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Fondouk was a lesson to the 34th Division. The task at Fondouk, 90 miles north of El Guettar, was much the same as it had been in the south: to clear the mountains guarding a pass, force the pass and spread out on the plain to Kairouan. Those who watched a brigade of Guards take the dominant hill north of Fondouk in half an hour, who later saw the British armor plunge through a 450-yard-deep minefield covered by twelve anti-tank guns and speed for Kairouan, felt that there was something essentially wrong with the 34th, which had been unable to take the hills on the south side of the pass. The four U.S. correspondents who saw that battle went to Major General Charles W. Ryder's headquarters to get his side of the story.
"The British," said he, "were damn good."
But there was more to it than that, as this correspondent learned later—not from able General Ryder, who knew his men too well to make excuses for them. The tactical plan, as devised by the British IX Corps, called for a frontal assault by the 34th on its objective while the hill to the north of the pass, which dominated the 34th's objective, was still in enemy hands. U.S. infantry works better in enveloping tactics. If the hill to the north had been taken first, and then the southern hills attacked from either flank, the story of Fondouk might have been written differently.
609, Mateur, Bizerte. One criticism made of U.S. troops is that they do not begin to fight their best until they get mad. If that is true, what happened to the 9th Division at El Guettar and to the 34th at Fondouk (or perhaps what was said about them) made them first-class divisions. The history of the last three weeks of the Tunisian campaign, of Hill 609 and Mateur and Bizerte, is too fresh to need repeating, but these facts should not be forgotten:
>It was the capture of Djebel Tahent, Hill 609, which rises like a flat-topped fortress above the lower hills near by, that cracked the German positions south of Bizerte and started the withdrawal that became a collapse. The 34th Division took 609 in a bloody battle and held it against savage counterattacks.
>The 9th Division stormed Green Hill and Bald Hill, on either side of Jefna, after veteran British troops had tried for six months to capture them.
>These two actions, and the work of the incomparable 1st farther south, opened the way to Mateur; and with the fall of Mateur began the collapse which spread across the entire German line. If the 9th and 34th had not learned their lessons so well, the Battle of Tunisia might not yet be over.
>Casualties were high. In those mountains a wounded man often died before help could reach him. Many a U.S. soldier paid with his life for the experience gained by the next man.
Because of those who learned and those who died, the U.S. has gained the nucleus of an army to fight the Germans. It is not yet an entire army: only four full divisions fought through the campaign, and those are now depleted. But they are no longer new to war. They have fought as well as any U.S. troops ever fought. They deserve well of the Republic.