Tunis Field Battalions

Tunis Field Battalions were German provisional infantry battalions active in 1942-43 in North Africa.

Five Tunis Field Battalions were created between 9 November and 15 November 1942 by renaming a like number of Afrika Marsch-Bataillone (Africa Replacement Draft Battalions) that were originally intended to be used to refill the ranks of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's battered Africa Corps. These five battalions, Tunis Field Battalions T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5, were instead airlifted from Sicily beginning on 10 November 1942 to help defend the Bizerte and Tunis Bridgeheads in Vichy France-controlled Tunisia.

Not originally conceived as combat units, intended only as replacement pools composed of a variety of specialist as well as combat troops, these Tunis Field Battalions lacked heavy weapons, vehicles, field kitchens and communications equipment. Nevertheless, in the days following the Allied Landings in Northwest Africa (Operation Torch) that began on 8 November 1942, these units, joined by Luftwaffe paratroopers, were all the German High Command had available to seize Tunisian bridgeheads before the Allies got there first. Having won the race the Tunis, the Germans then began protracted defensive warfare in the mountains of western Tunisia, where the Tunis Field Battalions found themselves incorporated into other German divisions that were lacking infantry, including the 10th Panzer Division, the 334th Infantry Division, and the Hermann Göring Division. Two Tunis Field Battalions, T3 and T4, were incorporated into Division von Broich/von Manteuffel, a provisional infantry division formed from a variety of Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) units, Italian infantry, and other units scraped together from Rommel's Army. For most of their short service life, these battalions were assigned to Jürgen von Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army until all were forced to capitulate in Tunisia by 13 May 1943.