By Dr. James W. Dorm

nited States Army engineersexperienced their first

European combat in World War IIin North Africa . During theTunisian campaign, which lastedfrom November 1942 until May1943, Army engineers executedtheir primary missions of roadmaintenance and mine warfare, aswell as their secondary mission of ,fighting as infantry. They alsocompleted two~ new , missions byfunctioning as amphibian en-gineers and. aviation engineers.

Operation Torch

vasion of French North Africa,..began November 8, 1942, whenthree division-sized task forceslanded simultaneously at Algiers,Oran,1 1and Casablanca. At

allthree

sites, a company from the divisionengineer battalion was attached toeach'regimental landing team .

As amphibian ~ engineers, the36th Engineer combat regimentprovided .shore parties for the East-ern Task.. Force, . at Algiers, ; _ whilethe 631st Engineer Shore Regi-ment and the 591st Engineer BoatRegiment provided shore partiesfor the Central Task Force, atOran. The 36th Engineer CombatRegiment and the 540th EngineerShore Regiment performed shoreparty duties for the Western TaskForce, at Casablanca .At Port Lyautey, 80 miles north

of Casablanca, elements ofthe 15thEngineer Combat Battalion, 9thInfantry Division, helped seize anairfield adjacent to the port . This

Engineers I in North Africa

action' began=November 8, whena raiding party that included en-gineers entered the mouth of theSebouRiver to remove anavigationobstacle . Clearing this obstaclewould allow the destroyer Dallas tomove upriver and seize the airfield .The first attempt failed when gun-fire from a nearby fort drove theraiders away, but the raiding partysucceeded in removing the obstaclethe next night. Early on November10, the Dallas, with the raidersaboard, moved upriver andsecured

the airfield . The 888th AirborneAviation Engineers then resur-faced the runway.Besides the 888th Engineers,

other engineer aviation units in theWestern Task Force were, the 887thEngineer Airborne Company andthe 1st Battalion, 21st EngineerAviation Regiment . The"CentralTask Force had the 809th, 815th,and 817th Engineer Aviation Bat-talions. These aviation engineersresurfaced damaged runways onairfields in the landing zones. Then

they moved on to build airfields inAlgeria to support future offensiveoperations in Tunisia.

Late that fall, ,the British FirstArmy's Tunisian , ; drive stalled in .front of Tunis' because of strongGerman opposition, bad weather,and supply problems. GeneralEisenhower, then commander ofthe Allied Forces Headquarters,halted the offensive on December24 . He decided to go on the defen-sive until spring, when the rainyseason ended. He sent the U.S . IICorps to southern Tunisia toprotect the First Army's exposedflank. Later they were to take theoffensive against Rommel's line ofcommunication, when the Ger-mans withdrew from Libya.The II Corps became operational

at Tebessa, in, southern Tunisia, onJanuary 6, 1943 . Its engineerstrength consisted only of the 19thEngineer Combat, Regiment anddivision engineers from the 1st and34th Infantry, Divisionsand the 1stArmored Division.. .

Southern Tunisia

Ilied intelligence, based onUltra intercepts (intercepts

of the German high command'scode) predicted the Germans wouldattack the weak French forces incentral Tunisia. Instead, their ad-vance in the south, out of FaidPass toward Sidi Bou Zid onFebruary 14, inflicted heavycasualties on the U.S . 1st ArmoredDivision.On February 16, in conjunction

with a general withdrawal causedby the German attack, the II Corpsordered the 19th Engineers to or-ganize a defensive line at Kas-serine Pass . In addition to his ownregiment of 1,200 engineers,Colonel Anderson Moore headed aforce of 2,000 soldiers made up ofthe 1st Battalion, 26th InfantryRegiment, 1st Infantry Division ;three artillery battalions ; and atank destroyer battalion . ColonelMoore ordered his engineers to

emplace mines and organized the,artillery and tank destroyers . Hepositioned the 26th Infantry Bat-talion on high ground on the left,covering the road to Thala, and hisengineers on high ground on theright, covering the road to Tebessa.The 1st 'Armored Division

withdrew through Kasserine Passon the 17th, as the engineersprepared to stop any enemy effortto force the pass . German patrolsandpreparatory artillery increasedin intensity through February18th . Their probing attacks thenext morning failed to penetratethe pass, but that afternoon astrong German effort forced Com-pany D, 19th Engineers, out of itsdefensive position. Acounterattackto restore their position failed, butby evening, although weakened,the line remained intact . Beforedawn the next day, German sol-diers forced the infantry on the left

to withdraw, thus exposing theengineers' left flank. That after-noon the engineer line broke, andthe Germans were through thepass .

