"Battle For LongStop Hill & The East Surrey Regiment 2" Topic

"In the final days of the Tunisian campaign in April and May 1943, two battalions of the East Surrey Regiment were called on to play their part. Their two commanding officers, and many of their men, paid the ultimate price. At El Alamein in late October 1942 the British Eighth Army defeated the Afrika Korps, and sent Rommel's troops reeling into retreat. Soon after on 7 November the Anglo-American forces of Operation Torch landed in Morocco and Algeria. Yet it was only a beginning. Six months later in April 1943 a decisive break through in the subsequent Tunisian Campaign, and final victory in North Africa, still seemed as elusive as ever. To the north west of Tunis on its coastal approach, the Americans were held up by German defences on Green and Bald Hills. In the south General Montgomery's Eighth Army found its armoured divisions nullified by the enemy's positions in the hills and ridges around Enfidaville. In the central west north of Medjez el Bab and some thirty miles from Tunis, the British First Army continued to fight for dominating, German held peaks in the Medjerda Valley. The distant minarets of Tunis, shimmering like a mirage, were tantalizingly close, yet remained out of reach. In the Tunisian capital's French run bars and restaurants, Axis troops still relaxed in their off-duty hours. They still believed that they would soon be reinforced, and be able to drive the Allies into a withdrawal, as Rommel had done so many times before…"
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Amicalement
Armand