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This story has been posted by Mark Jeffers with permission from the author. The author understands the terms and conditions.

In North Africa we had 17 tanks in our company, which we kept in reserve. When a tank was damaged, we would supply a replacement and carry out repairs on the damaged machine. We also serviced other vehicles and equipment as part of our maintenance role. We had four double machine guns, two single machine guns, two 30mm guns and four British Beaufort 90mm anti-aircraft guns in our company. There were also M10 tank destroyer vehicles, armed with a 75mm or a 90mm gun. These had a tank chassis but had less armour than a tank. They could travel at 40 mph and had twin diesel engines that did not catch fire as easily as the engines of the M4 tank, the main tank used in North Africa.

As we advanced through North Africa, we made some improvements to our tanks, including a chain to set off mines 10 feet in front of a tank, and a bulldozer blade for the M4, which could be used to move earth, and provide protection in combat. I designed sights for two 50 caliber machine guns, which created an effective cross-fire at 1500 yards. We shot down a number of ME109s that belonged to a ‘Yellownose’ squadron in ‘Stuka Valley’ before the Kasserine Pass offensive; these fighters were flown by young and inexperienced pilots and attacked three times a day, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. We shot down all but two of them. We found one 17-year-old German pilot sitting on his plane in tears after being shot down— he had been told that if the Americans captured him, they would kill him. In fact we took him to the mess and fed him.

In the major action at Kasserine Pass and the last action of the campaign at Bizerte, there were three ‘combat commands’; A, B and C. C Command went in first, followed by B and A; our Company was in B Command. At Bizerte there were three Battalions of infantry, M3 and M4 tanks, Signals, Maintenance and Supply Companies with each combat command. This was the final battle and involved bitter hand-to-hand fighting. It was the first occasion that the 6th Infantry had to use bayonets. All through North Africa there were casualties, and I saw heavy damage inflicted on our tanks and their crews by the more heavily armoured German Panzers. Despite this, we pulled through against Rommel’s forces, and the Germans and Italians surrendered in Tunisia on May 9th 1943, a year after we left New York for County Down.

When the campaign was over, I remember visiting the ruins at Carthage, and seeing the columns and buildings of the ancient city. We then moved back to Rabat in French Morocco, and underwent training until November. At that point we were moved back to Oran in Algeria and shipped out from there on a Landing Ship Tank (LST) to Naples. There were ten of us plus the boat’s crew on board, and we had a half-track on the top deck and six tanks down below. We hit a bad storm on the way and one of the tanks broke loose. Four of us had to go down and re-chain it, to stop the boat from rolling over. We made it to Naples, and were billeted in a big mansion on a hill above the harbour, from where we could see Mount Vesuvius.

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