Нет, судя по всему, немцы постоянно проводили контратаки с поддержкой бронетехники наступающих американцев. Некоторые были успешны, некоторые - не очень.
At 2030 that night, as the 30th Infantry collected itself on the west side of the Ill, O'Daniel ordered Lt. Col. Hallett D. Edson, commanding the 15th Infantry, to secure the bridgehead, see to the repair of the structure, and resume the 3d Division's attack as soon as possible. Loss of momentum had to be avoided at all costs. Edson alerted his 3d Battalion and immediately sent two of its rifle companies, I and K, directly through Guemar and the Colmar woods and over the Ill, following the trail that the 30th Infantry's 1st Battalion had taken twenty-four hours earlier. Descending on the Maison Rouge area from the north, as their predecessors had done, the two companies scattered a small German holding force around 0500 on 24 January, rounded up a number of 30th regiment infantrymen who had somehow survived the night on the east bank, and proceeded to secure the area as best they could. Instructed to defend both the bridge area and the crossroads, the battalion commander gave Company K the responsibility for the crossing site and sent Company I out to occupy the crossroads. As dawn came, the Company I commander, finding the crossroads completely exposed and without any cover, requested permission to pull the unit back to the tree line, but was instructed to hold in place: division engineers were just completing a new treadway bridge to the north, and armored support could be expected shortly.
For the next several hours the men of Company I frantically chipped away at the frozen ground, digging up at best a few inches of dirt, ice, and snow and wondering when the tanks would arrive. They finally came about three hours later, but from the wrong side. At 0800 on the 24th, the Germans launched their second counterattack against the bridgehead with thirteen heavy assault guns and a company or more of infantry. As the enemy machines began pushing through the mile or so of fields between Company I and the Riedwihr woods, the American soldiers scrambled into their makeshift foxholes and watched and waited, lying flat on the frozen ground. Friendly artillery soon caused the attacking infantry, barely visible at first, to disperse and lag behind; but the assault guns, accompanied by a few tanks and lighter armored vehicles, continued toward them at a steady pace. The company commander and his forward observer ticked off the German progress for many to hear--800 yards away, then 600, and then 500. A few panicked and fled, and others asked their officers, "Can we go?" The rest stayed, although, as one sergeant later recalled, "we all practically had one foot out of the foxhole," and when the company commander finally made the decision to pull back, "we didn't have to give the order very loud."
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That morning, shortly after 0800, the company was overrun. Some soldiers were crushed under the German tank treads or machine-gunned where they lay; others managed to fall back into the Company K area closer to the river; still others were shot while trying to surrender. Most of the 3d Platoon was thought to have been captured.
The success of the German counterattack again proved brief. As it swept through Company I and moved on against Company K, direct American tank and tank destroyer fire from across the river forced the German assault guns back, and the German infantry was unable to budge the defenders by themselves. In the north, however, two American tanks and a tank destroyer, which had finally managed to cross the new treadway bridge, charged south and rolled into the battle area "bumper-to-bumper," where they were promptly picked off by the German tank gunners. The battle for the bridgehead thus continued throughout the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon, with neither side able to completely secure the area. At last, around 1430 that afternoon, the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry, counterattacked from the north with more armor, finally relieving those at the bridge site: "here they come . . . if that ain't a beautiful sight . . . strictly a Hollywood finish . . . just like the movies." The rest of the regiment soon followed.
Edson's regiment continued south, advancing on Riedwihr, Holtzwihr, and the Colmar Canal, while the German forces pulled back east, still unsure of the 3d Division's specific axis of advance. West of the Ill the 30th Infantry, rather dazed but also embarrassed and angry, regrouped and reorganized. The average strength of its rifle companies had fallen to seventy-two or seventy-three men, and the survivors later added a new verse to the regimental ditty:
But we have our weaker moments
Even when success is huge
'Cause the outfit took a licken
at the bridge at Maison Rouge.
But three days later, on 27 January, after only a brief respite, the 30th Infantry went back into action as if nothing had happened. O'Daniel's high opinion of the unit and his equally high expectations of its performance remained unchanged.
The fighting at Maison Rouge typified the back-and-forth flow of the Allied advance in the north and south. In both areas the attackers found the Germans deployed in depth, counterattacking whenever possible but lacking the strength or mobility to do more than wear down the advancing forces. As the 15th Infantry entered Riedwihr on the night of 25-26 January, O'Daniel was slipping the 254th Infantry regiment behind the 15th and directing it at the next 3d Division objective, Jebsheim. On the 26th and 27th, the Germans made a spirited defense of the town, a key north-south communications junction, while launching repeated armor-supported counterattacks in the Riedwihr area, but to no avail. On 26 January 1945, in the much-contested Riedwihr woods, 2d Lt. Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated U.S. soldiers of the war and later a popular film star, earned the Congressional Medal of Honor
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for turning back several German attacks from the turret of a burning tank destroyer.12 With equal determination, the 254th secured Jebsheim by the 28th and continued east.
O'Daniel recommitted the 30th Infantry south of Riedwihr on the 27th. McGarr's unit again took Holtzwihr and drove south, reaching its original objective, the Colmar Canal, on the 29th. Meanwhile, de Monsabert extended the front of the U.S. 28th Division eastward, freeing Heintges' 7th regiment for employment elsewhere; furthermore, to the north the French 1st Infantry Division, which had also encountered difficulties maintaining a bridgehead over the Ill, began making substantial progress, securing the 3d Division's northern flank. With the 30th Infantry on the canal and the 28th Division moving east, O'Daniel finally sidestepped both the 7th and 15th regiments between Riedwihr and Jebsheim, putting them over the Colmar Canal on the night of 29-30 January, abreast of the 30th Infantry. The following day all three regiments drove south several miles, securing the canal crossing sites for the French 5th Armored Division. By the 30th therefore, O'Daniel had pushed a fairly substantial wedge into the German lines, with the 30th Infantry outflanking Colmar city on the east; the 254th advancing out of Jebsheim toward the Rhone-Rhine Canal and the Rhine River; and the 7th and 15th regiments, supported by French armor, facing south and southeast toward Neuf-Brisach. Here the advance halted. The 3d Division was exhausted at least temporarily and, with some of its rifle companies now down to about thirty able-bodied men, its offensive capabilities were greatly reduced.
Карта района, можно проследить действия 3-й дивизии. Сам бой произошел в Bois de Riedwihr, лесу между американским Riedwihr и немецким Holtzwihr.
UPD. Наступающая пехота немцев была из новоприбывшей 2-й горной дивизии. Очевидно, танки были из другой части, что может обьяснить неудовлетворительное взаимодействие пехтурой. Части разных подразделений сильно перемешались в котле.
Тема: Джек Черчилль (Прочитано 52684 раз)
