The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the weeks of October 28th- November 3rd, we are reading Part Two - - Part Two - 5. Primos In Carthago - "Jerry is Counterattacking! and Part Two - 6. A Country of Defiles - Longstop of the book - An Army At Dawn..

The eighth week's reading assignment is:

Week Eight - October 28th - November 3rd
Part Two - 5. Primos In Carthago - "Jerry is Counterattacking! and Part Two - 6. A Country of Defiles - Longstop - pages 217 - 249

We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers. We will also open up supplemental threads as we did for other spotlighted books.

This book was kicked off on September 9th.

We look forward to your participation. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, local bookstore or on your Kindle. Make sure to pre-order now if you haven't already. This weekly thread will be opened up on October 28th.

There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.

Bentley will be leading this discussion and back-up will be Assisting Moderators Christopher and Jerome.

Welcome,

~Bentley

TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL

by Rick Atkinson

REMEMBER NO SPOILERS ON THE WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREADS - ON EACH WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREAD - WE ONLY DISCUSS THE PAGES ASSIGNED OR THE PAGES WHICH WERE COVERED IN PREVIOUS WEEKS. IF YOU GO AHEAD OR WANT TO ENGAGE IN MORE EXPANSIVE DISCUSSION - POST THOSE COMMENTS IN ONE OF THE SPOILER THREADS. THESE CHAPTERS HAVE A LOT OF INFORMATION SO WHEN IN DOUBT CHECK WITH THE CHAPTER OVERVIEW AND SUMMARY TO RECALL WHETHER YOUR COMMENTS ARE ASSIGNMENT SPECIFIC. EXAMPLES OF SPOILER THREADS ARE THE GLOSSARY, THE BIBLIOGRAPHY, THE INTRODUCTION AND THE BOOK AS A WHOLE THREADS.

Notes:

It is always a tremendous help when you quote specifically from the book itself and reference the chapter and page numbers when responding. The text itself helps folks know what you are referencing and makes things clear.

Citations:

If an author or book is mentioned other than the book and author being discussed, citations must be included according to our guidelines. Also, when citing other sources, please provide credit where credit is due and/or the link. There is no need to re-cite the author and the book we are discussing however.

If you need help - here is a thread called the Mechanics of the Board which will show you how:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

Introduction Thread:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Table of Contents and Syllabus

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Glossary

Remember there is a glossary thread where ancillary information is placed by the moderator. This is also a thread where additional information can be placed by the group members regarding the subject matter being discussed.

Glossary - Part One - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...

Glossary - Part Two - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Glossary - Part Three - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Bibliography

There is a Bibliography where books cited in the text are posted with proper citations and reviews. We also post the books that the author used in his research or in his notes. Please also feel free to add to the Bibliography thread any related books, etc with proper citations. No self promotion, please.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts - SPOILER THREAD

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

by Rick Atkinson

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Part Two

5. Primos In Carthago

"Jerry is Counterattacking!

On the south flank, the British captured Tebourba on November 27. From a hill
overlooking the town, Tunis could be seen in the distance. German Panzers attacked the next day, though, and the British valiantly held them off with field guns until they retreated. Two battalions then pushed forward after the retreating Germans to take the town of Djedeida--but not before wasting a precious day to make the decision. The Americans sent larger, better-armed General Lee tanks armed with 75mm guns into the small town. The Germans ambushed with anti-tank weapons, and five Lees were already burning when Stukas attacked from the air. The Allies retreated back to
Tebourba. Another American battalion, not having heard the order to retreat, also
attacked Djedeida. Again the Germans were waiting and the Americans retreated after
taking heavy damage.

Meanwhile, the British were still driving hard towards Bizerte. At Jefna, the road went
through a narrow valley with steep hills on each side. Germans were waiting there
with anti-tank weaponry. With no advance scouts, the first British company was taken
completely unawares and was annihilated when Axis guns took out both the front and
rear carrier on the narrow road, trapping the group. Another company was pinned
down and only escaped under the cover of night. A British group of 4,000 men had
been routed by a sly German contingent only one-tenth their size.