In defending Kasserine Pass, the19th Engineers' casualties were 11killed, 28 wounded, and 88 missing.Their 3-day holding action, however,allowed time for reinforcements totake strong positions in hills, beyondthe pass . These forces stopped Rom-mel by February 22, and the Ger-mans began to withdraw throughKasserine Pass to theiroriginal posi-tions the next day.As the Germans withdrew, the

Allies took the offensive insouthern Tunisia. The II Corps,with engineer reinforcements thatincluded the 20th Engineer Com-bat Regiment and the 176th En-gineer General Service Regiment,attacked south through Gafsatoward Maknassy on March 17 .

Engineer 4 7

Engineers repair an airfield in North Africa, January 1943 .

The 1st and 19th Engineers re-moved mines and turned almost100 miles of trail into dirt roadsthat the 1st Infantry and 1stArmored Divisions used in theiradvance.

Attacking toward Maknassy, the1st Infantry Division had to breakthrough a strong defensive positionon high ground east ofEl Guettar. Atdawn on March 21, after a night in-filtration movement of about 10miles, the 1st Ranger Battalion, sup-ported by a 1st Engineers' mortarplatoon, attacked the rear of thedefensive position ; the 26th Infantry,supported by Company C, 1st En-gineers, attacked the front. TheGer-mans began to withdraw by noon,and the way to Maknassy was open .

The German withdrawal intonorthern Tunisia squeezed the IICorps out of the line in the south.The II Corps then movednorth, ontothe left flank of the First Army, forthe drive toward Bizerte and Tunis.The engineers found that the hillyterrain and lack of maneuver roommade the German-blown bridges aneffective deterrent to their advance.The 16th Armored EngineerBattalion's capability with theBailey bridge, which they hadtrained with in England, helped tosolve that problem.

48 Engineer

he final offensive, in north-ern Tunisia, began on April

24 . The 20th Engineers supportedthe French Corps d'Afrique and .the 9th Infantry Division on theleft, while the 19th Engineers sup-ported the 34th and 1st InfantryDivisions and the 1st ArmoredDivision on the right . The en-gineers maintained almost 100miles of macadam and 250 miles ofdirt roads during this attack . Withthe advancing infantry units fol-lowing the high ground, the en-gineers built almost 75 miles ofnew roads to connect the mainsupply routes with the pack muletrails in the hills .During this last offensive, the

15th Engineer Battalion, 9th In-fantry Division, successfully usedits engineers in support ratherthan attachment, thus keeping en-gineer assets under centralizedbattalion control. A company sup-ported each of the two attackingregiments, while a platoon sup-ported the reserve regiment . Eachcompany used three echelons toprovide a small group of reconnais-sance engineers for forward in-fantry elements. An engineerplatoon maintained mountain

trails, and the rest of the com-pany helped the artillery dis-place forward. The remainderof the engineer battalion wunder division control for usewhere needed most .When the NorthAfrican cam-

paign ended on May 13, 1943,the engineers had gained morethan 6 months of experience in20th century mobile warfare.They had made some mistakesand taken some hard knocks,but they had learned a greatdeal .

In Operation Torch, the am-phibian engineers learned thevalue of establishing a goodworking relationship betweenthe Navy and the landing force.The aviation engineers, learned

the amount of effort required tomaintain andconstruct airfields in atheater ofoperations . While the com-bat engineers had known they couldbe used in infantry missions, theynowunderstood the need for realisticinfantry training . German landmines were new to the engineers,but their ability to overcome theseobstacles grew with each encounter.The Bailey bridge, new to Americanengineers, rapidly became theirfavorite device for spanning riversand repairing roads. After the NorthAfrican campaign, U.S . Army en-gineers moved to Sicily and Europe,where they applied what they hadlearned in North Africa .

Additional Reading:

Beck, AlfredM., TheCorps ofEn-gineers: The WarAgainst Germany,U.S . Government Printing Office,1988:Howe, George F., Northwest

Africa: Seizing the Initiative in theWest, U.S . Government PrintingOffice, 1957 .

Dr. James Dunn is chief, Studiesand Analysis Division, Office ofHistory, U.S . Army Corps of En-gineers, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.