Horses

 

"Operation Cowboy" was the fairytale World War II rescue of the endangered White Lipizzaner horses, when 350 American GIs from a cavalry unit in Patton’s Third Army, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the enemy - battle-weary German Wehrmacht soldiers cradling Mauser rifles - in the Czechoslovakian town of Hostau to fight a common enemy – the die-hard Waffen-SS, in a race to save these magnificent from the fast-advancing fur-hatted Russian Cossacks.

The background: The White Lipizzaner horses of the famed Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria, were world-renowned; the purest-bred and finest-trained show horses in existence, they boast an unbroken lineage that stretches back more than 400 years through the Habsburg Dynasty and were prized for their beauty and classical dressage abilities.

End of World War II: At the collapse of Nazi Germany, allied forces were hurtling at breathtaking speed towards Berlin from all directions, and these prized horses caught in the cross wires, were temporarily moved for safety reasons to a stud farm at Hostau (in Czechoslovakia, what is now the Czech Republic).

But by 1945, Hostau and the horses were under a new threat: the blood-thirsty advancing Soviet army was coming seeking revenge for past atrocities they were bent on burning, looting and pillaging everything in their path  — and there were fears the horses might be killed or starved.

The German commander at Hostau, Colonel Podhajsky (who was the director of the Spanish Riding School), loved the horses dearly.

He secretly reached out to the Americans for help, specifically to General George S. Patton, who was himself a horseman and deeply cared about equestrian tradition. Patton approved a bold rescue mission: American soldiers and German horsemen (yes, from the enemy!) cooperated to save the Lipizzaners.

U.S. forces, led by Colonel Hank Reed, launched "Operation Cowboy" — they raced to Hostau, fought off the remaining German SS forces, and secured hundreds of Lipizzaners and other valuable horses, including Arabians and Thoroughbreds.

The horses were marched and trucked back into safe Allied territory. Many were eventually returned to Austria and to the Spanish Riding School after the war ended.

This rescue literally saved the Lipizzaner breed — without it, they might have been lost forever.

Source: https://militaryhistorynow.com/2018/11/25/operation-cowboy-how-american-gis-german-soldiers-joined-forces-to-save-the-legendary-lipizzaner-horses-in-the-final-hours-of-ww2