Commandos were also sent behind enemy lines by both sea and air in an ill-planned
mission to create distractions and meet the Allied offensive near Bizerte (an offensive
which, of course, would never come). Maps were missing or wrong, though, and the
undergrowth was impenetrable. Many of the 1,000 commandos were captured or
killed before a small group straggled back to Allied lines a week later.

By this point, Eisenhower was beginning to have doubts about Anderson's leadership
abilities. He agreed in the decision to stop the offensive, but wondered privately about
pulling American troops out from under British command. For the moment, he felt
Allied solidarity was more important. The intelligence failures were particularly
bothersome to him, though. The pre-Torch estimates of German airpower had been
nearly 50% low, and consequently the Allies only had several dozen operable planes
to counter them. In addition, the American rationale of not putting tanks into action
against tanks had to be reexamined. German armor and firepower were vastly superior
to anything the Allies had, and the rear armor weakness of the Panzers was not useful
in most battle situations.

The Germans then decided to attack Tebourba in order to throw the Allies off guard
and give the Axis troops more time to build up. It was a daring gamble; all but 30
troops were pulled from Tunis for the assault planned for December 1. German
General Walther K. Nehring was to lead the attack. Thanks to code decryption, the
Allies knew of the attack two days early, but there is no evidence that this information
reached anyone on the front lines. On schedule, Panzers hit Chouigui (4 miles
northwest of Tebourba), broke up an Allied tank battalion, and kept on going. Only a
British artillery bombardment stopped them momentarily just outside Tebourba to the
west. Then German infantry attacked from the east, and by morning, the town was
surrounded on three sides. British Major General Evelegh sent for reinforcements.

Colonel Paul Robinett arrived on high ground near Tebourba just in time to see the
Allies decimated. From his vantage point, he saw in a nutshell the problems with the
Allied formation: disarrayed attacks, no command structure, and lack of air support.
He recommended an immediate Allied retreat so they could regroup. This did occur;
the Allies fell back to Medjez-el-Bab as Tebourba fell on December 4. Several English
regiments saw over 70% casualties. The British lost 53 of 74 field guns, and the Allies
as a whole lost 55 tanks. Colonel Robinett summed up the ordeal in a letter that
eventually made its way to Eisenhower.

The Germans sensed weakness and did not pause in their attacks. New MK VI Tiger
tanks with 4-inch front armor and 88mm guns were debuted at Djedeida, where they
tore through the British line. Stukas bombed and Panzers overran American positions
3 miles southeast of Tebourba. Reinforcements were called in but arrived late, and
entered the area blind only to be torn up by the Germans. Morale plummeted as the
troops cynically renamed the Medjerda area "Stuka valley." Commanders bickered
over abandoning Medjez-el-Bab altogether. Evelegh's weary troops were to pull back
and leave fresh British troops to hold the town.

American tanks did stop a Panzer advance towards Medjez-el-Bab on December 10,
but another group of Panzers soon attacked the town from the rear. The Germans were
slowed, but panic gripped the town. Some Allied troops, believing that an attack was
imminent, mistook a group of British troops for Germans and destroyed their vehicles.
The Combat Command B Unit (CCB) was declared no longer combat ready due to the
amount of troops and tanks it had lost.

Many logistical problems added to the woes of the Allies. Commanders were
receiving detailed information, but not passing it along to the front line units that
needed it. Generals were second-guessing their subordinate officers in the field. In
many cases, battle outcomes might have been altered if commanders had immediately
sent reinforcements when asked to do so. Also, the experience of the Germans (and
the inexperience of the fresh Allied troops) was showing. The Germans sent out
scouts, picked optimum field locations, and knew good ambush sites. The situation at
Jefna showed this effect, when a battle-hardened German knew how to badly damage
a much larger British force that walked right into his trap.

The Allies needed a long period of trial and error before they determined how to
successfully engage a German heavy tank. The American tanks were too lightly
gunned to even damage the German tanks unless they were lucky enough to get at
them from the rear (which was difficult in most cases). Also, the German heavy guns
were so powerful that they could take out large numbers of American tanks in minutes
unless they could get under cover. American "heavy" tanks like the General Lee were
so cumbersome and slow that they made easy targets.

