Part 5: The Campaign for Alsace
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Chapter 25: A Change in Direction
By evening on 26 November 1944, Patch’s Seventh Army had begun to redeploy its forces in compliance with General Eisenhower’s decision to send the army northward. West of the Low Vosges and north of Sarrebourg, its new Fenetrange–Ramstein boundary with the Third Army defined the future axis of advance of the Seventh Army. In the far south, however, its old Gerardmer–Selestat–Erstein border with de Lattre’s First French Army was unaltered and would remain so until Brooks’ VI Corps finished pushing its way east and northeast through the High Vosges. At the time of the new orders, only elements of O’Daniel’s 3rd Division had actually reached the Alsatian plains, while the 103rd and 36th Divisions were still fighting through the high mountain passes. Thus, temporarily at least, the Seventh Army would be advancing in two different directions—east through the High Vosges and, in the area between Sarrebourg and Strasbourg, north toward the German border. The northern effort was initially to be conducted by Haislip’s XV Corps alone; consequently, Patch made the boundary between his XV and VI Corps an east-west line from Wasselonne, at the base of the Vosges, to La Wantzenau, about five miles northeast of Strasbourg (Map 31). On the 27th, Patch intended to transfer the French 2nd Armored Division, which was currently securing the Strasbourg area, to the VI Corps, and give Brooks’ 100th Infantry Division to Haislip to make up for the loss. The XV Corps would thus have four infantry divisions—the 44th, 45th, 79th, and 100th—to make the initial assault north. Although the Seventh Army’s subsequent deployment was rather awkward, the continued German weakness in the center of Patch’s command—the gap between the First and Nineteenth Armies of Army Group G—allowed him to split his forces in this manner without running too great a risk.
The XV Corps Sector
West of the Low Vosges,1 in the Saar River valley, 26 November found the Panzer Lehr Division and elements of the 361st Volksgrenadier Division pulling northward to a delaying line between Wolfskirchen, Eywiller, and
Map 31: Seventh Army Attack, 27 November–4 December 1944
Durstel. About the same time, the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division was closing on Sarre-Union, about five miles to the north, intent on stemming any further American advance. Pursuing the German units were CCB of the 4th Armored Division, part of the Third Army’s XII Corps operating in the XV Corps’ zone, and two regiments of the XV Corps’ 44th Division—the 71st and 114th—assisted by the corps’ 106th Cavalry Group. During the day, the rest of the 4th Armored also entered the XV Corps’ sector, pressing for Sarre-Union and bypassing the 44th Division’s slower-moving infantry.2
As their forces retreated north, Army Group G and the First Army began to develop plans for establishing a more substantial east-west defensive line in front of the German border. Not expecting their forces to hold the Wolfskirchen–Durstel area for long, General Balck and General von Knobelsdorff, who commanded the First Army, hoped to establish a new series of positions that stretched east from Sarre-Union, through the Low Vosges and along the Moder River, past the small city of Haguenau, and on to the Rhine—a straight-line distance of nearly forty-five miles. Contrary to earlier plans, Panzer Lehr was to remain in the First Army’s rear area for the time being, while the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division would hold along the new main line of resistance from Sarre-Union east about nine miles to Frohmuhl, on Route N-419 in the Low Vosges.3 The weak 361st Volksgrenadier Division, which had been of little help securing Panzer Lehr’s counterattack, was to redeploy eastward and, after absorbing remnants of the 553rd Volksgrenadier Division, hold over ten miles of the new front along N-419 and the Moder River from Frohmuhl to Ingwiller, across the Low Vosges Mountains.4
East of the Vosges the 245th Volksgrenadier Division, which had yet to reach the First Army’s area of operation from the Netherlands, was to cover the front from Ingwiller southeast twelve miles along the Moder to Schweighausen. Pending the arrival of the 245th, the sector would be held by miscellaneous units under Corps Command Vosges, reinforced by the reconnaissance battalion of Panzer Lehr. The 256th Volksgrenadier Division, the leading regiment of which reached Haguenau on 26 November, would hold the final sixteen miles of the new line, from Schweighausen past Haguenau to Gries and then to the Rhine River at Gambsheim, about ten miles northeast of Strasbourg.
