Prof. Greg Jackson

This brutal, burning barrage at Sidi Bouzid marks the beginning of the Battle of Kasserine Pass, where fuzz-cheeked American GIs learn hard lessons fast, lessons the British have long committed to memory.

Indeed, even as the advancing Allies muster the strength to repel Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, their British friends take to calling the Americans, our Italians.

Yeah, given how badly the Italian army has been doing, I think you get the drift.

And so, no disrespect to Ike, a tank master, as we know from the last episode, but it's clear that the American Second Corps needs to shape up fast.

And who better to whip them into shape than Ike's fellow tank expert and longtime friend, but one and only, George S. Patton.

Major General George Patton, the 57-year-old, hot-headed, prone to bellowing tank evangelist, landed in Casablanca during Operation Torch, but has been handling logistics thus far and has yet to see any real action.

Frustrated, George writes home, I wish I could get out and kill someone.

Okay, point taken, George.

You're eager to get into the fight, which, as we know from the last episode, is an impatience for action that Dwight Eisenhower can appreciate.

Well, George's moment has come in the disastrous aftermath of Kasserine.

On March 6th, 1943, George Patton gladly takes command of the unseasoned, undisciplined Second Corps.

And a week later, he's promoted to the temporary rank of Lieutenant General.

But before we go rumbling forward, let's zoom out to get the bigger picture.

In mid-March 1943, Axis powers are desperately trying to hold their defensive positions in North Africa, including southeastern Tunisia's Mareth Line, which runs 30 miles inland from the coast.

Basically, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's getting pushed into a tighter and tighter area around Tunisia's northern and coastal capital of Tunis, as the two separate Allied armies squeeze the desert fox's forces in a pincer-like movement.

On the eastern side, British General Bernard Monty Montgomery led his 8th Army into Tunisia from Libya last month, intent upon forcing the Nazi Africa Corps to make its last stand in Tunis.

Meanwhile, Dwight Eisenhower and his American divisions, along with British Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson's 1st Army, are still pushing west from French Algeria, past the mountain passes like Kasserine and onto the Tunisian plains.

As the combined Italian-German army retreats, they give up airfields, extending Allied air reach.

Even better for the Anglo-American troops is the fact that surprise attacks are no more.

Ultra-intelligence has broken the Nazi enigma cryptography.