The Germans had simply out-engineered the Americans when it came to tank technology. Later,
the American Sherman tank was introduced; this tank did have an advantage in that it was much
quicker than its German counterpart. The Germans also had much more experience in
anti-tank weaponry, and it took the Allies months to catch up in that domain; when the
first shipment of Bazookas showed up, Allied troops didn't even know how to use them.

Part Two

6. A Country Of Defiles

Longstop

In mid-December 1942, there was a lull in the battle. The two armies dug in seven
miles from each other with the intervening area forming a "no-man's-land." Logistics
were still a major issue, as was shown by the fact that 180,000 Americans had arrived
in North Africa, but only 12,000 had managed to make it to the front by December.
In spite of Nehring's many successes, Hitler replaced him with Colonel-General Hans
Jurgen Von Arnim after he failed to take Medjez-el-Bab. The Allies and Axis troop
levels were actually about equal at this point, but Axis still had the great advantage of
air superiority. Arnim decided to go on the offensive again.

Anderson planned to resume the offensive late on December 23. A German position
on a high hill in between the two armies was the preliminary target. Unfortunately, the
British misjudged the German strength on the hill (named Longstop), and they were
unaware of the fact that there were actually two hills. The British 2nd Battalion took
the first hill in the dead of night only to realize at daybreak that a second hill existed a
half mile away and was heavily fortified by Germans. Americans replaced the British,
and then the Germans attacked and retook the hill. Reinforcements bogged down on
the slopes as rain came in. Then the British managed to retake the hill. Due to the
weather (it was the start of the rainy season) and morale, it was decided to suspend all
offensives, with the exception of Longstop.

Make sure that you are familiar with the HBC's rules and guidelines and what is allowed on goodreads and HBC in terms of user content. Also, there is no self promotion, spam or marketing allowed.

Here are the rules and guidelines of the HBC:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

Please on the non spoiler threads: a) Stick to material in the present week's reading.

Also, in terms of all of the threads for discussion here and on the HBC - please be civil.

We want our discussion to be interesting and fun.

Make sure to cite a book using the proper format.

You don't need to cite the Atkinson book, but if you bring another book into the conversation; please cite it accordingly as required but you do not have to cite the author Atkinson either.

Also, to make it easier - here are the special citation rules for this book discussion - if the person is mentioned in the assigned pages for the weekly reading - you do not have to cite that person even if he or she is an author of books or other documents. However, if you cite someone who is not part of the chapter readings - then you must cite him or her and you must always do a proper citation if you are mentioning any other book aside from An Army At Dawn.

Now we can begin week eight.....

The Boy Scout Trip - with Lewis (aka Ike) and Clark

This week's reading begins with an accounting of a two day visit to what Ike and Clark wanted to call the "front". Although it was unclear what front they were talking about because both of them never ventured into Tunisia.

It began with their jeep accidentally killing a 12 old Algerian boy who stepped in front of the traffic and ended with the same jeep going into a ditch and injuring five soldiers with Ike miserably ill, wheezing like he had been gassed after spending the night in some farmhouse as the guests of a "bewildered French family". This was definately a star-crossed event.

In fact I had to ask - whose idea was this? And to top it all off sick as Ike was he had to deal with Anderson's mood swings. It was so bad it made Ike write to Marshall - "Nothing is more difficult in war than to adhere to a single strategic plan and to resist the constant temptation to desert the chosen line of action in favor of another one. Everything is coordinated to the single objective of taking Tunesia. We are devoting everything to Anderson's support."

The question is should he have been doing that and what were General Marshall's thoughts about the unfortunate situation? On top of being sick - 77 French ships from the Toulon naval base had been scuttled - Eisenhower tried to look on the bright side - at least this prize had not fallen into enemy hands.

After reading this chapter did you wonder like I did how the Allies overcame all of this bad luck?

I have attached a pdf - which shows Churchill with all of the major players and some accounts from the British viewpoint:

https://www.winstonchurchill.org/imag...