Responsibility for establishing and defending the new Sarre-Union–Gambsheim line would be vested in
the LXXXIX Corps, currently reorganizing north of Haguenau after having lost much of its staff and almost all of its equipment in the Saverne area. The corps became operational again on 28 or 29 November, taking over the missions and units assigned to Corps Command Vosges.
At first, the German defenses were extremely weak east of the Vosges. The 361st Volksgrenadier Division, for example, was still greatly understrength: one regiment had only two battalions, one of which could muster only 150 troops; another regiment consisted of a single infantry battalion with 300 effectives; and a third had two battalions of 300 men each. The two divisions coming from Army Group H in the Netherlands were not in much better condition. The 256th Volksgrenadier Division’s three regiments had only two half-strength battalions each, and the 245th Volksgrenadier Division’s six infantry battalions were even weaker. Furthermore, the 245th contained a large percentage of former navy and air force personnel that had been shoveled into the army, and its artillery consisted of captured Russian guns with little ammunition.
On 26 November General Haislip, the XV Corps commander, had elements of three infantry divisions intermixed across his northern front to deal with these German forces. In the XV Corps sector west of the Vosges was the 44th Infantry Division with its 71st and 114th regiments reinforced by another regiment, the 157th from the 45th Division, and elements of the 106th Cavalry Group. East of the Vosges and directly north of Saverne was the 44th Division’s third regiment—the 324th—and the rest of the 106th Cavalry. Farther east, outposting the Alsatian plains and protecting the northern flank of the French 2nd Armored Division from Saverne to Strasbourg, was the 45th Division’s 180th regiment; on its right was the 79th Infantry Division, with all three of its organic regiments holding the sector south of Haguenau.
Haislip intended to reorganize and beef up these forces before attacking. During the next two days he relieved the 45th Division’s 179th regiment of its security responsibilities in the Wasselonne area south of Saverne and sent it north to the right of its sister unit, the 180th. Next, when the 100th Infantry Division passed to his control on the 27th, he began deploying it north of Saverne, as he moved the 324th regiment back to its parent unit on the other side of the Low Vosges and returned the 157th regiment to the 45th Division on the other side. The net result of this complicated switching would give each of his four northward-facing divisions their three organic infantry regiments, while presenting a continuous front to the German defenders and allowing the divisions to attack in strength as soon as possible. The XV Corps thus had on line, west to east, the 44th, 100th, 45th, and 79th Infantry Divisions. The gradual arrival of the rest of the new 14th Armored Division, which Patch had earmarked for the drive north, would also help. However, the process of reorienting his entire command north, to include the corps’ logistical, fire support, engineer, and intelligence elements, proved time-consuming, and it would be several days before all of Haislip’s forces could test the new German line.
The VI Corps Sector
While the XV Corps aligned itself for a drive north, Brooks’ VI Corps continued to push through the Vosges, intending to clear the entire area from the mountains to the Rhine of all German forces in its sector. On 26 November, Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division held the Strasbourg area with CCL and CCV, but was scheduled to be transferred to the VI Corps on the 27th; the tired 3rd Division would take over responsibility for Strasbourg. Brooks wanted the armored unit to drive south toward Erstein, Selestat, and Colmar, which would complement the advance of his infantry divisions from the west. To that end, CCV captured two east-west bridges over the Ill River on the 26th, several miles south of Strasbourg; CCD, in reserve, prepared to lead the drive south; and CCR continued to patrol along the Bruche River and Canal west of Strasbourg, maintaining contact with the 3rd Division in the vicinity of Molsheim. The 3rd Division had entered Molsheim on the 26th and pushed four to five miles farther north and south into the vineyards of the Alsatian plains, meeting little resistance. As the rest of its components arrived on the plains, leading units of the infantry division began moving into Strasbourg on the night of 26–27 November, freeing the rest of Leclerc’s armor for the drive south.
