July 9, 2025 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, before America became a powerhouse in WWII, it stumbled. At Kasserine Pass, U.S. forces were tested against the Nazis in North Africa, and the results were devastating. The late, great historian Stephen Ambrose explains how this early defeat shaped the future of the American military.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Stephen
Ambrose was one of America's leading biographers and historians. At
(00:30):
the core of Ambrose's phenomenal success was his simple but
straightforward belief that history is biography. History, he always said,
is about people. Steven Ambrose passed away in two thousand
and two, but his epic storytelling accounts can now be
heard here on Our American Stories, thanks to those who
(00:52):
run as his state. Our next story begins in early
nineteen forty three during the Second World War. Here's Stephen
amber with the story.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
The first battle of the United States Army fought in
the Second World War began on Saint Valentine's Day of
nineteen forty three at a place called Casserine Pass in
North Africa, and the way that battle went. All this
unconditional surrender business that we had been demanding a month before.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Was just talk.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Because the US Army did not do well at the
Battle of casser And Pass. There were a lot of
reasons why it didn't do well. First of all, the
training hadn't been rigorous enough the army and the men
in the army officers who were doing the training, the
old regular army officers who were the cadre around which
(01:48):
this miracle took place to transform the American Army from
less than two hundred thousand men in nineteen forty to
an army of eight million men in nineteen forty three.
This cadre of officers who trained these guys, they thought
they were putting 'em through the toughest training that you
could put somebody through. And indeed they thought it was
(02:08):
up to the standards of the SS or the Red Army.
And the men thought that they had they were at
the absolute peak of physical condition, and that they had
been very well trained, and they were ready to take
on the behrymach And they all found out they weren't.
They were not well trained, they were not in good shape.
They didn't know their weapons, they didn't know their tactics.
(02:29):
There their fire control was miserable, their communications between units
was sadly lacking.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Even their knowledge of the equipment.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Was was short of of of.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
What was required the battle.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That's provided a lot of lessons, some of which were
on the need for training and more of it, and
more realistic training, and twice as hard as it had
been in three times, and even four times as hard.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
A lot of what was learned was in terms of techniques.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
UH, A lot of what was learned was about the
shortcomings of intelligence, and thereby hangs a bit of a tale.
In UH nineteen thirty nine, as Poland was falling, some
Polish mathematicians managed to get an Enigma machine out of Poland. Now,
(03:27):
the Enigma was a coding machine that had been developed
in the nineteen twenties and used in some European businesses.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Taken over by the Nazis the.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Patent for it in nineteen thirty three when they took
power and it became their encrypting machine.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
For World War Two.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
They were certain that it was the best encoding machine
in the world, and they were right. They were sure
that it was unbreakable, and they were wrong. The British,
with the help of this machine that the Poles had
got and with the help of Polish mathematicians, managed to
break the Enigma cal in the same way that the
Americans had broken the Japanese Purple code, and so through
(04:06):
the war the Allies were listening in on all German
radio traffic, which meant that whenever the Germans were in
a situation they didn't have secure telephone lines and had
to use the radio, we knew what they were saying
to each other. Sometimes he only got a part of
the message. Sometimes the decoding of the message took so
(04:27):
long that by the time it had been accomplished, the
information was useless. Sometimes the information hurt rather than helped.
And that's the story of Castroine Pass. As Raml retreated
from Alamin all the way across Libya, he finally got
into Tunisia in January of nineteen forty three. Meanwhile, Eisenhower's
(04:52):
forces British and American coming in as Cassabiaco, Iran and
Algiera's were driving on Tunisia.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
The Germans had.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Feried troops from Italy down through Sicily into tunis and
it established a front line. Ronald, coming up from Libya,
encountered the Americans for the first time. Ronald was as
much psychologist as he was general officer. He thought it
(05:19):
was if Germany was going to win this war, it
was going to have to impose an inferiority complex on
the American army, and we're going to have to do
it right now in this first encounter. So he proposed
to launch an attack spearheaded by what was left of
his African Corps armor, at a place called Castro and
(05:40):
pass it would break through the American lines and then
go all the way up to Algiers and take Algiers
and thus cut all of these British and American forces
off from their supplies and force a general surrender. But
more importantly, even from Ronald's point of view, imposed this
inferiority complex on the American troops, but that it would
(06:00):
be relatively easy to do because he liked many German
officers thought of the Americans as soft, effeminate, even an
attitude that was very much strengthened when his patrols began
coming back and said, my god.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Boss, they delivered that. Can you believe this?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
They delivered turkeys for Christmas dinner for these guys in
the front lines. They once somebody came back and brought
in a box and it had a chocolate cake in
it that had been baked in Georgia and sent over seas,
and the Americans had given it space on planes and
brought it over to North Africa and delivered it to
a kid in the front lines. And from the point
of view of Ramo and his officers, these guys ain't
(06:40):
ready for war at all.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And you've been listening to the great Steven Ambrose telling
stories like no one else can tell. Our first battle,
it didn't go well. We weren't prepared, we were humiliated.
