Big Pigeon - Pottawattamie County, Iowa
  • Pigeon Home
    • Usage Hints
    • Acknowledgments
    • Resources >
      • Free Sites
      • Pay Sites
      • Print Resources
      • Search Engines
      • Land Records
      • Resources - Denmark >
        • Finding Danish Ancestors
    • Project Mgt - Public >
      • Website Overview
      • Website Log
      • Project Overview
      • Mac Computer Use
      • Weebly Use
      • Reunion Use
      • Project History
      • Image Provenance
    • Project Mgt - Private >
      • Site Management
      • Site Plan
      • Contact List
      • Backup Info & Log
      • System Info & Log
      • Image Storage
      • E-Mail Log
      • Asset Organization
      • History Index
      • Binders & Photos
      • Upon My Death
      • Donations & Dispersal
  • Family
    • Photos - Recent
    • Christiansen
    • Rasmussen
    • Christiansen/Rasmussen News
    • Larsen/Larson
    • Hansen
    • Larsen/Hansen News
    • Allied Families
    • Wall of Honor
  • St. Paul's
    • Early Families >
      • Early Families Help
      • Early Families More Lists
    • St. Paul's Roots
    • St. Paul's Timeline
    • St. Paul's Resources
  • PottCo
    • Early History >
      • Missouri River
      • Native Americans
      • Colonial Period
    • Pott. Co. History
    • Big Pigeon Area >
      • Area Towns >
        • Beebeetown
        • Crescent
        • Honey Creeek
        • Loveland
        • Neola
        • Persia
        • Underwood
        • Weston
        • Lost Locales
      • Danes from Dronninglund
      • Maps & Plats
      • Big Pigeon Galleries >
        • Gallery 1 - Area Historic Structures
        • Gallery 2 - Grange Sunday School
    • Avoca >
      • Gold Star Avoca
      • Cuppy's Grove
    • Pott. Co. Addendum
    • LDS History >
      • LDS Links
      • Gallery 1 - Mormon Maps
    • A House Divided >
      • Endnotes
      • Niels Peder Pedersen
      • Ane Katrine Pedersen
      • Kirsten Pedersen
      • Kirsten's Story >
        • Kirsten's LDS Daughters
        • Kirsten's Daughter, Karen Bondo
        • Kirsten's Son, Anders Johnson
        • Kirsten's Niece, Christine Mortensen
        • Kirsten's Niece, Anne Marie Larsen
    • More History >
      • Iowa History
      • American History
  • WWII Home
    • Big Pigeon and WWII
  • WWII Roster
    • The Roster >
      • Roster-A
      • Roster-B
      • Roster-C
      • Roster-D
      • Roster-EF
      • Roster-G
      • Roster-H
      • Roster-IJ
      • Roster-KL
      • Roster-M
      • Roster-NO
      • Roster-P
      • Roster-QR
      • Roster-S
      • Roster-TUV
      • Roster-WXYZ
    • Roster Appendices >
      • Other In-Service Deaths
      • Post-Separation Deaths
    • Roster Notes >
      • Roster Demographics
      • Awards for Valor
      • Iowa Casualties & Dead
    • Roster Homes >
      • Council Bluffs
      • Rural Pott. Co.
      • Cass Co.
      • Harrison Co.
      • Mills Co.
      • Montgomery Co.
      • Shelby Co.
      • Other SW Iowa Counties
      • Other Iowa Counties
      • Iowa Border States
      • Other States
    • Roster Deaths >
      • War with Japan
      • Battle of the Atlantic
      • Mediterranean Theater
      • European Theater
      • Stateside Deaths
      • The Air Dead
      • The Sea Dead
    • Roster Photos >
      • Roster Photos - Contents
      • Photos of Individuals
      • Land War with Japan
      • Air War with Japan
      • Sea War with Japan
      • Land War with Germany
      • Air War with Germany
      • Sea War with Germany
      • Stateside
      • Memorials
      • Cemeteries
    • Roster Outliers >
      • Pott. Co. Discrepancies
    • About the Roster >
      • Roster Planning
      • Members Not in St. Paul's
    • Roster Attic >
      • Recent Roster Additions
      • Roster Additions Log
  • WWII US
    • WWII Operations
    • WWII Overview
    • WWII Commanders
    • WWII Web Sources >
      • Web Sources - Personnel
      • Web Sources - Japan
      • Web Sources - Germany
    • WWII Personnel >
      • WWII Casualties
      • WWII Deaths
      • WWII Burials
      • Service Numbers
    • WWII Ground Forces >
      • High Level Organization
      • Infantry Organization >
        • Infantry Equipment
      • Ground Forces - Japan
      • Ground Forces - The MTO
    • WWII in The Air
    • WWII at Sea
    • WWII at Home
    • Civilian Victims
    • Strategic Bombing
    • The Cold War
    • World War I >
      • Iowa In World War I
  • Japan
    • WWII - Japan Overview
    • Japan Ascendant
    • US Naval War w/ Japan >
      • US Submarine Force
      • Third & Fifth Fleets
    • US Air Force War w/ Japan >
      • Fifth Air Force
      • Seventh Air Force
      • Thirteenth Air Force
