| Original caption: “Thousands of used enemy shells in Bizerte. Note damaged building in background.” In the final American offensive of the Tunisia Campaign, Allied troops captured the critical port of Bizerte on May 7, 1943. The victory was welcomed by the United States Army, who were weary from their 1st extended campaign against determined Axis forces. After American troops overran Hills 609 and 523, the United States Army 1st Armored Division tanks advanced eastward. On the night of May 1, the Germans withdrew to Mateur, only to have American tankers and armored infantrymen drive them out of the town 2 days later. The Americans had won an important urban center and were only 20 miles from their ultimate objective, Bizerte, the northernmost port city in Africa. The United States II Corps, commanded by Major General Omar Bradley (February 12, 1893 – April 9, 1981), began moving against Bizerte on May 6. The 1st Armored and 9th Infantry Divisions made a coordinated envelopment of the city that day and pushed retreating enemy forces into and through Bizerte on May 7. At nearly the same time, the British V Corps entered the capital city of Tunis. In the southern half of the American sector, the 1st Infantry Division encountered strong opposition but maintained pressure to prevent the enemy from reinforcing other areas. Next to the British sector, the 34th Infantry Division took a key pass on the road to Tunis. As II Corps units advanced to cut the Bizerte-Tunis Road, they found Axis units in a state of collapse as enemy troops surrendered in such large numbers that groups of prisoners clogged roads and impeded further advance. By the 2nd week of May, enemy prisoners totaled over 275,000. Associated Press war correspondent Kenneth L. Dixon (April 3, 1915 – June 28, 1986) reported on the destruction the Americans encountered on Bizerte in a nationally syndicated article on October 13, 1943: “Pays High Price of War; Now in Shambles – Bizerte, Oct 8. Delayed – Dirty Gertie doesn’t live here anymore. She couldn’t. Bizerte no longer exists, except by name. It is just an eerie, empty junk heap – a pile of rubble on the Mediterranean shore crumbled into dust by the black lash of war.” “It was last May that Bizerte paid the final price for harboring [Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Reichchancellor”) Adolf Hitler’s (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945)], North African headquarters. Still, in the five months since the Allied air force finished pounding it into a bloody, flattened mess to stop Nazi soldiers fleeing through it, Bizerte has never come back.” “Soldiers who have seen other campaigns and other razed cities place Bizerte at the top of the list and say it will never be surpassed. Rebuilding looks impossible today.” “What was once a thriving city of thousands is now deserted, except for the soldiers. There are no women, no civilians, no business.” “Piles of Trash” “Empty buildings stare lifelessly into the debris-littered streets, through eyes that are shrapnel holes blown through. Houses are slashed down the middle, baring the detailed interiors of bedrooms, sitting rooms, and nurseries, for all the world like a child’s cardboard dollhouse with the outer wall removed.” “Strips of light curtains flutter in the breeze from gaping openings that once represented windows. Other homes are only of trash crumbled into unrecognizable piles by the merciless month-after-month aerial pounding. Such miscellaneous nothings still clutter many of the streets.” “The roofs of half-wrecked homes protrude from the remains of the structures like the bones of skeletons. Balconies, where the people of Biserte once basked in the cool of the evening, now are bent and twisted, some even standing alone – held up by their metal framework – with no house near them.” “Literally Bombed Out” “For blocks and blocks, not one single livable house can be seen. The same is true of business districts. Bizerte literally was bombed out of existence.” “But now, signs of life are provided by the Army. Bizerte is now a military reservation in front of a few houses, which remain semi-intact and which are encircled by barbed wire, stand signs which say: ‘This might have been your home. Respect other people. Keep out of buildings. Stealing is losing and carries heavy penalties.’” “The area commander signs them, but a glance through the lifeless windows shows little inside to steal. Even those houses have been gutted, and what furnishings remain are rendered almost worthless by falling timbers and piles of debris.” “The harbor, where a once-thriving shipping business operated before the Germans sought to use it as an escape corridor, still shows some life, but not much.” “Weird and Ghostly” “Ringed by palm trees, many of whose tops have been sheared off by shrapnel, the smokestacks of sunken ships mark it–and only a small percentage of those that lie at the bottom show in the masses of steel above the Mediterranean waters. A few buildings near the water’s edge are in use by the army, even though they have been boarded up in spots where the bombing ripped big holes.” “The water of the harbor where thousands died looks cool and inviting now, but the scent of death is difficult to wash away. A sign says: ‘Water polluted – no bathing.’” “At night, Bizerte becomes weird and ghostly in the moonlight. Lean and wicked-looking. North Africa’s inevitable black cats crawl in and out of the jagged apars and lifeless rubble heaps which once represented a city. And when the moon goes down, what’s left of Bizerte is blacked out without the need of an official order.” “Death and destruction finished the job five months ago.” Scripps-Howard War Correspondent Ernie Pyle (August 3, 1900 – April 18, 1945) featured the newly liberated Tunisia city in his nationally syndicated column on May 25, 1943: “Bizerte Handed Worst Pounding Of Any City In African Campaign – In Tunisia – A few weeks ago, I wrote a column describing the winter’s battleground in Tunisia, in which