World War II: American VI Corps Fought the Battle for Herrelsheim

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In the cold and foggy pre-dawn hours of January 17, 1945, the U.S. 12th Armored Division’s 43rd Tank Battalion prepared to renew the previous day’s unsuccessful attack on German positions in and around the small Alsatian village of Herrlisheim. Thus far in that operation, the battalion had lost 12 of its tanks, and 11 others were damaged. Now, as the 43rd was resupplying and refueling its remaining 29 operational tanks, the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Novosel, felt uneasy about what was to come. He was overheard telling another officer from the division: ‘Meyer, you’re a lucky SOB. I think we’re not coming back from this one.’ Novosel’s premonition would prove all too right for many of his men.

January 1945 was a tough time for the soldiers of Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers’ Sixth Army Group. While the world’s attention was riveted on the bitter struggle for the Ardennes, the Germans launched an unexpectedly strong counteroffensive against Devers’ forces on the southern flank of the Allied line in Alsace. The series of attacks, which started on December 31, 1944, collectively came to be known by the Germans’ name for the first of those attacks, Operation Nordwind (’North Wind’).

The 12th Armored Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Roderick R. Allen, was relatively inexperienced. It had arrived in France in mid-November, and between December 7 and 12 the division’s Combat Command A had taken part in operations around Singling, Rohrbach, Guisling and Bettwiller. On December 15, the 12th Armored became part of the reserve of Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch’s U.S. Seventh Army.

When the Germans launched their attacks in the south, the Seventh Army was spread paper thin, holding a 126-mile-long front line with only eight divisions. On the left, the U.S. XV Corps manned an east-west line facing north into Germany’s Rhineland. On the right, Maj. Gen. Edward H. Brooks’ VI Corps held the remainder of the line, from the French town of Bitche to Lauterbourg, at the junction of the French-German border and the Rhine River. The VI Corps’ line then bent south along the west bank of the Rhine to just north of Strasbourg. Thus, Brooks’ line looked something like an inverted ‘L.’

On January 5, the XIV SS Corps under General Otto von dem Bach attacked across the Rhine at Gambsheim and into the VI Corps’ eastern flank. The Germans initially established the bridgehead with the 553rd Volksgrenadier Division and the 405th Infantry Division. That same day, units of the U.S. 79th Infantry Division, VI Corps, occupied the towns of Bischwiller and Rohrwiller in an attempt to contain the Gambsheim bridgehead. Another task force from the 79th tried–with little success–to clear the Germans out of the Steinwald, a patch of woods just to the north of Gambsheim.

The following day, the 79th Infantry made several more unsuccessful attempts to clear the bridgehead. Meanwhile, the 6th SS Mountain Division captured the town of Wingen, to the west in the low Vosges Mountains. That move drove a wedge between Patch’s two corps and threatened the western flank of VI Corps, now heavily engaged on both sides and almost out of reserves. In response, Patch released the 12th Armored Division’s Combat Command B to the VI Corps.

The Germans continued to build up the Gambsheim bridgehead. On January 7, the German LXIV Corps crossed the Rhine south of Rheinau, threatening the VI Corps’ rear. That same day, the XXXIX Panzer Corps started shifting elements of the 21st Panzer and 25th Panzergrenadier divisions from west of Bitche to the Lauterbourg area in preparation for a major push down the west bank of the Rhine. Near the end of the day, the 12th Armored’s Combat Command B arrived in the area, temporarily attached to the 79th Infantry, and was ordered to immediately prepare to attack the Germans in Herrlisheim.

By January 8, the Gambsheim bridgehead was about 12 kilometers wide and 5 kilometers deep. On its north flank, the Germans held the town of Drusenheim, situated near the Rhine. The southern anchor was Gambsheim, about one kilometer from the river. Herrlisheim, about four kilometers west of the river, was at the center of the bridgehead. The Germans also held Offendorf, about one kilometer from the Rhine, southeast of Herrlisheim and northeast of Gambsheim. American forces held Rohrwiller, one kilometer north of and across the Zorn River from Herrlisheim.

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

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