The Tiger Tank and Allied Intelligence Volume 2: The Tunisian Tigers

The Tiger Tank and Allied Intelligence Volume 2: The Tunisian Tigers

The Tiger tank was dramatically more powerful than any other tank when deployed in 1942. How did the Germans preserve its secrets? Why were the Allies taken by surprise? What did they discover?

After 20 years of research on three continents, across 25 battle maps, 31 tables of data, more than 500 photographs and drawings, and previously unidentified first-hand accounts, these volumes reveal what Allied technicians discovered and what the propagandists covered up and distorted. Thus, we can learn more about the Tiger as it really was, rather than the hearsay that history books perpetuate.

This second volume tells the story of Tigers on the Western front from February to April 1943: the Tigers leading the greatest Axis counter-offensive of the Tunisian campaign, through Faid, Sidi Bou Zid, and Sbeitla, on the way to American abandonment of Kasserine Pass; the counter-offensive against the British from Sidi Nsir to Hunts Gap; the “Tiger graveyard,” where seven Tigers were demolished; the American claims to knock out Tigers at El Guettar Pass, where Tigers never fought; how Tigers saved Maknassy Pass, but went unobserved by the Americans; the American claim to knock out a Tiger in between these passes, and the match with Tiger 213; the reasons why Tiger 213 was never reported higher than company echelon; the daring German spoiling attack near Medjez; the failed British counter-attacks against a Tiger at Djebel Djaffa; the strange abandonment of this Tiger without demolition; the British failure to exploit this Tiger; and American acquisition of Tiger 712, its restoration, enshipment to America, and subsequent neglect; the huge British and French offensive across Goubellat Plain, and how Tigers contributed to its defeat; and Tiger 731’s final battles, its demise, its capture without demolition, and the reasons why its capture went unrecorded.

Book Data

Author: Bruce Oliver Newsome
Language: English
ISBN: 9781951171032
Pages: 150
Photos: 80
Maps/tables/charts: 9
Physical: Hardcover, 280x216mm, portrait

Chapters

Introduction
1: Tiger 231 in American reports
2: The American front
3: Sidi Bou Zid: The first day
4: Sidi Bou Zid: The counter-attack
5: Sbeitla to Kasserine
6: Hunts Gap: Sidi Nsir
7: Hunts Gap: Tigers versus Churchills
8: Hunts Gap: The costliest day
9: Hunts Gap: High tide
10: Hunts Gap: The intelligence
11: El Guettar: First American claims
12: El Guettar: The main attack
13: El Guettar: The southern attack
14: El Guettar: The final attack
15: Maknassy Pass: Tiger 213
16: Djebel Djaffa: Spoiling attack
17: Djebel Djaffa: The highway
18: Djebel Djaffa: The counter-attacks
19: Djebel Djaffa: The Tiger mystery
20: Goubellat Plain: The first day
21: Goubellat Plain: Tiger 731 fights
22: Goubellat Plain: Day’s end
23: Goubellat Plain: Tiger 731’s fate