We had a lot to learn about almost everything. The
more superior treforces ARAML thought they were well, giving us
a beat down and getting inside our heads and thinking
(07:06):
we could not fight. Moreover, they gleaned some perhaps wrong
conclusions by seeing how we treated our soldiers, flying in
turkeys and flying in good food from overseas. When we
come back, more of this remarkable story of American resilience,
and so much more here on our American Stories. Plea
(07:30):
habib here, and I'm inviting you to help our American
Stories celebrate this country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday coming soon.
If you want to help inspire countless others to love
America like we do, and want to help us bring
the inspiring and important stories told here about a good
and beautiful country, please consider making a tax deductible donation
to our American Stories. Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com
(07:53):
and click the donate button. Any amount helps go to
Ouramerican Stories dot com and give. And we continue with
our American Stories and with the Great Steve Ambrose, and
(08:14):
he's bringing us back to nineteen forty three into Northern Africa,
the earliest campaign the American soldiers had with the great
Nazi general and tank commander, General Ramel. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And from the point of view of Ramo and his officers,
these guys ain't ready for war at all.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So he proposed to watch his attack. But Hitler thought, no,
that's not right.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Rono doesn't have the fuel supplies that will carry them
all the way to Algiers. He's going for too big
a solution. And the Americans down here are two week
and too ill organized. In any case, the threat is
the British up here in the northern part of Tunisia,
threatening Bizerta and the city of tunis They need to
be driven back, and so hit He decided, we'll have
(09:03):
an offensive.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Up here in the north, commanded by General von Arnham.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And radio messages came from Rome to Ronald in Tunisia,
ordering him to send his troops up north. Those messages
were intercepted, decoded, came to the Allied intelligence headquarters, and
there a British general who is the G two, the
head of intelligence.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
His name was Mackler Fairman. Wonderful British name.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Mackler Fairman read these intercepts and said to Eisenhower, General,
they're going to be attacking in the north, we'd better
move our strength up there.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
I said, well, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
He said, you know the reports that we're getting from
our patrols down Aron Casserine, is that that Ronald's building
up down there. I think we ought to leave this
strength down here in the south.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Noe Machelier.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Fareman said absolutely, I've got the message right here. Ronald's
going to be moving those men up north, and von
Arm's going to attack, and you'd better get your strength
up north.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And Eis now did and Ronald.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Just disobeyed orders. And right there is the trouble with intelligence.
It can be absolutely accurate right up to the date.
The real thing, this is the order that Ronald gets.
What are you gonna do with the guy disobeys the order?
The intelligence is worthless. It's worse than worthless. Causes you
(10:24):
to make bad dispositions, which Eisenhower did. Ronald's initial successes
in Casserine were staggering. An entire armored regiment is gone, trucks, abandoned, tanks,
abandoned tanks, blown up, men, shot up, men taken prisoner.
The commanding general of the American forces, the second Corps,
(10:47):
it was. His name was Fredendahl. Lloyd Fredendahl had before
the battle been digging in his headquarters behind the front lines.
He had all of his engineers working on blasting holes
in the rock and getting way down, way way down,
deep into the earth so you'd have a secure headquarters.
People were embarrassed when they saw it. Saw it, and
(11:11):
he said, Lloyd, you got to get out into the
front lines once in a while. And he said, let
me remind you, Lloyd, generals are expendable, just like anything
else in.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
This war if it leads to victory.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Fred d All kept digging, and when the attack came
he cracked under the pressure, and within the first twelve
hours he turned the battle over to his regimental commanders
and went down into his cot, deep into the bowels
of the earth and took a twenty four hour nap.
