You Are There… The Graphic History Guide.
Historical Backdrop
By late January 1945, the Allies were pressing to eliminate the “Colmar Pocket,” a bulge of German-held territory in the Alsace region of France along the Rhine. The US 3rd Infantry Division, including the 15th Infantry Regiment, was ordered to push through freezing forests and open farmland to crush the pocket. Temperatures fell well below freezing, snow was knee-deep, and the Germans defended with seasoned infantry, panzers, and tank destroyers.
Our subject is Second Lieutenant Audie Leon Murphy, a 19-year-old former sharecropper from Texas, commanded Company B of the 15th Infantry. Orphaned young, rejected by the Marines and paratroopers for being too small, he had fought across Sicily, Italy, and southern France. On January 26, 1945, near the village of Holtzwihr, Murphy’s depleted company faced six panzers and 250 German infantry. What he did that afternoon — climbing aboard a burning M10 tank destroyer and firing its .50 caliber machine gun at the oncoming enemy for nearly an hour — earned him the Medal of Honor and became one of the most astonishing acts of valor in American military history.
January 26, 1945 — 05:40 hrs — Forward command post, edge of the Bois de Riedwihr, near Holtzwihr, Alsace, France
You wake up in a snow-caked foxhole near Holtzwihr — and you have no idea this will be the day you earn the Medal of Honor. You’re shivering in a dugout covered by pine logs and a frozen shelter half. Your feet throb with trench foot and you still have a low fever from the hip wound that almost killed you last October. You light a ration cigarette with cold-numbed fingers and read the morning order by flashlight: Company B will attack at dawn, cross open fields, and take Holtzwihr. You have nineteen men left out of a hundred twenty-eight. Outside, the snow squeaks under boots and somebody curses the cold in a Brooklyn accent. You swallow a sulfa tablet with melted snow and start pulling on your stiff overshoes.
January 26, 1945 — 07:15 hrs — Line of departure at the tree line, north of Holtzwihr
You stand at the edge of the woods looking across half a mile of flat, snow-covered beet fields toward the village. Two M10 tank destroyers from the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion grind up behind you, their tracks clanking and diesel fumes mixing with the cold. You brief your sergeants in a low voice, pointing with a gloved hand. Artillery whistles overhead and lands on the far tree line in black blossoms. A private next to you throws up into the snow from nerves and cold food. You tell him to wipe his mouth and check his weapon.
January 26, 1945 — 08:30 hrs — Open field approach to Holtzwihr