Other VI Corps elements positioned themselves to assist. CCA of the 14th Armored Division, still part of Brooks’ corps, moved into Molsheim in the wake of the 3rd Division; to the south, leading elements of the 103rd Infantry Division reached Ville on the 26th, five miles short of the Alsatian plains and about fifteen miles southwest of Molsheim. The 103rd Division’s immediate objectives were Le Hohwald and Barr, both focal points on the defensive line that the Nineteenth Army was trying to establish north of Colmar.
Farther south, the 36th Infantry Division’s leading unit, the 142nd Infantry, had reached St. Croix-aux-Mines, on Route N-59 about seven miles south of Ville as well as seven miles short of the Alsatian plains. St. Croix had been another projected defensive focal point of the Nineteenth Army, but the 142nd infantrymen had taken the town before the Germans could deploy enough strength there for a protracted defense. South and southwest of St. Croix, however, the rest of the tired 36th Division was strung out for about twenty miles, encountering stubborn resistance in the High Vosges west of Fraize, as had its neighbor, the 3rd Algerian Division, which was still stuck in the vicinity of Gerardmer.
The Nineteenth Army had not yet been able to form a solid defensive ring around its Colmar bridgehead. In VI Corps’ sector on 26 November, Thumm’s battered LXIV Corps held the area between Selestat and Barr, guarding the approaches to the Alsatian plains with bits and pieces of the 708th Volksgrenadier and 716th Infantry Divisions. East of Barr to the Rhine, the northern edge of the bridgehead was screened by a provisional unit, Division Buercky, assisted by a melange of SS elements, security police, ambulatory hospital patients (including a company of VD cases), and some engineers, all backed by an 88-mm. antiaircraft
battalion and a few assault guns. During the 26th, the 106th Panzer Brigade, redeploying after its abortive and costly counterattack against French I Corps forces around Mulhouse, closed Division Buercky’s sector to take up positions in the vicinity of Erstein. The 280th Assault Gun Battalion accompanied the brigade, and both promised to give some concrete form to the German defenses north of Colmar.
Southwest of the LXIV Corps, Petersen’s XC Corps (formerly the IV Luftwaffe Field Corps) continued to hold out in the High Vosges, defending the western approaches to Colmar and facing part of the U.S. 36th Infantry Division as well as the 3rd Algerian Division and other elements of the French II Corps. The XC Corps had the barely viable 16th Volksgrenadier Division on its right and the 269th Volkgrenadier Division, now the Nineteenth Army’s best unit, on its left; both divisions occupied excellent defensive terrain. Farther south Schack’s LXIII Corps, facing the bulk of the First French Army, defended the southwestern and southern portions of the Colmar Pocket with what was left of the 159th, 189th, 338th, and 198th Infantry Divisions and the problem-ridden 30th SS Division. The next day, 27 November, as de Lattre’s forces completed their double envelopment at Burnhaupt, Wiese began transferring the battered 198th Division northward to strengthen the LXIV Corps. Initially he planned to concentrate the 198th in the area of Selestat, a critical rail and road junction city on the Alsatian plains ten miles south of Barr and less than fifteen miles north of Colmar.