(11:44):
We were discussing whether a nineteen forty three invasion of
France would have worked or not.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Could round Up have happened.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It's always seemed to me that the answer has to
come down finally no, because that is it wouldn't have
worked because the commander of the American forces and what
would have been in nineteen forty three Operation Overlord would
not have been Dwight Eisner, would have been Lloyd Freddall.
He was a wonderful officer. General Marshall thought the world
of him. It was assumed he was going to be
(12:12):
one of the American stars, if not the Eisenhower of
the Second World War.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
But when the test came, he cracked.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And there's no way of ever knowing in advance who's
going to crack and who's going to be able to
handle the strain. And as I've said, it wasn't just
Fredendall who did badly in this. Catherine pass and Eisnar
himself has a lot to answer for because he was,
after all the responsible officer. He realized that, and he
realized the value of what had been learned. Our soldiers
(12:41):
are learning rapidly. He wrote to Marshall at the heights
of the battle, and while I still believe that many
of the lessons we are forced to learn at the
cost of lives should have been learned at home, it
was absolutely right about that the training should have been
a lot tougher. I assure you that the troops that
come out of this campaign are going to be battle
wise and tactically efficient.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
He said. The men are now so mad.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
They're ready to fight. They didn't like getting kicked around
by the Germans. All our people, he went on, from
the very highest to the very lowest, have learned that
this is not a child's game, and we are ready
to get down to business now. Some might have said
this is a little late in the game to be
getting down into business. This is January or February of
(13:26):
nineteen forty three. The Russians have been getting down to
business for a long time, as well as of course
the Germans. Anyway, now we're ready to get down to business.
He called George Patten from Morocco to come out and
take command of the second Court. That he dismissed friend
(13:48):
All and sent them home in disgrace, and he brought
George Patten in from Morocco. And when Patton arrived, I
gave him advice that he might well better have given
to himself, because he had had doubts about friend and
all when he saw him digging in the ground like that.
And well, here's his own analysis. You must not retain
for one instant, he told Patton, any man in a
(14:12):
responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability
to do the job. This matter frequently calls for more
courage than any other thing you will have to do.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
But I expect you to be perfectly cold blooded about it.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And here he is referring to something that did hurt
the US Army in the Second World War, and the
user car before the war was so tiny. You know,
of senior officers. Everybody knew everybody, and they were all friends,
and they'd all been to parties together and gone hunting together,
and served together in the Panama or the Philippines, or Fort.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Bragg or wherever.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
And they hated to have to dismiss and disgrace they're friends.
But I said, this matter calls for more courage than
any other thing you'll have to do, but you have
to be perfectly cold blooded about it. Officers that failed
must be ruthlessly weeded out. Considerations of friendship, family, kindliness,
(15:10):
and nice personality have nothing whatsoever to do with this problem.
You must be tough and get rid of the lazy,
the sloth will, the indifferent or the complacent. Those were
very valuable lessons that were learned, and at a relatively
small cost.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
And we did stop finally.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Rommel's advance, although the truth of the matter is it
was more a case of his running out of supplies,
especially gasoline, than anything else.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
It stopped his casser and pass advance, and now.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
The weight of materiel began to make itself feel written off.
North Africa Rama wasn't getting anything, and the United States
was pouring the goods into North Africa. A general offensive
was undertaken against the von Arnum forces in the north.
Ronald's forces in the south are recognizing that that it
(16:04):
was going to go under pretty soon and realizing that
he had with Ronald a tremendous national asset because of
Ronald's incredible popularity in Germany, pulled Romel out. Ronald also
had a high blood pressure on other problems that Ronald
was pulled out so that he wouldn't be there for
the humiliation of the final surrender, and so that he
would be available for the defense of France when the
(16:25):
time came. And in May May eighth of nineteen forty three,
Tunis fell to General Bradley's forces, and the Axis had
now been cleared out of North Africa.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And you've been listening to Stephen Ambrose tell the story
of the casser and pass the early difficulties and then
ultimately the victory that led to our victory in North
Africa and on to bigger things and harder things in
Northern Europe. And great job on the production is always
by Greg Hengler, And my goodness, what we learned about intelligence.
(16:59):
They thought they had good intelligence until they found out
they didn't. And that can happen to all of us, right.
We were certain about things we think we know until everything, well,
it's different than what we know. And there was a
humiliating defeat, but they miscalculated. The Nazis did how Americans
would bear defeat, and that was we got angry, and
(17:20):
we got better, and we got tougher, and then incame
patent and incame a person who could do the job.
