Audie Murphy: One-Man Stand at Holtzwihr

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On a frigid January afternoon in 1945, Company B, 15th Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, was attacked on the outskirts of Holtzwihr, France, by six tanks and an estimated 250 German infantrymen, who were determined to wrest the Bois de Riedwihr from the Americans. Certain that his decimated company could not withstand the German onslaught, First Lieutenant Audie L. Murphy ordered his men to fall back to safety deep in the forest. After expending all his carbine ammunition at the enemy, Murphy himself prepared to fall back. Suddenly, he spotted a .50-caliber machine gun on the turret of a burning tank destroyer. Knowing that his position had to be held at all costs, Murphy climbed on top and began firing the machine gun at the oncoming Germans.

Native Texan Murphy, destined to become a postwar film star, made his courageous stand during the Colmar offensive, which eventually drove the Germans from their last foothold on French soil. The 3rd Infantry Division’s role in the offensive was to advance near the Bois de Riedwihr, a large forest in the northern sector of the Colmar Pocket that stretched between the heavily fortified villages of Riedwihr and Holtzwihr. Lieutenant Colonel Keith Ware, executive officer of the 15th Regiment, later recalled how imperative it was to secure the forest, explaining, ‘Its possession was of cardinal importance, as the woods dominated the German stronghold of Holtzwihr, the reduction of which was essential to the prompt accomplishment of the 3rd Division’s offensive tasks.

On January 23, the 30th Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, captured the woods and reached the outskirts of Holtzwihr and Riedwihr, where the Americans encountered 10 enemy tanks and tank destroyers accompanied by at least 100 infantrymen. The result was disastrous. Without cover and unable to dig foxholes in the frozen earth, the American unit was cut to pieces. Shattered, understrength and badly disorganized, the 30th was forced to withdraw from the Bois de Riedwihr.

The 15th Regiment was ordered to retake that same ground the next day. The subsequent fighting was so furious that the regiment’s Company B, among others, was decimated. With the exception of Lieutenant Murphy, all the officers were killed, and 102 of the company’s 120 enlisted men were either killed or wounded before they even reached their assigned position. By midnight on January 25, Company B had penetrated 600 yards into the woods and was in position north of Holtzwihr.

Within the hour fresh supplies reached the weary survivors of Company B. After the men were resupplied, they were ordered to move up to the south end of the woods, facing the village of Holtzwihr, and hold the line until relief came. Advancing through snowy darkness in the early morning hours, the men reached their assigned position before dawn. Once there, the weary GIs began a futile attempt to dig foxholes in the frozen ground.

Murphy later recalled his men’s frustration: This night seemed unusually long and the snow colder than I ever dreamed it could be. The sound of picks on frozen ground beat against my eardrum like mad. The 18 men left in Company B had been digging in that goddamned snow covered granite and the only benefit received from it was the exercise, which kept them from becoming stiff and immobile with the cold. And even when one stopped digging it was necessary to walk about to keep your feet from freezing.

Murphy, who had taken over the depleted company during the night, feared a dawn attack and was concerned that his men could not stand up to an assault. Strange, but it seems dawn breaking means more than any other time of the day or night, to an infantryman, he said of that suspense-filled evening. It is an accepted time to attack or be attacked. Mercifully, as the overcast dawn broke, two M10 tank destroyers from Lt. Col. Walter E. Tardy’s 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion arrived just in time to support Company B’s position. But to the relief of Murphy and his men, the Germans did not attack at daybreak.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, People, World War II

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