Prof. Greg Jackson

Amid these developments and disruptions to Axis supply lines, Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower and his fellow Allied officers hope that their grinding advance will soon force Erwin to surrender.

But then, Erwin's suddenly out of the picture.

Yes, Nazi Germany's famed Desert Fox leaves the fight.

On March 9th, illness forces the field marshal to head back to Germany.

German General Hans-Jürgen von Arning and Italian General Giovanni Messi have to carry on without him.

Back on the American side, George Patton is hard at work.

He tightens the ranks, demanding, in his jarringly falsetto voice, that all officers wear their brightly gleaming rank insignia, even though enemy snipers use them as aiming stakes to pick off officers.

Crazy, but to his credit, he'll be at the battle lines alongside his men, doing the same, making himself a walking target as well.

One first lieutenant, John Patterson, will later say of Old Blood and Guts that he's the kind of son of a bitch who'd get you killed, but he'd be there chewing on your rump when it happened.

Yes, George Patton's nickname is Old Blood and Guts, though with risky plays like that insignia bit, the men soon play on it, calling him Our Blood His Guts.

It's clever, but don't mistake that for disrespect.

On the contrary, soldiers hold George Patton in high regard.

As Sergeant Hubert Garbage Edwards puts it, I didn't like him a bit, but I had to respect him because he was a known fighter.

Yes, Garbage is Hubert's nickname.

He picked it up for being one of the few Americans not disgusted by the English cuisine served on their ships en route to North Africa last year.

But as great of an accomplishment as conquering English fare is, garbage has much bigger worries as the Allies tighten the noose on their cornered Nazi foe.

It's just before 3 p.m., March 23, 1943.

We're crouching in the muddy Tunisian desert of El Guattar with Sergeant Hubert Garbage Edwards and fellow battery men, all a part of the 2nd Battalion of the 17th Field Artillery in the 2nd Armored Division, aka the Hell on Wheels Division.

German fighters zoom above, their machine guns spitting, providing cover for a dozen U-87 Stuka dive bombers and advancing 50-ton panzers, happy to crush American soldiers in shallow slit trenches if the opportunity arises.

Those bullet-spitting fighters are precisely why Garbage and his fellow battery operators are so low to the ground.