"Fighter Strip in Tunisia" by Tom Lea. (Army Art Collection)
augmented by four new 88-mm. Mark VI Tiger tanks in their first field test, at Djedeida, thirteen miles west of Tunis. Enemy antitank and artillery fire stopped the brigade with a loss of five tanks. An Allied attempt to reinforce overnight only brought more frustration. The U.S. 5th Field Artillery Battalion, recently arrived from Oran, ran into an ambush and lost its command group. The next day both the 36th and 11th Groups renewed their attacks, and again they were stopped.
Special operations in support of these attacks proved ineffective. An amphibious landing of British and American infantry to assist the drive on Bizerte found no friendly troops to join because the 36th Infantry Brigade Group had been stopped miles west of the rendezvous point. The battalion-size unit ran out of supplies and withdrew with casualties. A parachute drop of 500 British troops twenty-five miles south of Tunis cut a few Axis phone lines, but the men had to make their way back to Medjez el Bab, harried by the enemy. Their losses were 19 killed, 4 wounded, and 266 missing. By nightfall on the 30th the Allies were stopped everywhere.
The decisive Axis advantage in these five days of fighting was above the battlefield. In fact, the Axis maintained several hard-surface airfields east of the Atlas Mountains until late in the campaign. In November Luftwaffe squadrons often flew several on-call missions each day from fields on the outskirts of Tunis, while Allied squadrons
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