As dawn broke on January 18, the 12th Armored still had no idea what had happened to the 43rd Tank Battalion. Later that morning an artillery observer flying over Herrlisheim reported spotting several destroyed Shermans in the eastern section of the town. Flying just to the east of Herrlisheim, he reported five more. Then in a field on the southeast edge of town, he saw between 10 and 15 Shermans deployed in a circular defensive perimeter. Some were still painted white; others were scorched black.

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Allen immediately ordered a rescue mission. Company B, 66th Armored Infantry, and Company B, 23rd Tank Battalion, attacked but were quickly repulsed by the Germans. When a later air reconnaissance mission reported German troops and vehicles swarming around the motionless American tanks, Allen called off the rescue. Later that day Colonel Bromley returned to CCB, restored to his command. The command made one last attempt to attack across the Zorn: it failed. At dusk all American forces west of the Zorn were ordered to go on the defensive and dig in. The Germans now held the entire east bank and controlled all the bridges.

On the morning of January 19, the 10th SS Panzer and the 22nd SS Panzergrenadier regiments launched strong westward attacks from both Offendorf and Gambsheim. The German attacks started to make headway, but fortunately for the American defenders, the weather began to clear around noon. Allied tactical air assets responded immediately with 190 sorties, dropping more than 100 tons of ordnance in the Herrlisheim-Offendorf area.

Despite the pounding from Allied aircraft, the German attacks continued through the afternoon. At about 5 p.m., 400 German infantrymen supported by 17 tanks almost succeeded in attacking across the Zorn from Landgraben River. North of Herrlisheim, the Germans pushed across the Zorn and almost overran CCB’s command post in Rohrwiller. As clerks and other personnel started to panic and prepared to evacuate the area, Colonel Bromley shouted out: ‘Stop this goddamn panic. We’re not retreating anywhere. We’re defending this command post; we’re holding this line. We’re soldiers; we have weapons; we’re expendable.’

The American line held, but the 12th Armored was in a precarious position at nightfall on January 19. During the last 11 days the division had taken more than 1,250 casualties and lost 70 combat vehicles. Divisional artillery was down to less than 50 rounds per battalion–enough for five minutes of sustained firing.

Relief finally came when the VI Corps ordered the 36th Infantry Division to assume the 12th Armored’s positions. By 9 p.m. the 36th Infantry’s 142nd and 143rd Infantry regiments took control of their assigned sectors, and the 12th Armored pulled back. The following day the 12th was assigned to the VI Corps reserve, and on January 22 the division passed to the control of the French First Army for operations south of Strasbourg.

To this day there remains some confusion as to the fate of Colonel Novosel and the 43rd Tank Battalion. On the night of January 18, a German radio broadcast reported the capture of an American battalion commander and 300 of his men at Herrlisheim as well as the destruction or capture of 50 tanks. Novosel did not have that many tanks to start with, but the number would be about right if it included the tanks of the 23rd Tank Battalion. In sharp contrast, the U.S. Army’s official history, Riviera to the Rhine, cites a February 23, 1945, U.S. graves registration report stating, ‘Some twenty-eight destroyed tanks of the 43rd Tank Battalion were later recovered, as were the bodies of the battalion commander and many of his men.’

Ironically, the German broadcast was correct. The July 7, 1945, edition of the Hellcat News, the 12th Armored Division’s newspaper, carries a report of a letter written by Novosel from a hospital in Michigan where he had been sent after his liberation from a German prisoner-of-war camp. He had been wounded 17 times before being captured at Herrlisheim. His tank was hit by a mortar round just as he was attempting to radio CCA for the last time. Novosel noted: ‘I was hit [at] about two and don’t remember much after that. The rest held out until five or six.’

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