"Operation Nordwind 1945"

Stephen Zaloga's new book on Operation
Nordwind in now available and has received
two positive reviews on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Nordwind-1945-offensive-Campaign/dp/1846036836/r\
ef=pd_sim_b_2

The 45th Infantry Division was deeply involved in stopping the
last German offensive in the West. An excellent
complimentary book is "Seven Days in January."

By the way, the cover of "Operation Nordwind 1945"
features a M-10 of the 645th Tank Destroyer Bn
at Lembach, France, on 14 December 1945. I have
the image, SC 197915, as a high-resolution scan
of the original Signal Corps photo at the NARA.


Dave

 

Those little, thin books always make me think some important information had to be excluded in order to meet the publisher's criteria. On the other hand, they do give the novice a basic introduction to the topic being examined. Operation Nordwind is an important offensive that has been overlooked for far too long so Zaloga's book is more than welcome.

Duckbill

 

From the mentioned book:

" The sudden extension of the Seventh Army to cover parts of the Third Army sector in late December forced Devers to commit elements of the three divisions that had recently arrived in Marseilles: the 42nd,63rd and 70th Divisions.These divisions were not supposed to be deployed until training was complete in July 1945;instead they were hastily shipped to France in December 1945. The 63rd Division had received 1,374 new replacements since the autumn while the 70th had received a whopping 3,871 new troops;neither division had completed the standard 12-week large-scale maneuver phase of training. To make matters worse, none arrived intact with all its component elements.These formations were by far the weakest and least prepared of the US infantry units to take part in Operation Nordwind, and were derisively referred to as "American Volksturm Grenadiers" by some of the more experienced US infantry units.

 

Yep, the 42nd, 63rd and 70th got a raw deal. Actually the "elements" of these divisions mentioned by Zaloga and others (Zaloga’s statement is strikingly similar to Kit Bonn’s.) were just the naked infantry regiments without any of the other organic units. They were commanded by the Asst. Div. commanders, who presumably worked with an abbreviated staff.

These guys were completely unprepared for combat, and paid for it in spades. However, Devers and Patch had no choice about sending them into the line after Eisenhower pulled the 12th AD and 36th Infantry into SHAEF reserve, and continued to strip troops from Seventh Army for use in the Ardennes.

The Seventh Army and VI Corps efforts to provide artillery support for these naked regiments was nothing short of robbing Peter to pay Paul. There just wasn't enough artillery to go around even after Devers and Patch got the 12th and 36th released back to them.

Duckbill

 

I absolutely agree that Operation Nordwind is an important offensive that has been overlooked for far too long. Zaloga's book is more than welcome. It makes me a littlebit that he only describes the tank-battle from Hatten/Rittershofen on only 4 pages. My grandpa took part on this battle ( he served in the 220th Engineer-Bataillon of the 21. Tank-division of the German Wehrmacht. He´s probably killed in action during the fights between 09th and 21st of January at Hatten). I am already searching for a very long time the books "Operation Nordwind 25 Decembre - 25. Janvier 1945" and "Operation Nordwind: Derniere offensive allemands sur la France" by Rittgen Francis.
A very book for this operation is also "Das Unternehmen Nordwind-Die Panzerschlacht von Hatten-Rittershoffen" by Lise M. Pommois