On May 1, the 6th Armored Division was at Bou-Ficha, directly in the rear of the former Rommel army.
On May 12, marching from Bou-Ficha towards the south, it attacked in reverse this army, supported by an intense aerial bombardment of the Western Desert Air Force and by its artillery firing from north to south, while the artillery of the armed City fires from south to north. The enemy is thus caught between three fires:that of the north, that of the south and that of the sky!
When the shots rise, a sea of white flags indicates the end of the resistance of the enemy. German-Italian army in Libya, which like its old enemy also ended its long and glorious career there.
While these events unfolded along the coast, the division of Oran, preceded by the Le Couteulx armored group, overran the Zaghouan massif from the northeast, reaching Depienne on 8 May. The next day, General Alexander asked General Kceltz to "put pressure on the enemy as strongly and as quickly as possible through the gap in the village of Zaghouan towards the east, in order to cut off the retreat of the forces of the Axis north of Cap Bon”.
The division of Oran, covering itself to the north on k djebel Oust, then pivots towards the east-south-east, on the axis of the road Zaghouan-Sainte-Marie-du-Zit, which has the effect of investing as close as possible to the Zaghouan massif from the north.
But, on the 10th, the defenders countered this direct threat to their rear by turning their artillery and mortars towards the north, which blocked the division of Oran.
General Boissau then climbed into the night an attack which starts on the 11th, at 9 am, and clears the passage. At noon, road n° 2 Tunis-Zaghouan was reached north of this village and the enemy resistance collapsed.
The armored group was slowed down and literally overwhelmed by waves of German prisoners and Italians; at the end of the afternoon," Captain d'Anglejean falls with his squadron of light tanks on the P.C. of the Italian division "Superga". General Galich surrenders with all his troops and the commander of the division of Oran gives the order to “push everything we can on the Sainte-Marie-du-ZitBou-Ficha exploitation axis.
Sainte-Marie was reached on the very evening of 11 May, at 9 p.m., by the division of Oran, which will link up with the British, at Bou-Ficha, the following day, 12 May, at 12 p.m.
Meanwhile, at the Inside the massif, the German Pfeiffer division (10,000 men), which had hitherto contained the attacks of the Moroccan division in front of the peak of Zaghouan and which, on the southern edge of the massif, broke again, on the 10th, in n the afternoon, the assault of the Bouvattier battalion, of our 9th R.T.A., on the Jebel Leri, also ceased resistance, at the end of the day of the 11th, and surrendered to General Mathenet. hopeless.
On the morning of May 12, the I9th Corps already counted 20,000 prisoners and 30 guns. The stronghold of Zaghouan is emptied of its defenders.