Seventh Army’s plans for this sector were in a state of flux on 26 November. Patch wanted the VI Corps’ two southernmost divisions, the 103rd and the 36th, to complete their push over the Vosges and, assisted by CCA of the 14th Armored Division, to secure Barr and Selestat as quickly as possible. As noted above, on the 27th Patch formally transferred Brooks’ 100th Division to Haislip and Haislip’s French 2nd Armored Division to Brooks, with the VI Corps’ 3rd Division assuming all security responsibilities for the Strasbourg area. Once Barr and Selestat had been secured, however, Patch intended to turn the entire VI Corps northward, leaving only Leclerc’s armored division in the area north of Colmar. At the time, he estimated that Leclerc’s division, reinforced by a few regiments of VI Corps infantry that stayed behind, could easily mop up the German forces left between Selestat and Colmar, a distance of about ten miles, joining units of the First French Army as they drove north from Mulhouse. Furthermore, Patch expected all American forces supporting the effort to be redeployed northward by 30 November. Clearly both he and Devers still believed that the Germans would not make a strong effort to hold the Colmar bridgehead. Constrained from advancing across the Rhine, they were thus anxious to turn the bulk of the Seventh Army north to support the attack of Patton’s Third Army into the Saar, perhaps beating him to the German border.5
Based on Patch’s initial guidance,
Brooks gave more specific instructions to his VI Corps units on the 26th. First he ordered CCA of the 14th Armored Division to move quickly from the east in multiple columns in order to secure the section of Route N-83 south of Erstein behind the main German defensive line. Once the French 2nd Armored Division had taken Erstein, it was to pass through that portion of the road secured by CCA and advance rapidly to the Selestat area. CCA was then to regroup in the vicinity of Benfeld, five miles south of Erstein, and be prepared to reinforce other units as necessary. The 103rd and 36th Infantry Divisions were to continue pushing east to the Alsatian plains and then secure the area behind the French armored division as Leclerc’s forces moved south. Finally, the 36th Division was to earmark one regimental combat team to reinforce the French 2nd Armored Division as far as an east-west line through Colmar. Presumably the 36th Division would also redeploy north by 30 November, as specified by Patch.6
The VI Corps Advance (27 November-4 December)
On 27 November the bulk of the 3rd Infantry Division moved into the Strasbourg sector and by 1 December had cleared the city of the bridgehead that the Germans had been able to maintain. Southwest of Strasbourg the 3rd Division’s 30th regiment policed the area south of Molsheim and temporarily provided an infantry battalion for Leclerc’s initial drive south. At the same time, the VI Corps’ 117th Cavalry Squadron moved from Wasselonne to the Gambsheim area north of Strasbourg and subsequently, on 29 and 30 November, attempted to occupy Gambsheim. The light mechanized unit lacked the strength, however, to handle the growing German forces in the area and fell back to La Wantzenau, thus screening the VI Corps’ northern boundary.
With these forces securing his northeastern flank, Brooks continued to direct the 103rd and 36th Divisions through the remaining German Vosges defenses in the VI Corps sector. South of the 30th Infantry, the 103rd Division’s 411th Infantry reached Le Hohwald on the 27th and, despite determined local resistance, sent one column through to the Alsatian plains at the western edge of Barr, about twenty miles south of Molsheim. Barr, however, turned out to be well defended, and a two-day fight ensued that involved much of the 411th Infantry as well as elements of the 14th Armored Division’s CCA.
As units of Haffner’s 103rd Division struggled through Le Hohwald to Barr, the French 2nd Armored Division and CCA of the U.S. 14th Armored Division began the drive south. Initially CCA split into three columns; one approached Barr from the north, while the other two moved against the German strongpoint at Erstein. Of these, the first column pushed east directly toward Erstein while the second moved southeast, swinging behind the strongpoint in the vicinity of Benfeld. Meanwhile, the bulk of the French 2nd Armored Division began to advance on Erstein from the north, directly down Routes N-83 and N-68.
As the French and American armor advanced, they encountered a series of difficulties that were to plague mobile operations on the southern Alsatian plains for many months. All waterways, regardless of size and purpose, were running high, and many were at flood stage as a result of heavy rains. The soft, water-soaked ground restricted vehicles to the main roads, which were often mined and blocked by all types of barriers. The Germans had destroyed almost all of the bridges in the area, however small, and targeted the most significant crossing sites with mortar and artillery fire. Rain and sometimes snow continued to curtail Allied air support operations and also interfered with radio communications. All these factors reduced the mobility of the Allied armored units, making it difficult for them to operate with speed and efficiency.
