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Posted on 12/31/2006 5:51:17 AM PST by snippy_about_it
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Jan 1 - 7, 1945 The campaign star on the European Theater ribbon for the bitter winter combat during December 1944 and January 1945 is titled "Ardennes-Alsace". Over the past 50 years the "Battle of' the Bulge" in the Ardennes region in northern France and Belgium has received as much publicity as Gettysburg.  The German First Army launched its initial attacks on schedule a few hours before New Year's Day, with Simon's XIII SS Corps pushing south over the Sarre River valley and Petersen's XC and Hoehne's LXXXIX Corps heading in the same general direction through the woods of the Low Vosges. In both cases the leading German echelons began to hit the main American lines about midnight. In the Sarre valley the assault force was met by determined resistance from the 44th and 100th Infantry Division troops, who were well dug in and deployed in depth. Expecting the major attack in this area, Patch and Haislip had jammed the XV Corps zone with three infantry divisions buttressed by the two regiments of Task Force Harris and-if the theater reserve units are counted-two armored and another infantry division in reserve, with a third armored division arriving. The Germin attack barely made a dent in the beefed-up Allied line. In some cases the SS troopers advanced in suicidal open waves, cursing and screaming at the American infantrymen who refused to be intimidated. The infantry of the 36th Volksgrenadier did little better. Although Simon's forces finally managed to poke a narrow hole, about two miles in depth, at Rimling on the right wing of the 44th Division, the 100th Infantry Division held firm. In the days that followed the Germans saw their small advances continuously eroded by repeated counterattacks from the 44th, 100th, and 63d (TF Harris) Division infantry supported by elements of the French 2d Armored Division. Allied artillery and, when the weather broke, Allied air attacks, together with the bitter cold, also sapped the strength of the attackers. On 4 January the German high command formally called off the effort. As General Simon, the attacking corps commander, caustically observed, the Sarre assault had shown only that the German soldier still knew how to fight and how to die, but little else. Blaskowitz, with Hitler and von Rundstedt's approval, obviously chose not to throw the German armored reserves into the battle there, as planned, and sought weaker links in the American lines.  During Operation NORDWIND, the last German offensive on the Western Front, three German divisions attempted to encircle and annihilate the 100th Infantry Division. Near Lemberg, on the Division's right, the XC Corps attackers were stopped by the 399th and elements of the 398th Infantry Regiment after three days of ferocious fighting. On 5 January, after NORDWIND's main effort had failed, Himmler's Army Group Oberrhein finally began its supporting thrusts against the southern flank of Brooks' VI Corps, with the XIV SS Corps launching a cross-Rhine attack north of Strasbourg. Two days later, south of the city, the Nineteenth Army launched Operation SONNENWENDE ('WINTER SOLSTICE'), attacking north, astride the Rhone-Rhine Canal on the northern edge of the German-held Colmar Pocket. These actions opened a three-week battle, whose ferocity rivaled the Ardennes fighting in viciousness if not in scope and threatened the survival of the VI Corps. SONNENWENDE sparked a new crisis for the 6th Army Group, which had too few divisions to defend every threatened area. With Brooks' VI Corps now engaged on both flanks, along the Rhine at Gambsheim and to the northeast along the Low Vosges mountain exits, Devers transferred responsibility for Strasbourg to the French First Army, and de Lattre stretched his forces to cover both the city and the Belfort Gap 75 miles to the south. But the real danger was just northeast of Strasbourg. There, the XIV SS Corps had punched out a 10-mile bridgehead around the town of Gambsheim, brushing off small counterattacks from Task Force Linden. Patch's Seventh Army, reinforced with the newly arrived 12th Armored Division, tried to drive the Germans from the Gambsheim area, a region laced with canals, streams, and lesser watercourses. To the south de Lattre's 3d Algerian Division defended Strasbourg, while the rest of the French First Army kept the Colmar Pocket tightly ringed. But the fate of Strasbourg and the northern Alsace hinged on the ability of the American VI Corps to secure its besieged flanks.  