Give Them Some Steel! - Steel Panthers: World War 2

Give Them Some Steel* * * Date: March 21, 1943* * Location: Djebel El Ank Pass, Tunisia* * Type: U.S. assault vs Italian defend* * Design: C. Berry* * With the capture of Gafsa and El Guettar, II Corps’ attack entered a second phase. On 20 March, the 1st Infantry Division received a warning order from corps to prepare to attack along the Gafsa-Gabes road and to take the high ground east of El Guettar about eighteen miles southeast of Gafsa. The Gafsa-Gabes road split into two branches less than a mile east of El Guettar. The northern branch, dubbed Gumtree Road, passed through Djebel el Ank Pass and south of Bou Hamran to Mahares on the sea.* * Djebel el Ank Pass opened to the west like a funnel with rocky heights on both sides, and the Italians had barred its entrance with mines, barbed wire, and roadblocks and had covered its approaches with automatic weapons and antitank guns. An unsupported frontal attack on the pass would risk heavy casualties and a high likelihood of failure, but a frontal attack combined with a surprise Ranger attack from the rear would be more likely to succeed with fewer losses. The plan thus developed required the Rangers to infiltrate enemy lines and attack the Italians defending the pass from behind. With the start of the Ranger attack, the 26th Infantry would make a frontal attack into the pass and, after securing it, continue on to Bou Hamran.* * The Rangers, under command of Colonel William O. Darby, remained in the Djebel el Ank area after locating the enemy and conducted reconnaissance patrols against the Italian positions. During these reconnaissances, the Rangers mapped a tortuous ten-mile-long route among fissures, cliffs, and saddles to an unguarded rocky plateau that overlooked the Italian positions from behind. The Italians, believing themselves safe in their naturally strong position, had not established effective local security.* * On the night of 20 March, Darby led the 1st Ranger Battalion and an attached mortar section along the previously reconnoitered route to the plateau behind the Italians. There, with their faces blackened with camouflage, the Rangers awaited the dawn. The mortar company, impeded by the weight of its weapons and the ruggedness of the terrain, had fallen behind and was still en route to the plateau.* * Shortly after 0600, as first light brightened the sky to the east, waiting troops of the 26th Infantry heard the sound of battle burst forth suddenly from the north wall of the pass. The Rangers had taken the unsuspecting Italians completely by surprise.* * With machine-gun and rifle fire, a Ranger support element sent the Italians on the south side of the pass scurrying for cover, while the rest of the Ranger battalion swarmed down on the stunned defenders of the north wall. With the sound of a bugle, the assault element jumped from rock to rock shouting Indian war cries and formed into skirmish lines to close with the Italians. They rushed forward firing their weapons, throwing grenades, and bayoneting as Darby repeatedly shouted, "Give them some steel!"* * The first twenty minutes of the battle all but broke enemy resistance on the north wall. Dead Italians sprawled next to their unfired weapons while many of the living frantically waved white flags from their dugouts and trenches. The Rangers gathered prisoners while their mortars fired on those Italians who were still fighting from the other side of the road. By 0830, the Rangers held the most important positions on the pass.* * * Source:* The Leavenworth Papers-Rangers: Selected Combat Operations in World War by Dr. Michael J. King ;* Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-6900., US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. Leavenworth Papers US tSSN 0195 3451