Throughout 28 November heavy fighting took place at both Barr and Erstein. At Barr the 411th Infantry battled into the town from the west, attempting to clear each house and building one by one; meanwhile, the supporting CCA column entered the city from the north and east. This proved a costly mistake. With little accompanying infantry, the armor found itself out of place in the narrow streets and lanes; it lost eighteen tanks in the course of the day, eight of which were abandoned when Company B of the 48th Tank Battalion was forced to withdraw from the town, leaving behind most of its equipment and many of its dead, wounded, and missing. The following day, 29 November, the 103rd Division’s foot soldiers finally cleared Barr, and the armored unit was fortunate enough to recover all eight of the abandoned medium tanks, still in serviceable condition, as well as nineteen of Company B’s tankers.7 The men of the 14th Armored Division were acquiring their experience the hard way.
The new American armored unit had difficulties in the Erstein area as well. German defenses and counterattacks forced the southern column out of Benfeld, about five miles south of Erstein, on the 27th, while the Erstein defenders unceremoniously threw back the northern column on the 28th. Finally relieved by elements of the French 2nd Armored Division, CCA regrouped its scattered units on the night of 28–29 November just south of Barr, and prepared to resume operations south. Meanwhile, late on the 28th, Leclerc’s CCD pushed into Erstein from the northeast against strong resistance and, after a pitched battle, occupied most of the city by dark. Here the French tactical experience paid off, enabling them to wield their tank, artillery, and armored infantry forces more efficiently than the novice American formation.
The next day, 29 November, the 2nd Armored Division’s CCD mopped up at Erstein and, against steady resistance, slowly spread out to the west, southwest, and south. As the rest of Leclerc’s division rolled up to the Barr–Erstein area, CCA of the 14th Armored Division, still game, began advancing south of Barr, but was prevented from moving more than a mile or so toward Selestat because of a
series of destroyed bridges.
While the fighting was taking place at Barr and Erstein, the rest of the 103rd Division had pushed slowly through the Vosges, bypassing Barr on the south, and had reached Dambach-la-Ville, five miles north of Selestat, on 30 November in the face of only scattered German resistance.
South of the 103rd, Dahlquist’s 36th Division had continued its slow, ragged advance directly on Selestat, all the while pushing laboriously over some of the highest and most rugged hill masses of the High Vosges. While the 141st regiment operated off to the southwest in the Bonhomme Pass area, the 142nd and 143rd Infantry, pressing generally eastward, found some towns and villages unoccupied and passed many unmanned roadblocks. Nevertheless, progress was slow because of time-consuming, cross-country marches to outflank manned German strongpoints; the difficulties of pushing armor through the narrow, easily interdicted mountain roads; and the continual problems of resupply. Moreover, as the 36th Division neared the Alsatian plains, German resistance, although still somewhat disorganized, continued to stiffen. The first major element to reach the plains, the 3rd Battalion, 142nd Infantry, emerged from the mountains on 30 November, five miles south of Dambach-la-Ville and only two miles west of Selestat.
Patch had expected that by 30 November both Barr and Selestat would have been secured and that the French 2nd Armored Division would have reached Colmar, making it possible to redeploy the rest of Brooks’ American forces north. Obviously the American timetable had been upset. Yet, until the morning of 29 November, General Patch and his G-2 appeared to believe that the increasing German resistance in the northern section of the Colmar bridgehead was only a temporary condition, representing an effort to cover a phased and orderly Nineteenth Army withdrawal east across the Rhine.8 If so, the Seventh Army and VI Corps staffs must have been surprised when, during the 29th, the French 2nd Armored Division reported encountering troops of the 198th Division, and the 36th Division reported capturing members of the 106th Panzer Brigade.9 Obviously a Nineteenth Army withdrawal across the Rhine would not have required redeploying these two units north from the Belfort–Mulhouse sector. With this new information, Devers, Patch, and Brooks began to reevaluate their own plans. Initially, however, their only change was to rescind the 30 November deadline on the redeployment of the involved American forces north. The VI Corps would have to continue its offensive south against Selestat, and for the moment Haislip’s XV Corps would have to carry out the northern offensive alone.10
On 30 November VI Corps began its advance on Selestat. The 14th Armored
Selestat, central city area with Ill river in far background
Division’s CCA, after an intense fight, captured St. Pierre on Route N-422, thus opening the road south of Barr; the next day it reached the towns of Scherwiller and Ebersheim, both just a few miles north of the city. However, CCA began redeploying north on 2 and 3 December to join its parent unit in the XV Corps, and units of the 103rd Infantry and French 2nd Armored Divisions quickly took over its positions.