And my goodness, did he The story of our first victory,
our first loss, and so much more. The Northern Africa campaign,
as told by Steven Ambrose here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Stephen
Ambrose was one of America's leading biographers and historians. At
(00:30):
the core of Ambrose's phenomenal success was his simple but
straightforward belief that history is biography. History, he always said,
is about people. Steven Ambrose passed away in two thousand
and two, but his epic storytelling accounts can now be
heard here on Our American Stories, thanks to those who
(00:52):
run as his state. Our next story begins in early
nineteen forty three during the Second World War. Here's Stephen
amber with the story.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
The first battle of the United States Army fought in
the Second World War began on Saint Valentine's Day of
nineteen forty three at a place called Casserine Pass in
North Africa, and the way that battle went. All this
unconditional surrender business that we had been demanding a month before.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Was just talk.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Because the US Army did not do well at the
Battle of casser And Pass. There were a lot of
reasons why it didn't do well. First of all, the
training hadn't been rigorous enough the army and the men
in the army officers who were doing the training, the
old regular army officers who were the cadre around which
(01:48):
this miracle took place to transform the American Army from
less than two hundred thousand men in nineteen forty to
an army of eight million men in nineteen forty three.
This cadre of officers who trained these guys, they thought
they were putting 'em through the toughest training that you
could put somebody through. And indeed they thought it was
(02:08):
up to the standards of the SS or the Red Army.
And the men thought that they had they were at
the absolute peak of physical condition, and that they had
been very well trained, and they were ready to take
on the behrymach And they all found out they weren't.
They were not well trained, they were not in good shape.
They didn't know their weapons, they didn't know their tactics.
(02:29):
There their fire control was miserable, their communications between units
was sadly lacking.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Even their knowledge of the equipment.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Was was short of of of.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
What was required the battle.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That's provided a lot of lessons, some of which were
on the need for training and more of it, and
more realistic training, and twice as hard as it had
been in three times, and even four times as hard.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
A lot of what was learned was in terms of techniques.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
UH, A lot of what was learned was about the
shortcomings of intelligence, and thereby hangs a bit of a tale.
In UH nineteen thirty nine, as Poland was falling, some
Polish mathematicians managed to get an Enigma machine out of Poland. Now,
(03:27):
the Enigma was a coding machine that had been developed
in the nineteen twenties and used in some European businesses.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Taken over by the Nazis the.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Patent for it in nineteen thirty three when they took
power and it became their encrypting machine.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
For World War Two.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
They were certain that it was the best encoding machine
in the world, and they were right. They were sure
that it was unbreakable, and they were wrong. The British,
with the help of this machine that the Poles had
got and with the help of Polish mathematicians, managed to
break the Enigma cal in the same way that the
Americans had broken the Japanese Purple code, and so through
(04:06):
the war the Allies were listening in on all German
radio traffic, which meant that whenever the Germans were in
a situation they didn't have secure telephone lines and had
to use the radio, we knew what they were saying
to each other. Sometimes he only got a part of
the message. Sometimes the decoding of the message took so
(04:27):
long that by the time it had been accomplished, the
information was useless. Sometimes the information hurt rather than helped.
And that's the story of Castroine Pass. As Raml retreated
from Alamin all the way across Libya, he finally got
into Tunisia in January of nineteen forty three. Meanwhile, Eisenhower's
(04:52):
forces British and American coming in as Cassabiaco, Iran and
Algiera's were driving on Tunisia.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
The Germans had.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Feried troops from Italy down through Sicily into tunis and
it established a front line. Ronald, coming up from Libya,
encountered the Americans for the first time. Ronald was as
much psychologist as he was general officer. He thought it
(05:19):
was if Germany was going to win this war, it
was going to have to impose an inferiority complex on
the American army, and we're going to have to do
it right now in this first encounter. So he proposed
to launch an attack spearheaded by what was left of
his African Corps armor, at a place called Castro and
(05:40):
pass it would break through the American lines and then
go all the way up to Algiers and take Algiers
and thus cut all of these British and American forces
off from their supplies and force a general surrender. But
more importantly, even from Ronald's point of view, imposed this
inferiority complex on the American troops, but that it would
(06:00):
be relatively easy to do because he liked many German
officers thought of the Americans as soft, effeminate, even an
attitude that was very much strengthened when his patrols began
coming back and said, my god.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Boss, they delivered that. Can you believe this?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
They delivered turkeys for Christmas dinner for these guys in
the front lines. They once somebody came back and brought
in a box and it had a chocolate cake in
it that had been baked in Georgia and sent over seas,
and the Americans had given it space on planes and
brought it over to North Africa and delivered it to
a kid in the front lines. And from the point
of view of Ramo and his officers, these guys ain't
(06:40):
ready for war at all.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And you've been listening to the great Steven Ambrose telling
stories like no one else can tell. Our first battle,
it didn't go well. We weren't prepared, we were humiliated.
