The trouble began in November 1942, immediately after the Operation Torch landings. The Allied 'run for Tunis' -- the attempt to capture the Tunisian capital before the Axis could reinforce it -- ground to a halt in the hills east of Sedjenane. German paratroopers, operating as ground infantry, held the high points that the Allies nicknamed 'Green Hill,' 'Baldy,' and 'Sugarloaf.' On 29 November 1942, the 8th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, part of the 36th Brigade of the British 78th Division, was ambushed advancing through these hills. Their wrecked carriers became the static symbol of a stalemate that would persist through the winter and into February 1943.

On 26 February 1943, the Germans broke the deadlock -- but on their terms. Operation Ochsenkopf (Ox Head) was the northern complement to the Kasserine Pass offensive that had shaken Allied confidence earlier that month. Colonel Rudolf Witzig's Parachute Engineer Battalion led the subsidiary operation, Unternehmen Ausladung, attempting to outflank British positions through the hilly coastal strip between Sedjenane and Cap Serrat. This area was held by poorly equipped French troops of the Corps Francs d'Afrique. The 16th Battalion Durham Light Infantry of the British 46th Division counterattacked on 27 February, supported by two troops of No. 1 Commando and the 70th Field Regiment Royal Artillery. A dawn counterattack on 2 March proved disastrous for the Durham Light Infantry, which suffered severe casualties. That afternoon, the Germans broke through the 5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters. An Italian battalion from the 10th Bersaglieri Regiment, supported by 30 tanks, attacked the British sector on 3 March but lost half its strength to machine-gun fire.

Sedjenane fell to the Germans and Italians on 4 March 1943, defended to the last by elements of the 6th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment, Churchill tanks of the North Irish Horse, and remnants of No. 1 Commando. But the Allies retook the town on 1 April. The series of counterattacks through March marked a milestone in airborne warfare: it was the first time British and German paratroopers had fought each other in ground combat. Men of the 1st Parachute Brigade spearheaded the Allied counterattacks, and the fighting was ferocious enough that -- according to unit tradition -- the term 'Red Devil' to describe a British paratrooper was coined by their German opponents during these engagements.

American forces relieved the British at Sedjenane on 12 April 1943 and held the sector through the campaign's conclusion in May. The fighting continued to demand individual acts of extraordinary courage. On 24 April, U.S. Army Sergeant William L. Nelson of H Company, 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, was killed at Djebel Dardys northwest of Sedjenane. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. His battalion received a Presidential Unit Citation for its actions on 23 and 24 April. Sedjenane itself never became a famous name. It was overshadowed by Kasserine Pass, by the fall of Tunis, by the broader sweep of the North African campaign. But for the men of the Durham Light Infantry, the Sherwood Foresters, the Lincolnshires, No. 1 Commando, and the U.S. 9th Division who fought and died in those desolate Tunisian hills, it was the war entire.