Oklahoma Wildcat

In January the Germans launched a counter-offensive from the Gambsheim-Herrlisheim pocket, aimed at retaking Strasbourg. As they broke through the infantry screen of the 2nd Battalion of the 143rd regiment in woods in front of Kurtzenhausen and into a clearing, …

1945-01-21

E10

In January the Germans launched a counter-offensive from the Gambsheim-Herrlisheim pocket, aimed at retaking Strasbourg. As they broke through the infantry screen of the 2nd Battalion of the 143rd regiment in woods in front of Kurtzenhausen and into a clearing, they came under accurate fire from the M10 tank destroyers of the 636th TD. Among these was the ’Oklahoma Wildcat’, whose crew included the twins Sgts Claude and Clyde Stokes. The woods would later be named Bowden’s Woods by the 36th after they were retaken by Lt Col Bowden and men of the 2nd Battalion.

Kurtzenhausen, Germany

Operation Nordwind was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. It began on 31 December 1944 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine in southwestern Germany and northeastern France, and ended on 25 January 1945. The goal of the offensive was to break through the lines of the U.S. Seventh Army and French 1st Army in the Upper Vosges mountains and the Alsatian Plain, and destroy them, as well as the seizure of Strasbourg, which Himmler had promised would be captured by 30 January. This would leave the way open for Operation Dentist (Unternehmen Zahnarzt), a planned major thrust into the rear of the U.S. Third Army which would lead to the destruction of that army.

Wikipedia: Operation Nordwind

German

American