British units were also driven back, losing all their tanks in the process. The initial handful of American battalions were inexperienced and poorly led they suffered many casualties and were successively pushed back over 50 miles (80 km) from their original positions west of Faïd Pass, until they met an advancing brigade of the US 1st Armoured Division. The battle was the first major engagement between U.S. II Corps ( Major General Lloyd Fredendall), the British 6th Armoured Division ( Major-General Charles Keightley) and other parts of the First Army ( Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson). The Axis forces, led by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, were primarily from the Afrika Korps Assault Group, the Italian Centauro Armored Division and two Panzer divisions detached from the 5th Panzer Army, while the Allied forces were from the U.S. It was a part of the Tunisian campaign of World War II. armies split the final remnants of the German army in two, hastening an end to World War II in Europe.The Battle of Kasserine Pass took place from 18-24 February 1943 at Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. On April 26 th, 1945, the 761 st rendezvoused with the Red Army in Steyr, Austria. battalions to meet up with Soviet forces. The 761 st helped break out and rescue the encircled American army in the town of Bastogne.īy the end of April 1945, the 761 st would be one of the first U.S. The battalion would play a major role in the infamous Battle of the Bulge as they successfully countered the German's last-ditch offensive. From the time they entered combat until the end of the war in Europe, the men of the 761 st received seven Silver Stars, 246 Purple Hearts and 1 Congressional Medal of Honor. As they fought their way into Germany, the 761 st would participate in four major campaigns through six countries, all the while earning several battlefield commendations and honors. Patton, himself a skeptic of African American tankers in combat, would wind up welcoming the 761 st into his Third Army and motivated them with a rousing speech right before they set out to engage German forces. Upon arriving in Normandy, France in late 1944, the 761 st was assigned to Patton's Third Army. A tank crew from the 761st sit in their M24 Chaffee tank in a snowy field around Bastogne, waiting to engage German forces during the Battle of the Bulge.
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