We had a lot to learn about almost everything. The
more superior treforces ARAML thought they were well, giving us
a beat down and getting inside our heads and thinking
(07:06):
we could not fight. Moreover, they gleaned some perhaps wrong
conclusions by seeing how we treated our soldiers, flying in
turkeys and flying in good food from overseas. When we
come back, more of this remarkable story of American resilience,
and so much more here on our American Stories. Plea
(07:30):
habib here, and I'm inviting you to help our American
Stories celebrate this country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday coming soon.
If you want to help inspire countless others to love
America like we do, and want to help us bring
the inspiring and important stories told here about a good
and beautiful country, please consider making a tax deductible donation
to our American Stories. Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com
(07:53):
and click the donate button. Any amount helps go to
Ouramerican Stories dot com and give. And we continue with
our American Stories and with the Great Steve Ambrose, and
(08:14):
he's bringing us back to nineteen forty three into Northern Africa,
the earliest campaign the American soldiers had with the great
Nazi general and tank commander, General Ramel. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And from the point of view of Ramo and his officers,
these guys ain't ready for war at all.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So he proposed to watch his attack. But Hitler thought, no,
that's not right.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Rono doesn't have the fuel supplies that will carry them
all the way to Algiers. He's going for too big
a solution. And the Americans down here are two week
and too ill organized. In any case, the threat is
the British up here in the northern part of Tunisia,
threatening Bizerta and the city of tunis They need to
be driven back, and so hit He decided, we'll have
(09:03):
an offensive.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Up here in the north, commanded by General von Arnham.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And radio messages came from Rome to Ronald in Tunisia,
ordering him to send his troops up north. Those messages
were intercepted, decoded, came to the Allied intelligence headquarters, and
there a British general who is the G two, the
head of intelligence.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
His name was Mackler Fairman. Wonderful British name.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Mackler Fairman read these intercepts and said to Eisenhower, General,
they're going to be attacking in the north, we'd better
move our strength up there.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
I said, well, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
He said, you know the reports that we're getting from
our patrols down Aron Casserine, is that that Ronald's building
up down there. I think we ought to leave this
strength down here in the south.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Noe Machelier.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Fareman said absolutely, I've got the message right here. Ronald's
going to be moving those men up north, and von
Arm's going to attack, and you'd better get your strength
up north.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And Eis now did and Ronald.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Just disobeyed orders. And right there is the trouble with intelligence.
It can be absolutely accurate right up to the date.
The real thing, this is the order that Ronald gets.
What are you gonna do with the guy disobeys the order?
The intelligence is worthless. It's worse than worthless. Causes you
(10:24):
to make bad dispositions, which Eisenhower did. Ronald's initial successes
in Casserine were staggering. An entire armored regiment is gone, trucks, abandoned, tanks,
abandoned tanks, blown up, men, shot up, men taken prisoner.
The commanding general of the American forces, the second Corps,
(10:47):
it was. His name was Fredendahl. Lloyd Fredendahl had before
the battle been digging in his headquarters behind the front lines.
He had all of his engineers working on blasting holes
in the rock and getting way down, way way down,
deep into the earth so you'd have a secure headquarters.
People were embarrassed when they saw it. Saw it, and
(11:11):
he said, Lloyd, you got to get out into the
front lines once in a while. And he said, let
me remind you, Lloyd, generals are expendable, just like anything
else in.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
This war if it leads to victory.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Fred d All kept digging, and when the attack came
he cracked under the pressure, and within the first twelve
hours he turned the battle over to his regimental commanders
and went down into his cot, deep into the bowels
of the earth and took a twenty four hour nap.
(11:44):
We were discussing whether a nineteen forty three invasion of
France would have worked or not.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Could round Up have happened.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It's always seemed to me that the answer has to
come down finally no, because that is it wouldn't have
worked because the commander of the American forces and what
would have been in nineteen forty three Operation Overlord would
not have been Dwight Eisner, would have been Lloyd Freddall.
