U. S. ARMOR NEAR EL GUETTAR IN CENTRAL TUNISIA. In foreground is a radio-equipped half-track personnel carrier, in background a 75-mm. gun motor carriage M3. The latter, lightly armored, was an antitank vehicle with great mobility. The enemy developed a healthy respect for the hit-and-run tactics of U. S. forces using this weapon. The vehicle would wait until enemy armor came within range, get off as many shells as possible, and withdraw. U. S. forces pushed eastward from the Gafsa area to draw enemy units from the Mareth Line then under attack by the British. On 23 March 1943 severe fighting broke out southeast of El Guettar and a German armored division was repulsed by U. S. forces with heavy tank losses to the enemy.] [Illustration: TUNISIA LOADING A HOWITZER. This was the 1918 Schneider model equipped with highspeed carriage. The action shown above took place during the enemy counterattack starting on 23 March 1943 east of El Guettar. Although the enemy attack was stopped, U. S. advance toward the coast halted for several days. During this action Allied fighters and light bombers accounted for much damage done to enemy armor and other vehicles along the Gafsa-Gabès road east of El Guettar. (155-mm. howitzer.)] [Illustration: TUNISIA INFANTRY NEAR EL GUETTAR. After the enemy attack in this area on 23 March, the front became almost stabilized until the British Eighth Army broke through Oued el Akarit defenses along the coast north of Gabès on the night of 6–7 April. The junction between the forces fighting in Tunisia and the British Eighth Army from the Middle East took place on the Gafsa-Gabès road on 7 April when a U. S. armored reconnaissance unit made contact with elements of the British army. The British Eighth Army had started its drive westward from El Alamein in Egypt on the night of 23–24 October 1942 and when the junction was made had traveled about 1,500 miles.] [Illustration: TUNISIA THE FAMOUS GERMAN EIGHTY-EIGHT. The original weapon, an Austrian 88-mm. cannon, was used in World War I. Restrictions imposed by the Allies after that war limited German experimentation on conventional offensive artillery but not on defensive artillery such as antiaircraft types (in photograph). With different sets of aiming fire instruments this antiaircraft gun could be used as an antitank gun or a conventional piece of artillery. It was tested as an antiaircraft gun under battle conditions during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Encountered throughout the war in increasing numbers, it was probably the most effective all-around piece of artillery the Germans had. (Left: 8.8-cm. Flak 36; right: 8.8-cm. Flak 18.)] [Illustration: TUNISIA