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By Nathan N. Prefer
On January 17, 1945, as Allied forces prepared to descend on Germany itself and put an end to the war in Europe, an American tank battalion disappeared. The 43rd Tank Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. Scott Hall, organic to the 12th Armored (“Hellcats”) Division’s Combat Command A, joined with the 17th Armored Infantry Battalion to push German forces out of the town of Herrlisheim in France’s Alsace region. Shortly after the battalion entered the town, some garbled but seemingly desperate messages were received by Combat Command A from Colonel Hall. Neither Hall nor his battalion was ever heard from again.
It was not until 1940 that the United States War Department made the first move to create tank, later armored, battalions within the U.S. armed forces. Originally only 15 were authorized, half “heavy” and half “light.” The original battalions consisted of a Headquarters and Headquarters (H & H) company and three tank companies. Each tank company consisted of three platoons of five tanks each, with a headquarters section of two additional tanks. In 1942, a service company was added. Later additions included a light tank company, an assault gun platoon, a mortar platoon, and a reconnaissance platoon. By 1943, the battalions usually had a total of 54 medium tanks, 17 light tanks, three assault guns (105mm howitzers), three 81mm mortar halftracks, and numerous support vehicles. A fully staffed tank battalion numbered 729 officers and enl
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8 thoughts on “Herrlisheim: What Became of the 12th Armored Division’s Lost Battalion”
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They surrendered to Erwin Bachman with 21 fully fueled and armed tanks along with about 20 german prisoners they were holding. At gun point, he forced the Americans to drive their tanks to the 10th Panzer division as a belated christmas present…
Obersturmführer Bachmann from the 10th SS Regiment Frundsberg got the Knights Cross for his actions. He captured 12 M4A3 75W and destroyed 9 others from the 43rd Tank Battalion with only two panthers. Those US tanks soon saw combat under German markings on the Eastern front later. None survived.
This article is simply not complete without a reference to the action of Obersturmführer Bachmann which marks an end of the unfortunate 43rd whose men’s morale just collapsed. Reading this article an uninformed person would assume the 43rd fought to the last man; they did not. Half of the battalion was destroyed by 1 man on foot and 2 tanks, while the other half just surrendered together with their tanks. No reason to hide or pretend; things like that happen in war. After all we are all just humans.
Is there more information out there to read and study? My father was in the 119th armored engineers, he was captured at some point leading to or during the Herrlisheim battle.
Steve,
There is a LOT more information available. The 119th was heavily involved in Herrlisheim and indeed had a record to be proud of. We have several Hellcat veterans and a lot of 2d/3d generation decendants who can help you sort out your father’s story.
Please email me, will be glad to help you. There are a lot of personal accounts on the website for the 12th Armored Division Museum and some very detailed analysis of the Herrlisheim battle.
https://www.12tharmoreddivisionmuseum.com/
https://c13cda39-9e5e-48b5-8b73-b104bf34d117.filesusr.com/ugd/c0865a_885dcde51ae44d3e9b6bc8aa78f1ae92.pdf
Also you are welcome to join us with the 12th Armored Division Association – to include joining us at the 75th Annual Reunion in New Orleans (at the National WWII Museum) July 14-18 2021.
https://sites.google.com/view/12tharmoreddivisionassociation
Steve — dont put this off any more. I waited too late and missed the chance to meet several men who served with my father in the 56th Armored Infantry. But it has been such a privilege to meet and become friends with other Hellcats. Contact us and we will help you find your story.
Steve – Paul Rivette of the legacy 56th AIB gave you very valuable information on 7/9/2021.
I would like to share some more.
My dad Luke Zilles was in the 17th AIB Company C, 1st Platoon, and he was also near Herrlisheim with the 119th Armored Engineers. He was wounded near the “waterworks”.
If you have not located your Dad already, I may have found him (if it is indeed him) in a POW list that appears on the Texas Archives and on the Museum Website.
These are the 5 men listed:
George Aswald, 119th C
Richard W. Fender 119th (No Company Listed)
Floyd M. Kohr, 119th C
Donald T. McMullen 119th C
Vernon Pence, 119th C
After we did much work to ascertain that the 12th Armored Museum site provides a Roster that is missing many Soldiers and details (including these 5 men), a Programmer and I have created an interface to a Roster of the 12th Armored we are trying to make much more complete, more “human” and more user friendly.
If one of these men above is your Dad, and you put your last name into the interface, it will bring up a page which explores the Roster and the Texas Archives for his name, as well as NARA, the database of Army inductees. If he is one of the men above, it will find the name on our new website.
The website is called “Humans of the 12th Armored”, and it is just going up now. Eventually we hope to provide links to web pages by Soldier name (Oral Histories, Remembrance Web Pages, etc.). We will also have a message board for folks to share information with each other. The website is:
https://12th-armored.directory/
There are also excellent “Oral Histories” of the 12th Armored on the new Museum website, but, unfortunately, while their old website had 10 for the 119th (including Floyd M. Kohr, the POW mentioned above), the new one only has 2 (and Mr. Kohr’s is not there).
Interestingly, while we have 2 “Floyd Kohr”‘s on our Roster (one in the 66th and one the 119th), the Museum has none. They do say the list is “Not Comprehensive”.
We have been trying since January 2021 to find out when the other Oral Histories will be added (187 are missing), but so far have not gotten very far. Perhaps if more voices make the request, it will happen. I am sure the 119th C Mr. Kohr knew your Dad, as they were both POW’s.
My email is kzilles@realprop.org if you have any questions. Good Luck!
My Uncle Simon Bacola was a member of the 12th Armored Division. In two separate incidents December 1944 and January 16, 1945 he crawled from a safe position to render first aid to fellow platoon members and on 16 January 1945 was last see rendering First-Aid to his Platoon leader. He won The Silver Star Oak leaf Cluster, Purple Heart and State of New York Medal. He was killed in action defending his country at 22 years old. I never had the privilege of knowing my Uncle but, his memory is held in my heart forever. He was a true
Hellcat.
I am doing research on my 2nd great-uncle James Porter Robinson- His application for Military Veteran Headstone lists he was in CO. C 56 Armd Inf Bat/ 12 Arm Div. He was shot in France and died at 24 yrs old 3 months before he was to return home. He is buried in his hometown in Runnels County, TX. There is another James P. Robinson of Texas and I’m having trouble narrowing down what really happened to him. So I entered the Unit name and went from there and found this website. There is a unit of the same I listed on the Portal to TX History and my gg-uncle isn’t listed. I really wish to honor him and not let him be overlooked. He never got to marry like so many. He had other brothers that served and came home. Any suggestions and would this article be the correct information for the unit I wrote down? I would appreciate any help. Thank you.