Murphy took advantage of the unexpected lull to begin forming his lines, using one tank destroyer and five armored vehicles from the 3rd Reconnaissance Troop to protect his right flank. Tardy’s 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion arrived just in time to support Company B’s position.”īut to the relief of Murphy and his men, the Germans did not attack at daybreak. Mercifully, as the overcast dawn broke, two M10 tank destroyers from Lt. “It is an accepted time to attack or be attacked. “Strange, but it seems dawn breaking means more than any other time of the day or night, to an infantryman,” he said of that suspense-filled evening. 25, Company B had penetrated 600 yards into the woods and was in position north of Holtzwihr. With the exception of Lieutenant Murphy, all the officers were killed, and 102 of the company’s 120 enlisted men were either killed or wounded before they even reached their assigned position. The subsequent fighting was so furious that the regiment’s Company B, among others, was decimated. The 15th Regiment was ordered to retake that same ground the next day. Shattered, understrength and badly disorganized, the 30th was forced to withdraw from the Bois de Riedwihr. Without cover and unable to dig foxholes in the frozen earth, the American unit was cut to pieces.
23, the 30th Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, captured the woods and reached the outskirts of Holtzwihr and Riedwihr, where the Americans encountered 10 enemy tanks and tank destroyers accompanied by at least 100 infantrymen. Lieutenant Colonel Keith Ware, executive officer of the 15th Regiment, later recalled how imperative it was to secure the forest, explaining, ‘Its possession was of cardinal importance, as the woods dominated the German stronghold of Holtzwihr, the reduction of which was essential to the prompt accomplishment of the 3rd Division’s offensive tasks. The 3rd Infantry Division’s role in the offensive was to advance near the Bois de Riedwihr, a large forest in the northern sector of the Colmar Pocket that stretched between the heavily fortified villages of Riedwihr and Holtzwihr. Native Texan Murphy, destined to become a postwar film star, made his courageous stand during the Colmar offensive, which eventually drove the Germans from their last foothold on French soil.
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