With his voice heavy with the haunting memories of the Battle of Kasserine Pass, Dominic Martello mused: (QUOTE) “Sometimes I wonder if it really happened.”

He recalled the bone-deep tension that clutched at the hearts of young GIs in February of 1943. They were on the cusp of clashing with the most powerful military force on the planet, the Wehrmacht.

Until then, the American forces stationed in North Africa had only squared off against the under-equipped and half-hearted Vichy French troops. This misleading experience had left them ill-prepared for what was to come.
Yet, Martello, alongside millions of Americans back home, held onto the unwavering belief that the tyrannical forces of Fascist regimes would crumble under the righteous might of democratic troops at the onset of their first real battle.

For the Germans, it was time to quash this American foray into the European theater and prove that the United States had neither the right nor the strength to meddle with Europe’s destiny. The Americans were determined to show they could reprise their World War 1 role as liberators.
In a two-mile gap within the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west-central Tunisia, known as Kasserine Pass, 30,000 entrenched Americans lay in wait for the German onslaught.

Led by the legendary Desert Fox, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, a force of 22,000 German troops marched toward the American stronghold.
As dawn broke on February 14, Rommel unleashed his forces on the heavily fortified Allied position.

Martello, green and jittery like his fellow recruits, witnessed the sudden emergence of German tanks across the dusty horizon. It was far beyond their wildest fears. Rommel’s fiercely aggressive and unyieldingly disciplined troops lurched ahead as relentless war machines.
Over the next four grueling days, US troops would get a taste of the Wehrmacht’s fury for the very first time in their lives…