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The Germans had 31 tanks put out of action that day; they lost heavily in both men and materiel during those four days of fighting. When the 1st Division retired from the southern ridge called Djebel Berda at the end of the fourth day, it was to prepare for a fresh offensive. By that time the men were so tired that, as one battalion commander, Lieut. Colonel Ben Sternberg, put it, "if you'd told a man a German was on the other side of a rock he wouldn't have given a damn." But, the Colonel added, "we could have held that stinking ground."
Meanwhile the 1st Armored Division had taken Maknassy, north of Gafsa, but was unable to push through the hills beyond. Reason: insufficient infantry. So about half the division was shifted to El Guettar for the new offensive. A dozen miles east of El Guettar the hills come close together in a narrow pass, and after that there is flat going to the sea. The plan was for the 1st Division to seize the hills to the north, for the 9th to take Djebel Berda and the other hills to the south, then for the ist Armored to push through the pass and see what it could do. This would keep the enemy engaged while Montgomery was attacking toward Gabes, and with luck the armor might get through to Rommel's rear.
It never got through, and to this extent El Guettar was a failure. The fault was not with the 1st Division, which took all its objectives on schedule. It was partly the fault of the 9th, which took ridge after ridge only to leave pockets of the enemy in its rear. The Germans had mortars sunk in gullies which could be captured only by hand-to-hand combat. They had heavy artillery which covered the hills on both sides of the pass and the valley between. And they had observation posts on the highest peaks which could direct their fire anywhere. The 9th Division, in its first offensive action, could not keep pace with the ist. Its officers, particularly the battalion and company commanders, were not so well trained or experienced. But the 9th's performance, though ragged, was no disgrace: it was up against a terrain that was ideally suited to defense and had been prepared for months.
Correspondents who saw the British 6th Armored Division break through at Fondouk two weeks later felt that the U.S. armor might have shown more daring at El Guettar. True, the hills to the south of the pass had not been cleared, but a determined thrust might have forced the pass and flanked the enemy in those hills. True, there were minefields in the pass, but so there were at Fondouk, and there the British sacrificed some 40 tanks to plough through. But whatever shortcomings were revealed at El Guettar, they taught some valuable lessons. If U.S. troops learn best by experience, they seldom have to learn more than once.