MUSSOLINI BETRAYED Afrika Korps surrenders 250 Panzers

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• published: 04 Apr 2016
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"THE RECORDS WILL SHOW WE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH WATER TO REACH SIDI MANSOUR?" (03.48) Collapse of Deutsche Afrika Korps on 5 May 1943: "Maj. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, commanding II Corps, had originally planned to have Truscott's 3d Division relieve the battle-weary 1st ID. However, as Truscott was moving his division forward to effect that relief, Bradley contacted him on the night of the fifth and told him that General Harmon had requested additional infantry to support his division's attack on a strongly defended German position on the peninsula east of Bizerte, and directed that Truscott send an infantry regiment to the Ferryville area for attachment to the 1st AD. Bradley had also ordered that an infantry regiment from the 9th ID and additional field artillery and antiaircraft join Harmon's division for the attack. Truscott's regiment was to attack the following morning. Truscott joined Harmon at his commando post southeast of Ferryville early the next morning, and after breakfast the two set out on a reconnaissance mission to ascertain how far forward Truscott's force could assemble for the attack. As they traveled they found that Harmon's troopers and their tanks were already in possession of the entire peninsula excepting the high ridge overlooking the Mediterranean, from which there came no sounds of enemy fire. It was obvious to Harmon and Truscott that "the battle in Tunisia was all but done and that no large force would be required to clear the ridge." (Dogface Soldier: The Life of General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr, By Wilson A., Heefner, p. 101, University of Missouri Press, 2010) Collapse of Von Vaerst's 250-tank strong 5th Panzer Army on 9 May: "At 11 a.m. yesterday Major General Krause, commanding artillery of the Africa corps sent an emissary to Maj. Gen. Omar N. Bradley and requested an armistice so the surrender might be negotiated ... The wholescale surrender of the enemy battalions began and by early afternoon all the northern region where the enemy had been cut off by the wedge the British First Army drove through was cleaned up. The bulk of the German armor was there and the total of prisoners was over 25,000, in addition to another 25,000 taken by the British. Five other generals were among those who surrendered wit Krause. They were Major General Borowitz, commander of the 15th armored division; Major General Neuffer, commander of the air force artillery division; Lieutenant General Bülowius commander of the Mannteuffel division; Major General Von Vaerst, commander of the Fifth Armored Army; and Major General Baumsenge, commander of the Bizerte Air Forces." (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat;=19430510&id;=aNdjAAAAIBAJ&sjid;=hn8DAAAAIBAJ&pg;=6139,1068195&hl;=en Generals Captured In North Africa, The Deseret News, 10 May 1943) Collapse of Von Sponeck's 90th Light Division on 12 May: "For an hour the positions held by the 90th Light Infantry were obscured by a pall of smoke. At the end of the bombardment they surrendered. General Von Sponeck ... told General Keightley when he surrendered to him that although only two men had been killed and three wounded during the bombardment the morale of his men had been shattered." (Tunisian Battle, John D'Arcy-Dawson, p. 248, Macdonald & Company, Limited, 1943) "All organised resistance has collapsed, and only pockets of enemy are still holding out. It appears that we have taken over 1,000 guns, of which 180 are 88-mm, 250 tanks, and many thousands of motor vehicles, many of which are serviceable. German prisoners driving their own vehicles formed a dense column on the road from Grombalia to Medjez el Bab all day today... It was an astonishing sight to see long lines of Germans driving themselves in their own transport or in commandeered horse-cars westwards in search of prisoner-of-war cages." The Hinge of Fate By Winston Churchil, p. 697, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1986) "On May 12th this Italian force was still resisting from positions just north of Enfidaville. A French division attacking their right was repulsed and then counterattacked. The Air Force, being called upon for aid, made a strong bombing attack at 1530, supported by all the artillery whose fire could be brought to bear. “ Finale in Tunisia", Colonel Conrad H. Lanza, Page. 488, The Field Artillery, July 1943) 10th Baron Strabolgi (member of British Parliament) in 1944: "Two remarkable features of this Axis debacle were, firstly, that in the end, when the battle had obviously gone against the Axis, the Italians fought better than the Germans. The German morale collapsed completely towards the close of the campaign. Well-armed German units with plenty of ammunition and provisions surrendered in strong defensive positions when they could have fought for many days (weeks or months) longer." (The Conquest of Italy, Joseph Montague Kenworthy, p. 17, Hutchinson, 1944)