Ever so often I come across a battle the war diaries/books/websites I have don't cover very well; and this is one of two events i'm currently trying to reconstruct and it's a bit of a mystery to me. Its a dramatic story of an assault on a mountain strong point, and a daring armoured charge through the coastal surf. Location. Basically I need some help building up the story so i was wondering if anyone had any information from their sources that they could share? Two units in particular question are the: 2nd Lothians and Border Horse 3 Welsh Guards I'm really after personal accounts but anything in more detail could help. I'm particularally surprised I can't find anything of the lothian and border horses dramatic assauly. Now I'll obviously have to go back TNA to get some more war diaries, and i'll type out anything useful and put it here when I do. But here's Hyperwars take on the details that I have: British 6th Armoured Division, followed by British 4th Division, went southward along the Tunis-HammametñEnfidaville road to block retirement into a peninsular redoubt. The British 1st Armoured Division, now under 9 Corps, cut across eastward from the Goubellat area to reinforce them. The British armored column reached Hamman Lif defile, a gap of 300 yards between cliff and surf, only to find it strongly defended by Kampfgruppe Frantz armed with antitank guns and other artillery (see p. 651 above). Here was a Tunisian Thermopylae. For approximately two days the defenders successfully repulsed all attacks of the 6th Armoured Division, later reinforced by the 1st Armoured Division, and defied all stratagems. Then a tank force, risking immobilization and destruction, succeeded in navigating a course over the firm wet sand at the very edge of the surf. The tanks broke into the enemy's positions, and cleared the way for an accelerated rush to Hammamet by the entire column. Source.
WG at War, Ellis has 6 pages on Hamman Lif ... ends: Welsh Guards casualties in this fight were twenty-four killed or died of wounds and fifty wounded, the wounded including five officers and eleven sergeants. 2 Coys to capture Double Hill (3Coy) and Cave Hill (2Coy), another to give covering fire, the 4th held in reserve. Want copies of pages?
WG at War, Ellis has 6 pages on Hamman Lif ... ends: 2 Coys to capture Double Hill (3Coy) and Cave Hill (2Coy), another to give covering fire, the 4th held in reserve. Want copies of pages? Yes please!!!! That would be awesome!!!
Have you seen Ken Ford's book 'Mailed Fist 6th Armoured Division at War 1939-1945' ? Pages 102 -111 have a good description of the action including a first hand account by the lead tank commander along the beach, Lt Allan Waterston.
Also a few pages in Nicholson's Grenadier Guards history , good description of the capture of the Bey Of Tunis . This map is from there.
Have you seen Ken Ford's book 'Mailed Fist 6th Armoured Division at War 1939-1945' ? Pages 102 -111 have a good description of the action including a first hand account by the lead tank commander along the beach, Lt Allan Waterston. That's actually a good quote; i'd forgotton about that one (my books are all in england so I can't check them but I know there is very little). However i'm still surprised that given the operation there isn't more available. Besides from Ken ford are there any other accounts in anyone's books of the beach run, Welsh guards run: or, given that the british operation was held up for a day or two, the failed attacks?
From The Coldstream Guards, 1920-46, Howard & Sparrow: Pages 141-142 7 May ... On the whole, neither battalion had much trouble as their carriers drove to and fro among the cornfields rounding up scattered Germans, and both collected a mass of useful enemy equipment. The armour meanwhile had pushed beyond Mornaghia, and in the afternoon both Guards Brigades again joined the traffice on the dusty road to carry on the advance. Tunis fell, the Derbyshire Yeomanry and the 11th Hussars entering the town neck and neck, and IX Corps was now turning south-east to cut off the Germans at Enfidaville from their last base at Cap Bon. 6th Armoured Division was ordered to drive down the Hamman Lif road to the coast at Hammamet, the 1st Armoured Division came up from reserve to cross the Creteville Pass to Gromablia, and 201st Guards Brigade was lent to 4th British Infantry Division, which was to clear the hills if the armour became hopelessly held up. Thus the Second Battalion spent the evening and night of 7 May on a cross-country journey south-west of Tunis. Its orders wre to cut the road from Tunis to Pont-du-Fahs; but the tracks were confused, a sudden rain-storm turned the surface to slippery mud, and the companies were able to reach only the road from Tunis to Bou Arada, where they spent a cold uncomfortable night by the roadside soaked by the rain, with the Germans still fighting a brisk rearguard action somewhere on their flank. When day came all was quiet, and the battalion reached the Pont-du-Fahs road with little difficulty. Now the full extent of the Allied victory was becoming clear; the Second Battalion found itself surrounded by German depots, workshops, dumps, hospitals, and transport. Base troops sat listlessly waiting to surrender, and kit lay there for the taking. The Medical Officer called at the Italian Military Hospital, where a frightened and obsequious staff presented him with a case of dental instruments. But the fight was not yet over. The road from Tunis to Hammamet runs at Hamman Lif through a gap only 200 yards wide between the mountains of the Djebel-er-Rorouf and the sea. In this strong natural position the Germans were well entrenched; no British tanks could force the narrow gap and the enemy gunners gave back shell for shell. It was a matter for the infantry, and on the afternoon of 8 May 1st Guards Brigade moved to take Djebel-er-Rorouf from the north. The Djebel consists of five sharp peaks some 600 feet hight, whose rocky scrub-covered slopes are in places most precipitous. The Welsh Guards assaulted in broad daylight, and captured the first of them after a superb display of courage which rivalled even their gallantry at Fondouk. The Second Battalion oved up to assault the remaining peaks as darkness was falling. It was steep going: 4 Coy. had to be detailed to provide carrying parties, and the remaining three companies passed through one another, each taking one peak as its objective. 1 Coy. was in the lead, and scrambled up the rocks under intense small-arms and grenade fire to rush the summit and take thirteen prisoners. The remaining companies met little opposition, though steep rocks made progress difficult, and by first light on 9 May the battalion held the whole feature and overlooked Hamman Lif itself. Lt. Ponsonby took a patrol into the town and found a strong force of enemy tanks; but withe the heights in British hands the town could be pounded with merciless gun-fire throughout the morning, and in the afternoon a squadron of the Lothian and Border Horse commanded by a Coldstream, Maj. Anstruther Gray, slipped along the beach and drove their Shermans through the sea itself to force the surrender of the garrison. That evening the Second Battalion moved into the town, which was quiet save for a few diehard Germans still sniping in the streets. To Lt. Mark Philips fell the unusual duty of searching the palace of the Bey of Tunis and disarming his guard, a mission which he fulfilled with tact and thoroughness, despite a barrage of shrill protests from those in charge of the harem. 1st Guards Brigade spent a quiet night round Hamman Lif, and the advance on Hammamet was taken up by 201st Guards Brigade. 8 and 9 May had been for the Third Battalion days of confused and apparently pointless moves, for the Brigade had passed from one Division to another as an unwanted and uncommitted reserve. Now it was to take the lead... A document which ADM199 found at TNA and which covers the guards in Tunisia is here: http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/unit-documents/19035-guards-tunisia.html
