Enfidaville, Tunisia
Bob Orton and I were assigned to the Medical Aid Post of this British Eighth Army artillery unit during the last month of the battle for Tunisia. We got to know the officers pretty well—a jolly bunch when they weren’t busy laying on a barrage. The big guns are aimed at Takrouna, where the Italian infantry soldiers were holding their last stand against an assault by the New Zealand Maori infantry. While the British Eighth Army was advancing toward Tunis from the east, the American army was advancing on Tunis from the west. We didn’t know it at the time, but Eisenhower was in England planning the D Day assault on the beaches of France; Rommel was back in Germany plotting an assassination attempt against Hitler; and Italy was soon to depose Mussolini and declare neutrality.
gunners could not know:
would their screeching lethal shells
land on friends or foe?
would their screeching lethal shells
land on friends or foe?
Copyright © 2011 by John Candler Cobb, II.
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