page_title: 6th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)
section_title: Kasserine
hierarchical_section_title: 6th Armoured Division (United Kingdom) / History / Kasserine
caption_attribution_description: English: German POWs help carry a wounded British soldier during 6th Armoured Division's attack on the town of Pichon in Tunisia, 8 April 1943. A soldier escorts captured Germans bringing in a stretcher during 6th Armoured Division's attack on the town of Pichon, 8 April 1943.
context_page_description: The 6th Armoured Division was an armoured division of the British Army, created in September 1940 during the Second World War. In October 1940, armoured regiments within the Division, such as the 2nd Lothian and Border Horse, were supplied with Matilda MkI.I tanks, then in May 1942 Crusader MkII tanks, in August 1942 Valentine Mk.V tanks and finally in October Crusader MKIIIs. In North Africa tankers were finally put on an almost equal footing to their Panzer counterparts when the M4A2 Sherman medium tank was added to their inventory by March 1943. In November/December 1942 The division participated in the Operation Torch assault landings in Bone, closest to the Axis Forces in all the Torch landings that stretched from Morocco to the Tunisian border. In November 1942 they saw their first action as part of V Corps of the British First Army, First Allied Army in the Tunisia Campaign. In March 1943, around the same time when most of the units had been supplied with American M4A2 Shermans, the Sixth Division came under IX Corp.
context_section_description: On 30 January 1943, the German 21st Panzer Division (veterans of the Afrika Korps under Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel) and three Italian divisions met elements of the French forces near Faïd, the main pass from the eastern arm of the mountains into the coastal plains. The French were overrun and two US units near them were surrounded. Several counter-attacks were organised, including a number by the US 1st Armored Division but these were beaten off with ease. After three days, the Allied forces had been forced to pull back and were withdrawn into the interior, to make a new forward defensive line at the small town of Sbeitla.
  The Germans and Italians started forward once again the following week to take Sbeitla. They were held up for two days but eventually the defence started to collapse on the night of 16 February 1943 and the town lay empty by midday on 17 February (see also the Battle of Sidi Bou Zid). The entirety of the interior plains in Axis hands and the remaining Allied forces retreated further, to the two passes on the western arm of the mountains into Algeria, at Sbiba and Kasserine. It was during this time that the 38th (Irish) Brigade left the division, to be replaced by the 1st Guards Brigade from the 78th (Battleaxe) Division.
  The Axis offensive stopped, even as the US II Corps (Major General Lloyd Fredendall) retreated in disarray. Eventually Rommel decided his next course of action was to simply take the American supplies on the Algerian side of the western arm of the mountains. Although doing little for his own situation, it would seriously upset any possible American actions from that direction.
  On 19 February 1943, Rommel launched what would become the Battle of Kasserine Pass. After two days of advances through the American defences, the Afrika Korps and the Italians had suffered few casualties, while the American forces lost 16,000 men and two-thirds of their tanks. During the battle the Italian 131st Centauro Armoured Division captured more than 3,000 American soldiers. On the night of 21 February 1943, the 6th Armoured and 46th Infantry Divisions, arrived to bolster the American defence, having been pulled from the British lines facing the Germans at Sbiba. Counter-attacks by Italian troops were also ordered on the British and Americans. Two battalions of experienced Bersaglieri soldiers are recorded by the 23rd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery as having made a daylight counter-attack through the Ousseltia Plain, which was repelled. Next day opened with another German counter-attack against the Americans, until the arrival of four US artillery battalions made offensive operations difficult.
  Faced with stiffening defences and the news that the Eighth Army had reached Medenine, only a few kilometres from the Mareth Line, Rommel decided to call off the attack and withdraw on the night of 22 February 1943 to support the Mareth defences, hoping that the Kasserine attack had caused enough damage to deter any offensive action from the west for the moment. The Axis forces from Kasserine reached the Mareth line on 25 February. It was after the battle of Kasserine Pass that the 6th Armoured Division was reorganised and equipped with the M4 Sherman tank. In March 1943 the division was assigned to the recently arrived IX Corps (Lieutenant-General John Crocker) the former first GOC of the division, who was later wounded in a training accident and replaced by Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks. The division was the spearhead of the final assault by the First Army in May 1943, breaking through to Tunis. The 6th Armoured Division went on to take the surrender of the famous 90th Light Division and participated in the round up and capitulation of all Axis forces in North Africa in May 1943.
caption: German prisoners of war (POWs) carry a wounded British soldier during the 6th Armoured Division's attack on the town of Pichon in Tunisia, 8 April 1943.
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