222 Infantry Regiment (USA) attack through the Bois D'Ohlungen
On January 27 an attack was launched through the Bois D'Ohlungen but there was no opposition. The enemy had retreated during the night.
When the fight was over it was estimated that the enemy had lost 800 dead, 112 prisoners and an unknown number of wounded. Two officers and 32 enlisted men of the 222nd were killed and 6 officers and 114 enlisted men wounded.
Meanwhile the 242nd Infantry had been waging a fierce and successful battle against the SS troops of the 10th Panzer Division. The attack on the 242nd began just before dawn on the 25th of January when the enemy smashed into the areas occupied by Companies
K and I and managed to break through.
Throughout the day the battle continued. The brunt of the enemy attack was against the 3rd Battalion on the left of the regimental sector and fighting centered around a factory just across the Moder River which the enemy had captured. At 1600 that afternoon Company L, supported by tanks launched an attack to drive the enemy back across the fiver. In the face of this attack the
enemy broke and ran and fire from the tanks and infantrymen cut them down as they raced for the river. They poured out of the factory and back across the Moder with the infantry in pursuit. Here, however, the Germans had tank support and the Rainbowmen withdrew to their original positions.
Once again the enemy had been defeated and again his casualties were high. It is estimated that 3rd Battalion killed 400 Germans, 131 of them falling befote the 1st platoon of Company K alone.
Thus it was that the Rainbow infantrymen repulsed what later proved to be the last offensive action ever launched by the German army on the western front. The German had hoped to regain Alsace, but he had failed. Plans for the withdrawal to the Vosges positions were put aside and never did the enemy take Haguenau.
For one month the Rainbowmen had been fighting bitter battles. They had lost equipment and they had lost 50 per cent of their riflemen and they were tired. Now came a welcome order to withdraw to the vicinity of Chateau Salins, near Nancy, for a period of reorganization during which it was hoped that the remainder of the division would arrive.