As American forces slowly converged on Selestat from the west and north, Leclerc expanded his hold on the central and eastern portions of the Alsatian plains. CCR took Benfeld on 1 December and cleared Route N-83 all the way to Selestat. To the east, a CCD column pushed south along the Rhine from Kraft to Friesenheim, while CCV moved into line for the first time between CCR and CCD. On 3 December the French division halted, awaiting new orders, along an east-west line roughly between Ebersheim and Friesenheim, with the Germans still entrenched close to the Rhine on the unit’s left flank.
While the French armor moved south, avoiding the larger urban areas, the 103rd Infantry Division entered Selestat on 1 December, accompanied later in the afternoon by units of the 36th Division. By the 2nd, the two divisions had four battalions of
infantry—well supported with armor and artillery—inside the city as well as other units surrounding it on the outside. But despite the overwhelming Allied strength in the area, it took nearly three days to clear the city of German defenders, with the last resistance ending only on the afternoon of 4 December.11
With the fall of Selestat, the VI Corps’ mission officially ended. Patch had decided to leave the 36th Division, half of which was still in the Vosges, to help Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division make the final push south to Colmar. Accordingly, the rest of Brooks’ VI Corps forces including the 103rd Infantry Division began moving north. However, the matter of Colmar was obviously not settled. Progress against the northern edge of the pocket had been extremely slow, and advances in the west and south by the tired and undersupplied First French Army had been even less successful. Now, with Devers pulling forces out of the Colmar region and Wiese constantly reinforcing the defenders within, closing down the pocket was becoming increasingly difficult.
The XV Corps Moves North (26 November-4 December)
In the northern sector of the Seventh Army’s area of operation, the objectives of Haislip’s XV Corps were tied to the Third Army’s rate of advance. Although terrain objectives were clearly unappetizing to Devers and Patch, they gave the effort their full support, directing Haislip to start his redeploying forces north as soon as possible. On 26 November, while the rest of the XV Corps reorganized and prepared for the new mission, Haislip ordered the 44th Division, currently the only unit facing north, to continue its operations west of the Low Vosges in support of the Third Army’s 4th Armored Division in the Saar River valley. At the time, the 4th Armored was attempting to penetrate the German Wolfskirchen–Eywiller–Durstel delaying line just south of Sarre-Union; Haislip attached the 44th Division’s 71st regiment to the armored unit in order to speed up the effort, while sending the 44th’s other regiment in the area, the 114th, north across the western slopes of the Vosges.
The 4th Armored Division, weary and roadbound by heavy rains and flooded streams, made slow progress, but reached Wolfskirchen and Eywiller on the 27th, Durstel on the 29th, and Sarre-Union on 1 December, although it took four more days to secure the city. By that time the 4th had passed out of the XV Corps’ sector, and the 71st regiment had returned to 44th Division control.12
East of the 4th Armored Division, the 114th regiment kept pace, taking Tieffenbach on 28 November and thus penetrating the planned German main line of resistance before it could be established. However, as the regiment moved east along Route N-419
into the mountains, it came up against more organized defenses and was unable to reach its new objective, Frohmuhl. South of Tieffenbach and Frohmuhl, the 121st Cavalry Squadron of XV Corps’ 106th Cavalry Group pushed reconnaissance elements into the Low Vosges, where they encountered increasing numbers of German patrols and reported German armor and infantry moving east along N-419. The traffic may have marked the redeployment of the 361st Volksgrenadier Division and Panzer Lehr’s reconnaissance battalion. Meanwhile, the 44th Division’s third regiment, the 324th Infantry, had just returned from the other side of the Vosges, and moved up to the N-419 area to help consolidate the division’s hold on the key roadway. By 2 December the 114th Infantry had finally seized Frohmuhl, while the other two regiments of the 44th Division pushed a few miles north of N-419; progress, however, was still extremely tedious.
