack of co-operation, called off the offensive.

Although a great shock at the time, and an unfortunate misjudgement by Allied intelligence, the US defeat around Kasserine had no long-lasting adverse effect on Allied strategy, and by 24 February the pass had been reoccupied. But losses of men and matériel—and confidence—was high. Eisenhower therefore replaced Fredendall with Patton, and he also replaced his chief intelligence officer.