12. Alsace, France, November 1944 – February, 1945
The battle to reduce the German forces in the Alsace region, also known as the Colmar Pocket, was an assignment which was handed primarily to the French Free Forces of the Interior (FFI). A pocket of German defenders was created by American operations in northern Alsace and eastern Alsace, but a large German force remained in what became known as the Colmar Pocket. The pocket included bridges across the Rhine from which the German troops were resupplied from Germany, and Hitler ordered the remaining troops in Alsace to hold their ground at all costs. The Allies meanwhile were feeling the effects of the supply shortage which affected all of the units at the front. FFI forces were assigned the task of clearing the pocket, but the inexperienced French troops were ineffective.
It took the assistance of the United States 3rd Infantry Division, which had moved into position in the late autumn, to clear the pocket the following winter, after the Germans launched an offensive called Operation Northwind, an attempt to recapture the city of Strasbourg. The Alsatian plain is flat and unobscured by trees for the most part, rendering troops crossing it to exposure to well sited artillery. The weather again precluded the use of Allied air support. It was for action in the Alsatian fight that American Audie Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor. The reduction of the Colmar Pocket was completed by February 9, leaving no significant German combat units west of the Rhine. The battle for Alsace and reduction of the Colmar Pocket cost 7,000 American lives, in some of the heaviest fighting yet seen in the European theater.