After two days of fighting along the road between El Aroussa and Medjez El-bab, primarily at a position known as "Steamroller Farm", the Germans withdrew.

During the same period the British Eighth army under Montgomery had pursued the Afrika Korps through Libya, finally reaching the Mareth Line in south-eastern Tunisia by January 1943.

Upon his arrival in Tunisia in January 1943, the German commander of the Afrika Korps, Erwin Rommel, dismissing the possibility of a serious threat from the Eighth Army until they had properly cleared the harbour of Tripoli, planned a series of counter-attacks against Allied forces in the west in order to knock them back.

Without consulting Rommel, but with Kesselring's permission, von Arnim decided to launch a series counter-attack at three points in the west against the V Corps of the British First Army.

[8] This sector was held by the roughly 250 light infantry of 6 Commando under Lieutenant-Colonel Derek Mills-Roberts,[12][8] and Y Division, an ad-hoc formation built around the 38th Irish Brigade under the command of Nelson Russell tasked with defending the Bou Arada plain.

[9] Thinking that Bonvin had simply encountered a German patrol, Mills-Roberts launched a series of counter-attacks with all four of the troops available to him, designed to drive them back east.

[8] The British tanks, together with artillery fire, infantry of the Royal Irish Fusiliers ("the Faughs") and resistance from an armoured car squardon of the Derbyshire Yeomanry, stopped any further German advance on El Aroussa.

Arriving in the vicinity of Steamroller Farm, Hadfield's squadron was hit by intense defensive fire, which damaged a number of the Churchills.

[8] Cresting the hill, Hollands saw a large quantity of German personnel and vehicles located behind it, and together with the following Churchill commanded by Lieutenant Renton, opened fire on them inflicting significant losses.