I said there wasn’t much evidence about the countryside of the fighting that had gone on. That was the central Tunisian battlefield – the one we fought over all winter.” “But now we have a new battlefield to look over, the northern one, and it seems vastly more war-like than the southern one. There are two reasons for this: the fighting was more concentrated and on a much greater scale, and the Germans collapsed so quickly that they had no time to retrieve vehicles and clean up the battlefields as they did in the south.” “Today, there are roads in northern Tunisia that are littered for miles at a stretch with wrecked and burned-out vehicles. Sometimes a skeleton of a tank or a big truck sits right in the middle of a road, and you have to drive around it. In spots, you can see two or three dozen wrecked tanks scattered across a mile-wide valley. In many places, the roads are rough from filled-in shell holes. On the first day or two after the finish, you would still see an occasional blanket-covered body lying at the roadside.” “Frequently, you see one or two German graves, where victims of vehicles strafing are buried. And as you drive along, your nose tells you now and then of one that the burial parties missed.” “New Bridges Up” “Practically all the bridges in northern Tunisia have been blown up. You detour around the smaller ones. Over the larger streams, American and British engineers have thrown up sudden and magnificent steel bridges or laid pontoon bridges. Only a few of the towns in central Tunisia were really wrecked by shellfire, but in northern Tunisia, all the cities along the line of battle have been truly destroyed. Bizerte is the most completely wrecked place I have ever seen. It was a large and beautiful city. It is impossible to picture in words what it looks like now.” “If you recall World War I pictures of places like Verdun, that is the way it is. Nothing could have possibly lived through the months-long bombing that Bizerte took. Those who say a city can’t be destroyed by bombing should come and see Bizerte.” “As soon as the Tunisian war was over, the Arabs began flocking back to their homes. They had been cleaned out of the battle area by both sides, for two reasons: to keep them from getting hurt, and because neither side trusted them.” “Most of them were simply evacuated to safe hills in the rear, but those under suspicion were arrested and put in outdoor prison camps while the fighting was going on. They come back across country now in long caravans. Scores of Arabs are in each group, accompanied by their sheep and cattle, their burros, and children. They are a dirty and disheartening lot.” “Their belongings, like junk, are piled high on two-wheeled carts. I saw one cart with fourteen oxen hitched to it. The women usually have large bundles on their backs. Now and then, one Arab will give you the victory sign and say “Bonjour,” but most of them pass in silence. The Tunisian Arab was well sold by German propaganda.” At the end of World War I, a shortage of brass in Germany led to experiments using steel as an alternative material. In the mid-1930s, the fear of similar shortages in a new major war led to new experiments. By 1937, solid steel cartridge cases had started to be adopted by the German armed forces. 1st, the steel cartridges were either copper or brass-coated to prevent rust. However, later they were given rust-proofing by either phosphate or zinc galvanising, which left the cartridge case surface with a smooth, matte grey colour of varying shades. Cases could also be oil-blackened or parkerised. Both the Allies and the Axis recycled used artillery shell casings. Steel casings for artillery and small arms ammunition, manufactured by the United States, were superior to those that had been captured from the Germans in North Africa. The United States did not follow the German lead using steel casings because it had an abundance of copper to manufacture brass shell casings, which are superior to steel. After all, brass shell casings can be used repeatedly, while steel must be melted down and recast before they can be used again. By the end of World War II, however, the United States experienced a shortage of copper early on and manufacturers were forced to use steel instead. However, before the changeover to steel was made, United States ordnance experts perfected a protective covering that allowed the steel shell to be anodized with chemicals to prevent jamming. Additionally, they stepped up the quality of the steel so that the steel shells could be refilled. The American steel shells manufactured late in the war can be reused multiple times, but they cannot be refilled as many times as a brass shell casing. Another phase of logistics worthy of mention is the proper disposal of empty casings. On August 9, 1943, the Philadelphia transferred to USS LST-383 a considerable quantity; among these were empty 6-inch (152 millimeter) and 5-inch (127 millimeter) cartridge cases and powder tanks, 40 (1.57 inch) and 20-millimeter (0.78 caliber) cases, other brasses, and fittings. An accumulation of empty shell cases and powder tanks cannot only interfere with the proper serving of naval guns but also restrict other shipboard activities. Additionally, given the value and scarcity of metals, especially during wartime, a systematic removal and reuse of ammunition containers avoids the wasteful practice of discarding empties overboard and was part of the logistics plan. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0990.jpg |
| Image Size | 987.78 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2904 x 2227 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Office of Strategic Services |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | June 1, 1943 |
| Location | |
| City | Bizerte |
| State or Province | Bizerte |
| Country | Tunisia |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-226-FPL-2626 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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