bigpigeon.us webpage WWII - Germany > ETO > Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace, updated by RAC 17 May 2022.
The Alsace Campaign was a series of lengthy battles fought in Alsace in northeastern France between November 1944 and March 1945.
The Alsace Campaign was a series of lengthy battles fought in Alsace in northeastern France between November 1944 and March 1945.
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Alsace - November 1944
Alsace lies on the west bank of the Rhine River in extreme northeast France. Alsace is mostly in or east of the Vosges Mountains, making an Allied invasion difficult. Alsace was the purview of the 6th Army Group, consisting of the US Seventh Army and the French 1st Army. The 6th Army Group landed in southern France on 15 August 1944 and then fought its way north up the Rhone River area, arriving west and southwest of Alsace. Preliminaries for the 6th Army Group's liberation of Alsace began in early November 1944. The Seventh Army attacked on November 13 through a gap in the northern Vosges near Saverne and the French 1st Army attacked the following day through the Belfort Gap in the south. Strasbourg was liberated on 22 November by the French 2nd Armored Division and soon all of the of Alsace was in Allied hands, except for an area around Colmar called the Colmar Pocket and the part of Alsace north of Saverne. The Seventh Army then turned its attention to liberating the northern part of Alsace. On December 20, following the German offensive into Belgium, Seventh Army offensive operations ceased and units of the Seventh Army shifted to the west as much of the Third Army departed to Belgium to support the US First Army. |
Alsace
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Operation Nordwind, the January 1945 German Counteroffensive into Northern Alsace
With much of Patton's Third Army diverted north to the Ardennes to contain the German advance in the Battle of the Bulge, General Patch's Seventh Army became responsible for the portion of the Allied line that faced the German Saarland and eastern Palatinate. On 1 January 1945, the German Army attacked southward through the Palatinate into northern Alsace into the thinned American line. This was the little-known Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive in the ETO. Operation Nordwind was on a much smaller scale than the Battle of the Bulge, and unlike the Battle of the Bulge, US lines yielded but did not break. The limit of the German advance, around 25 January, is shown on the accompanying map. |
Operation Nordwind, Northern Alsace, January 1945
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Eliminating the Colmar Pocket - January-February 1945
When the Allied 6th Army Group liberated most of Alsace in November 1944, the German 19th Army retained a presence on the west bank of the Rhine called the Colmar Pocket. On 20 January 1945, combat began to eliminate this pocket. On 5 February the pocket was surrounded by French and US troops and on 9 February the pocket was cleared. Surviving German soldiers retreated across the Rhine River. The entire left bank of the upper Rhine, from Strasbourg to the Swiss border, was now in Allied hands. The accompanying map also shows the land seized by Nordwind, the German Northern Alsace counteroffensive that began on January 1. Thus, at the end of January 1945, the Allied 6th Army Group was on the offensive in southern Alsace and on the defensive in northern Alsace. Not until after mid-March 1945 did the 6th Army Group recover all the territory in northern Alsace overrun by German forces in early January. |
Southern ETO Front, 1 Jan and 21 Jan 1945
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Sources for the Alsace Campaign webpage:
Pottawattamie Area WW II Dead - Alsace Campaign
† Bates, Stuart McCain, SN 37-475-399, US Army, Pott. Co.
- The webpage header Audie Murphy photo is courtesy of en.wikipedia.org. Audie Murphy was a teenaged company commander when he won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the Colmar Pocket.
- The Alsace map is courtesy of depositphotos.com.
- The Operation Nordwind, Northern Alsace map is courtesy of U.S. Army Center of Military History.
- The Southern ETO Front map is courtesy of Antiqua Print Gallery of London, England, https://www.antiquemapsandprints.com.
Pottawattamie Area WW II Dead - Alsace Campaign
- Taken from the bigpigeon.us WWII Roster module.
† Bates, Stuart McCain, SN 37-475-399, US Army, Pott. Co.
- Co. C, 756th Tank Bn., 3rd Inf. Div., Seventh Army; KIA 24 Jan 1945 N of Colmar, Alsace, France; Colmar Pocket - Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- 15th Inf. Regt., 3rd Inf. Div., Seventh Army; KIA 26 Dec 1944 N of Colmar Pocket, Alsace, France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- 28th Inf. Div.; KIA 1 Feb 1945 near Colmar, Alsace, France; Reduction of Colmar Pocket - Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- Battery C., 400th AAA AW Bn., Seventh Army; DNB 15 Mar 1945 in hospital, France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- Co. B., 25th Tank Bn., 14th Armored Div., VI Corps, Seventh Army; attached to 36th Inf. Div. at time of death; KIA 7 Feb 1945 northern Alsace, France; Operation Nordwind - Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- 314th Inf. Regt., 79th Inf. Div.; DOW 18 Nov 1944 Saverne Gap, Alsace, France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- Co. A, 111th Engineer Combat Bn., 36th Inf. Div., Seventh Army; KIA 14 Dec 1944 from artillery shrapnel during German counterattack near Selestat, Alsace, France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- 397th Inf. Regt., 100th Inf. Div.; KIA 14 Nov 1944, Raon L’Etape, SE of Baccarat, Vosges, France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- Co. H, 324th Inf. Regt., 44th Inf. Div., Seventh Army; KIA 8 Dec 1944 approaching Maginot Line, near Siersthal, W of Bitche, NE France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- 191st Tank Bn., attached to 45th Inf. Div., Seventh Army; KIA 5 Oct 1944 probably NE of Epinal near Rambervillers, Vosges, France during Seventh Army's advance eastward into the Vosges foothills; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- Co. C, 143rd Inf. Regt., 36th Inf. Div., VI Corps, Seventh Army; KIA 17 Oct 1944 E of Epinal, NE France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- 7th Inf. Regt., 3rd Inf. Div., Seventh Army; KIA 3 Nov 1944 St.-Die-des-Vosges, Alsace, France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.
- Co. M, 30th Inf. Regt., 3rd Inf. Div., Seventh Army; KIA 16 Dec 1944 near Kaysersburg, NW of Colmar, Alsace, France; Lorraine & Alsace > Alsace Campaign.