On the other side of the mountains, east of the 44th Division’s sector, units of the 45th Infantry Division had already joined the assault on the German Vosges defenses. On 28 November the 45th Division’s 157th regiment had taken Ingwiller, but the 100th Division’s 397th regiment, temporarily attached to the 45th, had been able to push only about a mile or so along N-419 northeast of the town by the evening of 2 December. On both sides of the Low Vosges the 361st Volksgrenadiers, realizing that the N-419 mountain road was the key to its defensive position, had begun to defend the highway with more determination.
Not wanting to channel his attacks along the easily defensible roadway, Haislip planned to bring the rest of the 100th Division up the crest of the Low Vosges, have it attack through the center of the German positions between Frohmuhl and Ingwiller, and then continue north with the 44th Division on its left to seize several key Maginot Line positions about twelve miles away. Specifically, Spragins’ 44th Division was to strike northeast for the fortified high ground at and near the town of Siersthal, and Burress’ 100th Division, with two regiments, was to head for Bitche, four miles east of Siersthal and the center of some of the strongest Maginot Line fortifications. The 100th’s other regiment, the 397th, was to outflank and overrun the German defenses on Route N-419 west of Ingwiller and then join the rest of the division. The two-division attack would begin on 3 December across a front of about twelve miles through rugged, heavily wooded terrain that greatly restricted armored support.13
Now it was the turn of Haislip’s forces to try their skills at mountain fighting. The XV Corps’ attack through the width of the Low Vosges began on the 3rd as scheduled, but neither of the two participating divisions was able to push more than a few miles north during the first two days. All across the front, the defending Germans used observed artillery and mortar fire to slow American progress, while demolitions, roadblocks, minefields, and a series of minor counterattacks contributed to
the delays. The central Vosges area proved particularly difficult. Attacking from the vicinity of La Petite-Pierre deep in the mountains, units of the 100th Division managed to advance four miles northward by 3 December, reaching the hamlet of Puberg just south of Route N-419, pushing a lone infantry battalion across the road on the 4th. To the east, however, other division elements were thrown out of Wingen-sur-Moder on the night of 3–4 December by a German counterattack in which one American rifle company was surrounded and eventually forced to surrender. German troops continued to hold the Wingen area and parts of Route N-419 through the 4th, thereby making it difficult to supply the 100th Division forces and delaying the longer drive toward the corps’ Siersthal–Bitche objectives.
East of the Vosges, Haislip also sent the 45th and 79th Divisions northward with what forces were ready to attack, trying to keep their advance roughly parallel to the 44th and 100th Divisions in the Vosges. Advancing on a much broader front, the units headed for an artificial line, eighteen miles wide, between Rothbach on the west, at the base of the Vosges, and Bischwiller on the east, with the boundary line of the two divisions at Mertzwiller, about eight miles southeast of Rothbach.14
Their progress was slow but not as painful as in the Vosges because of the open terrain and the late arrival of defending German forces. On the left, Eagles’ 45th Division took Ingwiller on the 28th, Rothbach on the 29th, and most of what was left of the objective line by the 30th. Only on the far right, around Mertzwiller, did its units encounter any serious difficulties. There the 180th Infantry was unable to force a crossing of the Moder River southwest of Mertzwiller until 30 November, and even then the Germans managed to keep the regiment at arm’s length from the town.
