Tiger 131

The forgotten battle for Gueriat el Atach, Tunisia, 23-24 April 1943, is much greater in scale, space, and forces – and heroism – than would be suggested by the well-worn photographs of Tiger 131, sitting alone on a hill top, after capture.

Tiger 131 of the 504th Heavy Tank Battalion was the first running Tiger to be exploited by Western intelligence, and is the only Tiger running today.

Its capture in late April 1943, on Gueriat Ridge, was the climax to more than four months of fighting between German Tiger tanks and Western Allied forces in Tunisia.

Yet Tiger 131’s provenance came to be lost in a false claim that Tiger 131 is the same Tiger that had been found abandoned below Djebel Djaffa two days earlier (Tiger 712).

While the discourse obsessed with the where and when, everybody forgot to investigate the battles on and around Gueriat Ridge.

My ground-breaking research, from the archives to the battlefields, shows that Tiger 131 likely fought alone, for two days, against parts of four battalions of tanks and six battalions of infantry.

Each day, it faced about 50 Churchill tanks. It was an impressive performance. It deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest defenses by a single tank.

This book examines the evidence and theories, and reconstructs the fights, using exhaustive forensic examination of Tiger 131 itself, the archives, and the battlefields.

Features annotated THEN-AND-NOW photographs of the battlefields and of Tiger 131.

Author Biography

BRUCE OLIVER NEWSOME Ph.D. served in the British and US Army reserves, latterly on M1 Abrams tanks. As a research scientist, he worked to improve Army acquisitions. Thereafter, he spent many years as a professor, specializing in international security and defence. He now works as a risk and security consultant.