of war (POWs). Major General Lucian Truscott, commander of the US 3rd Infantry Division and Major General Ernest N. Harmon, commander of the US 1st Armored Division, reported that German resistance in the American sector ceased on 6 May and German troops started surrendering en masse. On 8 May, the 334th Division surrendered to the British forces between Mateur and Tebourba. At 10:00 a.m. on 9 May, the US II Corps, under Major General Omar Bradley, cornered Major-General Gustav von Vaerst and what remained of the 5th Panzer Army, which surrendered before noon. At least 12,000 Germans surrendered in Major-General Fritz Krause's sector (of the initial batch of 25,000 prisoners, fewer than 400 were Italian). Around 22,000 Germans in the mountainous Zaghouan sector also ceased fighting on 11 May and surrendered with their equipment to the Free French. British and Commonwealth forces reported 150,000 Axis POWs taken in the German-held sector from 5 May – 12 June. Major-General Count Theodor von Sponeck, commander of the 90th Light Division, had surrendered unconditionally to the 2nd New Zealand Division, after threatening to fight till the last round. Arnim surrendered to the Royal Sussex Regiment. Messe, commander of the 1st Army, held the line north of Takrouna and on 12 May, cabled Comando Supremo vowing to fight on; at 7:55 p.m. that evening, after the German collapse, Mussolini ordered Messe to surrender. Next day, the 1st Army was still holding opposite Enfidaville but the remaining 80,000 men were surrounded; the RAF and artillery continued their bombardment and around noon, the 1st Army surrendered to the Eighth Army. Messe along with Kurt Freiherr von Liebenstein formally surrendered to British and New Zealand forces under General Bernard Freyberg. Aftermath Analysis In 1966, the British Official Historian I. S. O. Playfair wrote that In 1995 American historian Williamson Murray was more critical: The Axis gamble failed, and at the cost of heavy losses in men and materiel had only slowed the inevitable. The Allied gains were considerable; control of the North African littoral, and the Mediterranean open to traffic. Even the US defeat at Kasserine may have been paradoxically advantageous; Rommel and the Axis were lulled into a false impression of US capabilities, while the Americans learned valuable lessons, and made positive changes in their command structure and tactics. With North Africa in Allied hands, plans quickly turned to the invasion of Sicily and Italy. Joseph