    • Japan Lashes Out >
      • Pearl Harbor
      • Guam & Wake Island
      • Malaya & Singapore Lost
      • The Dutch Indies Lost
      • The Philippines Lost
      • New Guinea & Solomons
    • Japan Overreaches >
      • Coral Sea
      • Midway
    • South & SW Pacific >
      • Solomons Naval War
      • Solomon Is., Guadalcanal
      • SE New Guinea, Papua
      • NE New Guinea, Lae to Madang
      • Solomon Is., New Georgia
      • Solomon Is., Bougainville
      • Bismarck Archipelago
      • Western New Guinea
    • North Pacific >
      • Alaska
      • Attu & Kiska
      • Pacific Lend-Lease Routes
    • Central Pacific >
      • Gilbert Islands
      • Marshall Islands
      • Mariana Islands
      • Palau Islands
    • Philippines Liberated >
      • Leyte
      • Battle of Leyte Gulf
      • Philippines Naval War
      • Luzon
      • Southern Philippines
    • Iwo Jima & Okinawa >
      • Iwo Jima
      • Land Battle of Okinawa
      • Naval Battle of Okinawa
    • China-Burma-India >
      • China - 1941-45
      • India - 1942-45
      • Burma - 1941-45
      • Crossing the Hump
    • Japan Overpowered >
      • Japan Under Attack
      • Strategic Air War - Japan
      • Japan Vanquished
    • The Pacific Base Areas
  • Germany
    • WWII-Germany Overview
    • Battle of the Atlantic
    • The MTO >
      • MTO Overview >
        • MTO Background
      • North Africa >
        • Operation Torch
        • The Race to Tunis
        • Tunisia
      • Italy >
        • Sicily
        • Italy Leaves the Axis
        • Salerno-Naples-Foggia
        • To the Gustav Line
        • Battle of Anzio
        • Cassino/the Gustav Line
        • Cassino to Rome
        • Rome To Florence
        • Northern Apennines
        • The Po Valley
      • MTO Air War
      • MTO Sea War
      • MTO Comm. Zone
    • The ETO >
      • ETO Overview >
        • ETO Background
      • ETO Orders of Battle >
        • ETO Unit Subordination
      • Normandy Campaign >
        • D-Day
        • ETO, 6 June 1944
        • Normandy, June 1944
        • ETO, 30 June 1944
        • Normandy, July 1944
        • After D-Day
      • Liberation >
        • Operation Cobra
        • ETO, 1 August 1944
        • Brittany
        • Normandy
        • Northern France & Belgium
        • ETO, 25 August 1944
        • Southern France
      • War of Attrition >
        • ETO, 15 September 1944
        • Netherlands 1944
        • Rhineland 1944 >
          • V Corps at the West Wall
          • Aachen
          • Hürtgen Forest
          • Operation Queen
          • Queen/Hürtgen
          • Last 1944 Offensives
        • Lorraine/Alsace 1944 >
          • Lorraine/Third Army
          • Lorraine/Seventh Army
          • Alsace/Seventh Army
        • ETO, 15 December 1944
      • Ardennes/The Bulge >
        • Before the Bulge
        • The Bulge Begins
        • The Bulge Grows
        • Ardennes, 25 December 1944
        • The Bulge Contained
        • The Bulge Eliminated
        • Ardennes/Bulge Details
        • Ardennes/Bulge Overview
      • Alsace 1945 >
        • Alsace, Nordwind
        • Alsace, Colmar Pocket
      • Siegfried Line 1945 >
        • ETO, 26 January 1945
        • Operation Blackcock
        • First US Effort
        • Roer River Dams
        • VIII Corps to Prüm
        • XII Corps to Bitburg
        • XX Corps to Trier
      • To the Rhine >
        • ETO, 1 March 1945
        • Ops. Veritable & Grenade
        • Operation Lumberjack
        • Operation Undertone
        • Patton's Probing Attacks
        • Ninth & First Armies
        • Third & Seventh Armies
      • Central Europe >
        • Crossing the Rhine
        • Beyond the Rhine
        • ETO, 4 April 1945
        • Central Germany
        • Southern Germany
        • Germany Surrenders
      • ETO Air War
      • ETO Sea War
      • ETO Comm. Zone
    • The Eastern Front
Picture
Picture
Audie Murphy
Audie Murphy
Alsace 1945
Picture
bigpigeon.us webpage WWII-Germany > The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Colmar Pocket, © 2023 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated by RAC 26 Sep 2022.
The Colmar Pocket was a German salient that remained in southern Alsace after the November 1944 liberation of most of Alsace.
Eliminating the Colmar Pocket,  January-February 1945
Allied planners hoped to eliminate the Colmar Pocket while the ground remained frozen. Thus, on 20 January 1945 while Operation Nordwind continued on northern Alsace, combat began to eliminate the pocket. Eventually three Allied corps were involved:
  • The French First Corps in the north.
  • The US XXI Corps was inserted between the French First and Second Corps on 28 January.
  • The French Second Corps in the south.

