Operation Cowboy

Significance

Operation Cowboy was conducted at Hostau in the Sudetenland on 28 April 1945, in the final days of the European theater. The operation is historically notable as one of only two known incidents during World War II in which American forces and German Wehrmacht troops fought together against the Waffen-SS, the other being the Battle of Castle Itter. This temporary battlefield alignment between former adversaries, driven by circumstances in the collapsing German state, marks Operation Cowboy as an unusual episode in the end-stage fighting of the war in Europe.

Commanders (8)