The Story of the 10th Armored Division cont.
The Nazis were swift to recover from the initial shock. A fading Wehrmacht and dying Luftwaffe suddenly were rejuvenated in demoniacal fury reminiscent of 1939-40.
Germans rocked Crailsheim with concussion bombs and shells, burned it with incendiaries, assaulted it with whole battalions of infantry. They severed the defenders' supply lifeline, a thin, 11-mile strip of highway.
But the Tigers stuck, threw back the Nazis' best: Giant C-47 transports landed supplies within riflerange of enemy lines. In a determined attack, Germans died within 40 feet of a 10th Armd. mess hall.
Of 325 enemy planes attacking Crailsheim, 50 were blasted from the skies by CC A's anti-aircraft defenses. For four days the fighting at the tip of the Crailsheim finger was the most bitter along the Western Front. Revised Corps plans now called for the 10th to shift its entire weight, in the direction of Heilbronn, where the 100th Div. still battled.
To attack westward, Brig.. Gen. Piburn's troops pulled out of Crailsheim April 10. Two thousand Nazis went with them — as prisoners. Another thousand Germans were left behind — dead.
Task forces led by Lt. Col. Riley and Maj. Richard W. Ulrich hurdled the Kocher River April 11, attacking toward Oehringen, home of Bavarian Prince Hohen-lohe-Oehringen.