Battle of Kasserine Pass 1943
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1943 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Tunisia | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Africa | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Tunisia campaign | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | United Kingdom, United States | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 35.2596, 8.7424 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Kasserine Pass was a series of engagements which took place from 19–24 February 1943 around Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. It was a part of the Tunisian campaign of World War II.
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. The Allied forces were from the 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 battle was the first major engagement between U.S. and Axis forces in Africa. The participating American battalions 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 U.S. 1st Armored Division. British forces were also driven back, losing all 11 of their tanks in the process. After these reverses, Allied reinforcements backed by strong artillery support halted the Axis offensive at Djebel el Ahma and Thala.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Kasserine Pass (revision 1377739550), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Tunisia campaign
- Battle of El Guettar 1943
- Battle of Hill 609 1943
- Battle of Longstop Hill 1943
- Battle of Sedjenane 1943
- Battle of Sidi Bou Zid 1943
- Battle of Wadi Akarit 1943
- Battle of the Mareth Line 1943
All 8 battles of the Tunisia campaign →
Browse more: battles in Tunisia · Africa · World War II era battles