The American Traveler

SPECIAL-EDITION   PUBLISHED DAILY BY 1st U. S. INFANTRY-DIVISION   June 6, 1945.

Editor Praises Yanks Fighting in Tunisia

Foreign New Editor Charles Werenbaker of 'Times" magazine made the following report to his readers on May 24, 1943.

The Battle of Africa became history last week. To the U. S. soldiers who fought their way across Tunisian's dustwhipped plains and along the bald ridges of Djebel Berda and Djebel Tahent it was history of a peculiarly intimate kind, for in battle each soldier is alone. To Private Aalvan Mendelsohn it was a foxhole on a hilltop beyond El Guettar, reading a magazine when the shelling got heavy by day and at night lying there waiting to know if his number was coming up. To Corporal Issac Lorenzo Moroni Parker it was the sonofabitching Kasserine Pass. To Private First Class Cichael Scotto di Clementi it was digging a slit trench behind the colonel's tent in an oaisis and wondring if anybody remembered Micky Scot of "Our Gang" comedies. To Major General Terry Allen it was a satisfying pride in his 1st Division and an occasional chance to talk over polo with a British major over a cup of tea. To many another soldier it was a grave in a clearing at Beja, in the Valley of the Bedjerdia.

To all the men of the four divisions that fought those last three months it meant a great deal for the people at home to know how they had fought. It was important that the people understand the nature of their eccomplishments and the reasons for their failures. Between March 18 and the end of the campaign last week, four U. S. divisions were almost continuously on the offensive, form Gafsa in the south to the tip of Tunisia at Bizerte. They were the 1st, the 9th, and the 34th Infantry and the 1st Armored Division. Now that most restrictions of censorship have been lifted, it is possible to tell something of how each fought.

Gafsa & El Guettar