Having driven several wedges into the Seventh Army, the Germans launched another attack on 7 January. The German XXXIX Panzer Corps, with the 21st Panzer and the 25th Panzergrenadier Divisions, attacked the greatly weakened VI Corps center between the Vosges and Lauterbourg. Quickly gaining ground to the edge of the Haguenau Forest 20 miles north of Strasbourg, the German offensive rolled along the same routes used during the successful attacks of August 1870 under Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke. Moltke's successors, however, made no breakthrough. In the two Alsatian towns of Hatten and Rittershoffen, Patch and Brooks threw in the Seventh Army's last reserve, the 14th Armored Division. Assisted by a mixture of other combat, combat support, and service troops, the division halted the Germans. While the VI Corps fought for its life in the Haguenau Forest, the enemy renewed attacks on both flanks. During an intense battle between units of the 45th Division and the 6th SS Mountain Division in the Low Vosges, the Germans surrounded an American battalion that had refused to give ground. After a week's fighting by units attempting its relief, only two soldiers managed to escape to friendly lines. Although gaining ground the enemy had achieved no clear-cut success. Hitler nevertheless committed his last reserves on 16 January, including the 10th SS Panzer and the 7th Parachute Divisions. These forces finally steamrolled a path along the Rhine's west bank toward the XIV SS Corps' Gambsheim bridgehead overrunning one of the green 12th Armored Division's infantry battalions at Herrlisheim and destroying one of its tank battalions nearby. This final foray led Brooks to order a withdrawal on the twenty-first, one that took the Germans by surprise and was completed before the enemy could press his advantage.  Forming a new line along the Zorn, Moder, and Rothback Rivers north of the Marne-Rhine Canal, the VI Corps commander aligned his units into a cohesive defense with his badly damaged but still game armored divisions in reserve. Launching attacks during the night of 24-25 January, the Germans found their slight penetrations eliminated by vigorous counterattacks. Ceasing their assaults permanently, they might have found irony in the Seventh Army's latest acquisition from SHAEF reserves-the "Battling Bastards of Bastogne," the 101st Airborne Division, which arrived on the Alsace front only to find the battle over.
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Wasn't that Task Force Herran? All of the outfits that fought in Nordwind fought like tigers . I used to like in Alsace when i was a kid and I have to say, it was obvious that what was not blasted in WW1 took the rest 1n 1944-45.
Nice to know someone who stopped them. Thanks
Anytime. We appreciate your first hand knowledge and insight.
((HUGS)). We are out working on a fence this morning. The darn dogs have learned to get out of the temporary 4 ft. farm fence so we've started working on the 5 ft permanant fence, earlier than we wanted to but it will free us up from having to watch them every second and with flashlights at night!
Thank you Mayor.
Our Sarge's full name is "Sarge, you pain in the butt!" :-)
Thanks Don for your kind words. Happy New Year to you, too.
Thank you for sharing and thanks to your father and you for your service.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
free dixie,sw
TF Herren and TF Linden were there. TF Herren was on our left flank in December 1944. They were a part of another Division as we were. During the Nazi January offensive we were relieving each other in different areas. I think elements of each were swapped back and forth. We were finally relieved from the front on January 26 by the 377th Regiment of the 101st Airborne.
On January 30 we went to France to reorganize, get replacements, fix ordnance, zeroing weapons,etc. 28 men received battlefield promotions. A litle R&R [I had a pass to Paree where I got tickets from the Red Cross to the Follies Bergere to see their braless 'Rockettes' - business as usual in Paris].
Thanks Snippy.
I had always "known" the Bulge was Germany's last hurrah.
Just started pouring down here with thunder. We're comfy inside.
Happy New Year.
Thanks alfa6.
Happy New Year!
I've been reading all Sam's books about it. He has hundreds, perhaps a thousand plus books. 95% of them are military history. I'm concentrating on this specific period. All the individual battles that took place, from D-Day to the Ardennes. Very amazing stuff.
Reminds of watching the Olympics one year in college. We were in the housemothers room and the Horsey events were on. One of my fellow Resident Assistants was a horse trainer when not going to school and he informed us, in a very serious voice, that the horses actually had two names. One was the shown name, i.e. Sir Gallahad IV. The other was "you dumb s**-of-B****" :-)
BTW, are you burying part of the fence? So the dogs can't dig out!!!
Regards and Happy New Year
alfa6 ;>}
LOL. He has the same last name as Hobbit Lass's dog Lucky.
Nothing to add; just checking in.
Frohes Neues Jahr.
Thanks for checking in. Happy New Year.
LOL. aka boogerhead!
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