He was a wonderful officer. General Marshall thought the world
of him. It was assumed he was going to be
(12:12):
one of the American stars, if not the Eisenhower of
the Second World War.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
But when the test came, he cracked.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And there's no way of ever knowing in advance who's
going to crack and who's going to be able to
handle the strain. And as I've said, it wasn't just
Fredendall who did badly in this. Catherine pass and Eisnar
himself has a lot to answer for because he was,
after all the responsible officer. He realized that, and he
realized the value of what had been learned. Our soldiers
(12:41):
are learning rapidly. He wrote to Marshall at the heights
of the battle, and while I still believe that many
of the lessons we are forced to learn at the
cost of lives should have been learned at home, it
was absolutely right about that the training should have been
a lot tougher. I assure you that the troops that
come out of this campaign are going to be battle
wise and tactically efficient.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
He said. The men are now so mad.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
They're ready to fight. They didn't like getting kicked around
by the Germans. All our people, he went on, from
the very highest to the very lowest, have learned that
this is not a child's game, and we are ready
to get down to business now. Some might have said
this is a little late in the game to be
getting down into business. This is January or February of
(13:26):
nineteen forty three. The Russians have been getting down to
business for a long time, as well as of course
the Germans. Anyway, now we're ready to get down to business.
He called George Patten from Morocco to come out and
take command of the second Court. That he dismissed friend
(13:48):
All and sent them home in disgrace, and he brought
George Patten in from Morocco. And when Patton arrived, I
gave him advice that he might well better have given
to himself, because he had had doubts about friend and
all when he saw him digging in the ground like that.
And well, here's his own analysis. You must not retain
for one instant, he told Patton, any man in a
(14:12):
responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability
to do the job. This matter frequently calls for more
courage than any other thing you will have to do.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
But I expect you to be perfectly cold blooded about it.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And here he is referring to something that did hurt
the US Army in the Second World War, and the
user car before the war was so tiny. You know,
of senior officers. Everybody knew everybody, and they were all friends,
and they'd all been to parties together and gone hunting together,
and served together in the Panama or the Philippines, or Fort.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Bragg or wherever.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
And they hated to have to dismiss and disgrace they're friends.
But I said, this matter calls for more courage than
any other thing you'll have to do, but you have
to be perfectly cold blooded about it. Officers that failed
must be ruthlessly weeded out. Considerations of friendship, family, kindliness,
(15:10):
and nice personality have nothing whatsoever to do with this problem.
You must be tough and get rid of the lazy,
the sloth will, the indifferent or the complacent. Those were
very valuable lessons that were learned, and at a relatively
small cost.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
And we did stop finally.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Rommel's advance, although the truth of the matter is it
was more a case of his running out of supplies,
especially gasoline, than anything else.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
It stopped his casser and pass advance, and now.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
The weight of materiel began to make itself feel written off.
North Africa Rama wasn't getting anything, and the United States
was pouring the goods into North Africa. A general offensive
was undertaken against the von Arnum forces in the north.
Ronald's forces in the south are recognizing that that it
(16:04):
was going to go under pretty soon and realizing that
he had with Ronald a tremendous national asset because of
Ronald's incredible popularity in Germany, pulled Romel out. Ronald also
had a high blood pressure on other problems that Ronald
was pulled out so that he wouldn't be there for
the humiliation of the final surrender, and so that he
would be available for the defense of France when the
(16:25):
time came. And in May May eighth of nineteen forty three,
Tunis fell to General Bradley's forces, and the Axis had
now been cleared out of North Africa.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And you've been listening to Stephen Ambrose tell the story
of the casser and pass the early difficulties and then
ultimately the victory that led to our victory in North
Africa and on to bigger things and harder things in
Northern Europe. And great job on the production is always
by Greg Hengler, And my goodness, what we learned about intelligence.
(16:59):
They thought they had good intelligence until they found out
they didn't. And that can happen to all of us, right.
We were certain about things we think we know until everything, well,
it's different than what we know. And there was a
humiliating defeat, but they miscalculated. The Nazis did how Americans
would bear defeat, and that was we got angry, and
(17:20):
we got better, and we got tougher, and then incame
patent and incame a person who could do the job.
And my goodness, did he The story of our first victory,
our first loss, and so much more. The Northern Africa campaign,
as told by Steven Ambrose here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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