15th Infantry Regiment

This past weekend we drove to Colmar, France where John's Grandpa, MG (ret) Maurice Kendall fought in the Colmar Pocket campaign in WWII.  Below are pictures of the towns/locations that he saw back in 1944/45.

This is the church in the town of Sigolsheim where grandpa captured a platoon of German troops who surrendered.  Grandpa was alone and only had a pistol!

This is a house named 'maison rouge' (red house) although it looks pink.  There are canals on either side of the house where fighting took place.  

Moving South from maison rouge is the town of Riedwihr, Grandpa captured this town.

The Colmar canal.  Grandpa led a company across this canal about 200 yards from the bridge & had to time crossing around machine gun fire.  Back in the 1940s the canal had a sloping dirt bank--from discussions, everything looks very different today than 60 years ago...no surprise!

To the Southeast of the Colmar canal crossing location is Muntzenheim, another town that Grandpa's company captured.  

Again, to the Southeast is Urschenheim, the next town that his company liberated.  

Next, they moved on to Kunheim and liberated that town.  

On his way towards the town of Biesheim at about this location, Grandpa was caught in the right arm with a machine gun bullet that sent him rolling backwards.  His radio operator took a bullet in the elbow.  The picture above is the view of his approach towards the bridge (view the Germans on the bridge had of Grandpa--minus the trees, there were no trees then).  The picture below is the view of the bridge from approx the spot he was shot (mind you the bridge has been replaced in the ensuing 64 years...).  Had the bullet been about 4" to the side, it is possible that neither Wes nor I would have the chance to stand at this spot...we might not have existed!