On 5 February the Colmar Pocket was surrounded by French and US troops and on 9 February the pocket was cleared. Surviving German soldiers retreated across the Rhine River, destroying any remaining bridges.

The entire left bank of the upper Rhine, from Strasbourg upstream to the Swiss border, was now in Allied hands. ETO divisions tied up minding the pocket could now be used elsewhere.

The Colmar Pocket
The Colmar Pocket - 20 Jan - 5 Feb 1945
The US XXI Corps

The Seventh Army's XXI Corps became operational on 13 January 1945 and was assigned to the French First Army and inserted between the First and Second French Corps on 28 January. Here is what I know of its divisional composition during the elimination of the Colmar Pocket:
  • 3rd Infantry Division, VI Corps --> French II Corps 15 Dec --> XXI Corps 28 Jan --> French II Corps 15 Feb --> XV Corps 12 Mar.
  • 28th Infantry Division, VIII Corps, First Army --> French II Corps 20 Jan --> XXI Corps 28 Jan --> V Corps, First Army 21 Feb.
  • 75th Infantry Division, First Army Reserve --> XXI Corps 30 Jan --> Seventh Army Reserve 11 Feb; ended up in Ninth Army.
  • 12th Armored Division, VI Corps --> XXI Corps 3 Feb --> XV Corps 11 Feb; remained in Seventh Army.

During Operation Undertone, the Seventh Army's advance on the Siegfried Line in mid-March 1945, XXI Corps, with a different complement of divisions, was on the Seventh Army's left flank.
Sources for Big Pigeon's The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Colmar Pocket webpage:
Major Sources: 
  • Chapter XXIX, The Colmar Pocket, of Riviera to the Rhine (The United States Army in World War II, European Theater of Operations series, by Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith, 1993) - http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Riviera/USA-E-Riviera-29.html.
Sources for webpage images: (C/O = courtesy of)
  • Audie Murphy, webpage header photo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy - Audie Murphy won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the Colmar Pocket. At the time he was a company commander, although still a teenager. Later he had a career in Hollywood. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
  • Southern ETO Front, 1 Jan & 21 Jan 1945, map, https://www.alamy.com/allies-advance-on-the-southern-front-january-1945-alsace-lorraine-ww2-1968-map-image242587220.html - C/O Antiqua Print Gallery of London, England, https://www.antiquemapsandprints.com. Taken from Victory in the West, Volume 2, The Defeat of Germany, by Major L. F. Ellis.
  • The Colmar Pocket - 20 Jan - 5 Feb 1945, map, http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Riviera/maps/USA-E-Riviera-35.jpg - Map #35 in Riviera to the Rhine.

Pottawattamie Area WW II Dead - The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Colmar Pocket:
  • Taken from the bigpigeon.us WWII Roster module.
03-05 - The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Colmar Pocket (two dead, updated 21 Dec 2022)
† Bates, Stuart McCain, SN 37-475-399, US Army, Pott. Co.
  • Co. C, 756th Tank Bn., 3rd Inf. Div. (attached to French II Corps 15 Feb - 12 Mar), Seventh Army; KIA 24 Jan 1945 N of Colmar, Alsace, France; The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Colmar Pocket.
† Caywood, John Sloan, SN 39-591-957, US Army, Lancaster Co., NE & Los Angeles Co., CA
  • 28th Inf. Div., XXI Corps; KIA 1 Feb 1945 near Colmar, Alsace, France; The ETO > Alsace 1945 > Colmar Pocket.
Proudly powered by Weebly