Paraphrased from “My Tour of Military Duty,” by Charles Faso, Tank Commander, US 1st Armored Division (from 1st Armored Division WWII & Beyond: Old Ironsides, edited by Greg S. Wurth)
---- On getting to North Africa ----
I was standing on top deck, and I noticed airplanes coming over the horizon. I yelled, “Airplanes, airplanes!” to the British sailors.
They said, “Oh, my God! They’re Italian torpedo planes!”
I think there were about six of them. I watched one plane launch a torpedo at the ship in front of us. They hit it on the right side. Men were jumping overboard. The ship was blowing distress signals.
At that moment a plane launched a torpedo at our ship. The ship’s captain called out, “At my command! Full speed ahead!” You could hear the engines roaring and revving up. Full speed ahead. The torpedo was coming at our right side. The British Navy gunners were firing away at the planes, and I was helping the gunners carry the ammunition. They were firing the ship’s 40 mm pom poms. They had four barrels: two on top and two on the bottom. They would fire one at a time sounding like “pom, pom, pom, pom.”
In the meantime, a torpedo was coming right at us. The ship’s captain calls out, “Hard right!” I’m standing there with my mouth wide open watching the torpedo pass us on the side when the ship turned right.
---- In the fight for Kasserine Pass ----
In Northern Africa, while our Company was holding off the Germans, we saw a column of our new M4 tanks, about 40 of them, going through the Pass. We were so happy to see our new tanks as we still had the old M3's. They went over the Pass, then we could see black smoke on the other side of the hill. We said, "Boy, they're sure letting them have it." Then we could see with our binoculars soldiers crawling back towards us. They were Americans! The Germans had let them get across the pass, got them cornered on the other side, and let them have it.
Like I said before, we still had the old tanks, the old M3's, and we had to recapture Kasserine Pass. This was in February 1943. Our Company was assigned to take the pass, and we only had seven tanks left out of 15. Three more tanks from another Company were assigned to us.
We all took our positions, defilading behind the sand dunes in this small valley.
“I see a column of tanks coming from my direct front,” said the Lieutenant. “The lead tank is a large tank, and I think it’s a Tiger!”
General Patton was there around our tank and gave us instructions. He told us not to fire until they got to within 300 to 600 yards, and he said to our Commander, Herman T. McWatters, “Mac, God bless you.”
With the first shot fired, the Germans fell into a wedge formation with the Tiger tank leading and a Mark 4 on each side. Then the other tanks coming from the three sides of the mountain passes also fell into the same formation.
The entire company began firing and our projectiles just bounced right off their tanks. We were firing AP’s, which had phosphorus tracers so that you could tell where our projectiles were hitting. We were good gunners by then, but against that tank, it did not even affect them. So I figured out that the only way to stop them was to shoot their tracks.
So I tried and fired at the German steel tracks, and that did the trick. After we hit the tracks, their tank would stop and turn sideways. Then we would fire and knock them out by shooting at their sides. We were having an all out war at that time. It was tank against tank just like a dog fight.