Mareth from the Wrong End

I have been in the Mareth and Wadi Akarit battles as an artillery Lt. in an Italian Battery of old (1906 model) 75/27 guns. On the Mareth line, my guns were placed on high mountains and I was in an observatory post dug in a tall mountain (don't remember its name) overlooking Djebel Tebaga. Many other observatories were dug in the same place, including some German ones that I didn't know about. One early morning, looking down to the foggy plan, I saw vehicles and tanks moving about and called fire from my battery; what ensued was that a few angry Germans came shouting to my place, saying that those were Axis, not British troops and immediately stop firing. Rommel had planned a bold surprise attack aimed at encircling and destroying the British vanguards in Medenine and my impromptu fire had contributed to failure of his plan. The Germans just hadn't informed us.
A few days later, a big German car stopped at my battery. Rommel was there and an aid summoned me. I sprang to attention and the young aid spoke to me in English "General Rommel asks you to please think twice before opening fire". Which I thought very cavalier of him. I was 21 years old, and my battery had originally belonged to the Ariete Division that had been destroyed at El Alamein, but had survived because before that battle we had been detached to the Oasis of Jalu to fend off an attack of Commandos.
After the Allied breakthrough, my Group of 3 Batteries was sent to the South in the Alouf valley to oppose an advancing Indian division; after two days of fire we retreated to the Akarit line.
On the Akarit line, my battery in the Pistoia-Spezia sector found itself without any infantry ahead, as a surprise night attack had killed or captured them all. We fired some thousand shells at direct sight against the heights of Djebel Tebaga Fatnassa and Djebel Roumana, and at dusk we managed to get away on the Enfidaville route for a final battle on Djebel Garci and Takruna.
A particular feature of that battle was that we spent all the day at point blank firing under a roof of whistling counter-battery 25 Pounder's shells, no one of which actually hit us: they were about 100 yds. too long. Even an attempt at a smoke curtain wasn't effective. We had no casualties.
I would appreciate some survivor of those episodes to exchange views with me about how it looked from the other side.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.