Despite the delay at Mertzwiller, Haislip was heartened by the advance of the 45th Division and directed it to continue north and northeast to a new objective line—a railroad running between Niederbronn-les-Bains, six miles northeast of Rothbach, and Mertzwiller.15 As the division resumed its attack on 1 December, however, it finally began to encounter heavier resistance, marking the arrival of the 245th Volksgrenadier Division’s leading elements into the LXXXIX Corps’ sector. Additional factors that slowed the advance included an increase in prepared defensive measures—minefields, roadblocks, demolitions, and so forth—and, most important, the growing difficulty of the terrain as the 45th Division pushed into the Low Vosges foothills. Nevertheless, the division was within a few miles of its objective by 4 December, actually pushing across the railway at Gundershoffen in the division center. Mertzwiller, however, remained in German hands. Eyeing its location on the boundary between the 45th and 79th Divisions, Haislip suspected that the Germans were attempting to develop the town into an assembly area and strongpoint that might threaten the flank of either division.
Soldier and pack mule make their way in heavy snowfall, Vosges, 1944
On the XV Corps’ far right, the objectives of Wyche’s 79th Division were more modest. With the 256th Volksgrenadier Division beginning to close the Haguenau area on 26 November and with strong German forces occupying the Gambsheim area on the division’s right flank, Haislip directed the 79th to undertake only strong reconnaissance to the north and northeast without becoming seriously engaged. Wyche, the 79th Division commander, posted both the 313th Infantry and the attached 94th Cavalry Squadron on his right, facing Gambsheim; on the 29th he began probing toward the south bank of the Moder River with the 314th and 315th regiments. Encountering some artillery and mortar fire but only small German infantry forces, both units approached the southern banks of the Moder between Schweighausen and Haguenau on the following evening, only to discover that the Germans had evacuated most of their forces across the river. There the regiments halted, waiting for further orders.
An Evaluation
Advancing in two different directions on two widely separated fronts had greatly dissipated the combat power of the Seventh Army, as everyone should have expected. Eisenhower’s decision on 24 November to turn the 6th Army Group’s main effort north had not only halted Patch’s
plans for a drive into Germany northeast of Strasbourg, but had also prevented him from applying more pressure against the northern edge of the Colmar Pocket. Although the German decision to reinforce and hold the bridgehead came as a surprise to all the Allied commanders, Eisenhower clearly believed that the Seventh Army’s new mission of supporting the Third Army’s advance toward the Saar industrial region was far more important than clearing the southern Alsatian plains. The Allied Supreme Commander had forcefully communicated this point of view to Devers in November. Eisenhower had never attached much importance to the extreme southern sector of the Allied front, and might understandably have been upset that Devers and Patch had not chosen to redeploy the VI Corps sooner. Having the VI Corps attack northwards in the greatest strength possible and at the earliest possible date would force the German First Army to divert even more of its forces that opposed the U.S. Third Army. Of course, a crossing in the Rastatt area and a subsequent drive north up the east bank of the Rhine might have accomplished the same result, but without giving any immediate assistance to the effort against the Colmar Pocket. There both Eisenhower and Devers had underestimated the German ability to strengthen the bridgehead and overestimated de Lattre’s ability to keep his basically colonial army moving against suddenly renewed and greatly strengthened German resistance. Of course, SHAEF still had the option of ignoring the Colmar Pocket, ringing it with defensive units, postponing Operation INDEPENDENCE, outposting the Franco-Italian border with FFI units, and sending the better part of de Lattre’s army north to assist Patch and Patton in forcing the Saar. Both the terrain in the south and the operational goals of Eisenhower would seem to suggest that such measures would have at least been considered. But politico-military constraints as well as German unpredictability probably made this course of action unlikely. The German high command had often been quick to take advantage of gambles made by Allied commanders in the past, and a major setback on the western Allied front might threaten the entire alliance. Like Jellicoe, commander of the British battle fleet in World War I, Eisenhower could also have lost the war in the space of an afternoon, and the Allied Supreme Commander remained understandably cautious in his operational deployments.