US Army 2nd Lt. Eugene Koshkin was my cousin.
The following is an excerpt from “Riviera to the Rhine”, a work by US military historians Dr. Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith that details the advance of the US Seventh Army from the French Mediterranean coast northward through France and into Germany during the last full year of World War 2. The excerpt is from a section that sets forth an action involving elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division and German mechanised units that occurred on 23rd to 25th of January 1945 and was part of the Battle of the Colmar Pocket in Alsace, France. The action took place a few kilometers northwest of the village of Riedwihr, which is located northeast of Colmar in the Heasbourg Gap area of the Vosges mountains:
“Late in the afternoon of 23 January 1945, all three of Col. McGarr's 30th Infantry Regiment battalions suddenly found themselves in the midst of a general German counterattack from elements of the 708th Volksgrenadier Division and the 280th Assault Gun Battalion (which consisted of heavily armored Jagdpanzers mounted on Mark IV and V tank chassis). The 30th Regiment was routed and fell back across the River Ill in disarray.
At 20:30 that night, as the 30th regrouped on the west side of the Ill, 3rd Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. O'Daniel ordered Lt. Col. Hallett D. Edson, commanding the 15th Regiment, to secure the bridgehead. He immediately sent Companies I and K of the 3/15th Infantry Regiment directly through Guemar and the Colmar woods and over the River Ill, following the trail that the 1/30th Infantry Regiment had taken twenty-four hours earlier.
At around 03:00, Company I of the 3/15th Infantry arrived to occupy a crossroads a few hundred yards east of the Maison Rouge farm near the river. As dawn came, the Company I commander 2nd Lt. Eugene Simeon Koshkin, finding the crossroads completely exposed and without any cover, requested permission to pull the unit back to the tree line, but was instructed to hold in place. Division engineers were just completing a new treadway bridge to the north, and armored support could be expected shortly.
For the next several hours the men of Company I frantically chipped away at the frozen ground, digging up at best a few inches of dirt, ice, and snow and wondering when the tanks would arrive. They finally came about three hours later, but from the wrong side. At 08:00 on the 24th, the Germans launched their second counterattack against the bridgehead with thirteen heavy assault guns, a company or more of infantry, and a few tanks. 2nd Lt. Koshkin and his forward observer ticked off the German progress for many to hear… 800 yards away… then 600… and then 500. A few panicked and fled, and others asked their officers, "Can we go?" The rest stayed, although, as one sergeant later recalled, "we all practically had one foot out of the foxhole”, and when 2nd Lt. Koshkin finally made the decision to pull back, "we didn't have to give the order very loud".
Shortly after 08:00, Company I was overrun. Some soldiers were crushed under German tank treads or machine-gunned where they lay. Others managed to fall back into the Company K area closer to the river; still others were shot while trying to surrender. Most of the 3d Platoon of Company I were thought to have been captured. At last, around 14:30 that afternoon, the 1/15th Infantry counterattacked from the north with more armor, finally relieving those at the bridge site.”
That morning, trying to give the men under his command more time to find cover as they withdrew from the engagement at the crossroads, 2nd Lt. Koshkin charged forward and attempted single-handedly to take out one of the attacking armored vehicles. In doing so, he was shot and killed. For this action, he was posthumously awarded the Silver Star Medal for valor in combat. The citation of this award reads, in part: “His gallant actions and dedicated devotion to duty, without regard for his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army”.
2nd Lt. Eugene Simeon Koshkin is buried in the Epinal American Cemetery in Dinoze, France.