This is a history of Algiers - from the Embassy in Algiers - very interesting:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rc...

This is the phenomenal photo which was in the Churchill material above which was grainy in that reproduction - much better below - what a grand photo.


Algiers, May 1943. Left to right surrounding Churchill:
Anthony Eden (Foreign Secretary), General Sir Alan Brooke (Chief
of Imperial General Staff), Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder
(C-in-C, Allied Air Forces Mediterranean), Admiral of the Fleet
Sir Andrew Cunningham (C-in-C, Allied Naval Forces
Mediterranean), General Sir Harold Alexander (Deputy C-in-C,
Allied Forces Mediterranean), General George C. Marshall
(Chairman, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff), General Dwight D.
Eisenhower (C-inC, Allied Forces Mediterranean), General
Sir Bernard Montgomery (Commander Eighth Army

Tom was talking about armor last week. Atkinson says,

"U.S. Army doctrine held that tanks ought not fight other tanks, but should leave that job to specialized tank destroyers while armored formations tore through defense and ripped up the enemy rear. Regulations had prohibited the development of tanks heavier than thirty tons, and until 1941 tank armor was constructed only to stop small-arms fire." (p. 218, pbk.)

Thanks Bryan, I just read that recently too, after posting my questions...guess I should read more and post less!

No worries, it is a great topic.

I think these words are very telling:

"Virtually no bazookas had been shipped to Tunisia...another three weeks would pass before ordnance officers discovered that American tank crews had gone into combat with training ammunition rather than more explosive, more lethal armor-piercing rounds...even more important, little cohesion obtained among allied formations or even between American units." (p. 234-235 paperback)

Bentley asks: After reading this chapter did you wonder like I did how the Allies overcame all of this bad luck?

Right now, I find it hard to overcome this bad luck and crazy ineffectiveness right now.

I agree, I am trying to figure out how the Germans were defeated. They seem much better prepared, led, and supplied at this point.

So true, Tom. They also had experienced battle commanders. I wonder how much the geography affected the Germans coming from Europe?

That is a good question, I wonder about the climate too, knowing how brutal the fall and winter was on the Eastern Front, and the well known problems it caused the Germans, I am interested to know about how they adapted. I do seem to remember that the ME-109 had to have some modifications to operate in desert conditions...of course they had a distinctive insignia, perhaps the Germans were better prepared for North Africa than the Soviet Union...??? Anybody have some insight here?

I think one of the reasons Germany lost North Africa was the situation on the Eastern Front: it was a huge drain on German manpower. Throw this in with the Allies' successful efforts at interdicting Axis oil supplies, along with the unreliability of the Italians, and you get a German defeat.

Interesting, Jerome, yes, North Africa should be seen as part of a global conflict.

At this point, we see Germany pouring men into the area with bases in Sicily and Italy, and then Europe. I expect it gets harder as the Russians begin to push back.

The only time Maj. Gen. Doolittle is mentioned is on page 248 where he discusses the fact that the Axis planes controlled the Tunisian air space. Yes, before long he did relinquish his position in Africa for another, but overall it appears that the American thrust and focus in the African campaign was the ground war.

Yeah, the air seemed to be controlled by the Germans, and I guess the Allies had a shortage of pilots and aircraft at this point??

Well I notice the first positive thing said about the French as allies in this book on p 231 end para 3 - "Only an intrepid French force of zouaves tirailleurs and artillery men held them at bay."
But I agree with much of the above - the lack of American experience - the depth of German experience combined to hinder the Allied effort.
But I must say that the "management efficiency" of the Americans is not very impressive. Msg 8 - no bazookas yet and training ammo for the tanks-did the tank commanders not know?
Regarding Tom's msg 10 - how the Germans were defeated - two primary causes were, to my mind, invading the USSR and also their declaration of war against the USA after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor making it possible for FDR to increase aid to Britain and for us to go against them. (It might well have happened without the Germans declaring war on the USA but it might have been somewhat delayed.)

Thanks Vince. Hitler did make a huge mistake in declaring against U.S.