{"id":1383,"date":"2025-01-04T15:20:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T15:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghosts-of-war.com\/?p=1383"},"modified":"2025-01-04T16:05:52","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T16:05:52","slug":"wadi-akarit-tunisia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ghosts-of-war.com\/?p=1383","title":{"rendered":"Wadi Akarit, Tunisia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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‘After Mareth…our next engagement was at a place called Wadi Akarit…The Wadi…was at the end of a long flat plain dominated by mountains. I think the Djebel Roumana was one of the mountains…’<\/em> Major Peter Watson, 7th Battalion Black Watch1<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

After turning off the north\/south road, I made my way along a baked clay track towards the beach. On my right was a wadi, steep sided and deep, dotted with palm trees and lined with scrubby vegetation. As I neared the Mediterranean, the walls of the wadi fell away, and it became a broad, shallow tidal estuary. The wind that had blown hard for three days had gone, and groups of flamingos waded the calm, shallow waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The mouth of Wadi Akarit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I switched off the bike and flicked down the side stand. After taking off my helmet, I traced the course of the wadi from where it met the sea until it disappeared somewhere on the flat coastal plain. In the distance, a series of hills broke the horizon: Djebel Roumana and Djebel Meida*.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looking west down Wadi Akarit, with Djebel Roumana and Djebel Meida in the distance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was about 30km north of the coastal Tunisian city of Gabes, and the drainage line I had followed was Wadi Akarit. In 1943, after retreating north from the Mareth Line, the Axis forces had chosen this watercourse, and the topographic features to the west, as their defensive position from which to hold the Allied northern advance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using anti-tank ditches and minefields, the point where Wadi Akarit petered out on the coastal plain to the west had been linked to Djebel Roumana, where the Italians and Germans had taken up positions in the rocky hills. Another anti-tank ditch and minefield plugged the gap between Djebel Roumana and the Axis defenders at Djebel Meida to the south. Impassable salt lakes to the south-west completed the Axis line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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‘The attack was to go in as follows: the 51st Highland Brigade on the right, the 4th Indian Gurkha Division on the left, our 69th Brigade (50th Infantry Division) would attack the centre gap…<\/em>‘ Corporal Bill Cheall, 6th Green Howards2<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Enjoying the warm sun and cool air, I dug my lunch out of my backpack. As I ate, I watched a mob of camels lope by, their herder weaving back and forth behind the mob, urging them on when they lowered their heads to nibble at the scrub. With hunger pacified for at least a couple of hours, I got back on the bike, intending to ride the length of Wadi Akarit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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‘The battle itself took place on the 6th of April, 1943. The night prior to the battle we had taken up our…positions…Because it was going to be a daylight attack…we couldn’t take any blankets etc with us to the pre-assault area. And I remember lying on the ground, beautiful night of course, (clear) sky, stars…There we lay, teeth chattering from the cold…waiting for first light.’ <\/em>Major Peter Watson, 7th Black Watch1<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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I made my way back along the side of the Wadi, then crossed the north\/south road and picked up another track on the western side. From here I could follow the waterway across the coastal plain towards the hills. A group of kids stopped their game to watch as I approached, then gave me a friendly, if slightly confused, wave. This reaction to a stranger on an unusual looking motorcycle is common in Tunisian villages where visitors must be rare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Road bridge over Wadi Akarit 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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‘The road bridge over the Akarit Wadi, destroyed by the enemy’, 1943, Imperial War Museum (NA 1923)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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‘We crossed the start line at 0400 on a lovely moonlit night. It was almost eerie. Everything was so quiet at this early hour. And then all of a sudden…our 25 pounders opened up and we moved forward at a steady walking pace.’<\/em> Corporal Bill Cheall, 6 Green Howards2<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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I was hoping to find some remnant of the anti-tank ditch that had been dug from the ‘end’ of Wadi Akarit to the foothills beyond. A lot of more recent earthworks had been undertaken on the flat plain, such as roads and a complex of earthen banks that delineated individual olive groves and cropping plots. After zigzagging through the area and not having any luck, I gave up and headed to the northern end of Djebel Roumana. This range of hills was the northernmost of the two ranges that held the Axis defenders in April 1943.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Map of the Battle of Wadi Akarit. From Playfair, I.S.O. and Molony, C.J.C., 1966, ‘The Mediterranean and Middle East. Volume IV: The Destruction of the Axis Forces in Africa’<\/em>, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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‘Shells began to fall a little way in front of us, then behind us, and then amongst us…some of our lads began to fall, wounded, killed, at times blown to smithereens…We felt very exposed on that flat plain…’<\/em> Corporal Bill Cheall, 6th Green Howards2<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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I followed a rocky track part way up the Djebel, then left the bike and continued on foot. Cresting one of the hills, I looked down over the expanse of the coastal plain, laid out to the sea. Remnants of trenches and foxholes were still clearly visible, from which I imagined the defenders watching the approaching 51st Highland Division. Shrapnel lay around the positions, jagged-edged and rusty, testimony to the battle which took place here 80 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Defensive positions, Djebel Roumana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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‘Once daylight came, I lay with my glasses fixed on Roumana, but not a man could I see amongst the clouds of slate grey smoke and chestnut dust which cloaked the entire ridge as the German guns and mortars hit back. Beneath this, as I afterwards learned, there was hard fighting amongst the rocks as first one side then the other gained the crest.’ <\/em> Major G. Andrews, 5th Seaforth Highlanders3<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Looking south-south-west from Djebel Roumana, with the peak christened ‘The Pimple’ visible on the plain to the left<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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‘There was…a hill we called ‘The Pimple’ some 1000 yards back from the ditch with a razorback edge to it. And we mounted our machines guns…on the top of this ridge from which we could see over the anti tank ditch. We could see the Italian anti-tank gunners… and the infantry. And we had a wonderful shoot, and we were almost impregnable…’<\/em> Major General Peter Martin, 2nd Battalion Cheshire Regiment4<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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After exploring the hill tops and drainage lines I returned to the bike, and plugged in the coordinates for the second of the two main Axis anti-tank ditches dug on the Wadi Akarit battlefield. (I am very grateful to military historian and expert on Tunisia during WWII Trevor Sheehan** for supplying these and other coordinates<\/em>.) This fortification linked Djebel Roumana to Djebel Meida to the south, and lay in the path of advance of the 50th Infantry Division on the 6th of April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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‘Italian dug anti-tank ditches where formidable affairs. 12 or 15 feet deep with the enemy side almost vertical. They were quite impassable to any tank. Even infantry found them difficult to cross without the use of scaling ladders.’<\/em> Sergeant Brian Moss 233 Field Company Royal Engineers2<\/sup> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Following the map app, I wound my way out of Djebel Roumana and turned south, following the tracks that link the small settlements lying on the eastern side of the hills. I passed ‘The Pimple’, the 85 metre tall hill just south of Djebel Roumana, then followed the gradual rise of the ground until I reached the ditch. Although shallower than when dug in 1943, it was still clear to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Djebel Roumana on the right, and ‘The Pimple’ on the left<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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