[16] The town of Wörgl was 8 kilometres (5 miles) down the mountains and was occupied by German troops; because of this, Čučković instead pressed on up the Inn River valley towards Innsbruck 64 km (40 mi) distant.

[17] At dawn, a heavily armored rescue was mounted but was stopped by heavy shelling just past Jenbach around halfway to Itter, then recalled by superiors for encroaching into territory of the U.S. 36th Division to the east.

[citation needed] When Čučković failed to return, and the former commandant of Dachau Eduard Weiter[18] died in suspicious circumstances at the castle on 2 May, Wimmer feared for his own life and abandoned his post.

Failing to learn of the result of Čučković's effort, prison leaders accepted the offer of its Czech cook, Andreas Krobot, to bicycle to Wörgl mid-day on 4 May in hopes of reaching help there.

Armed with a similar note, he succeeded in contacting Austrian resistance in Wörgl which had recently been abandoned by Wehrmacht forces but reoccupied by roaming Waffen-SS troops.

He was taken to Major Josef Gangl, commander of the remains of a unit of Wehrmacht soldiers who had defied an order to retreat and instead thrown in with the local resistance, led by Rupert Hagleitner.

Leaving one of his tanks behind to guard it, he set back off accompanied only by 14 American soldiers, Gangl, a driver, and a truck carrying ten former German artillerymen.

Meanwhile, the French prisoners had asked an SS officer, Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, whom they had befriended in Itter during his convalescence from wounds and who was living locally, to take charge of their defense.

Shortly after the arrival of the reinforcements, a force of 100–150[26] Waffen-SS soldiers led by Georg Bochmann, who had been occupying some hills near the town, decided to attack the castle.

[30] Aware that he had been unable to give the 142nd complete information on the enemy and its disposition before communications had been severed, Lee accepted tennis star Borotra's offer to vault the castle wall and run the gauntlet of SS strongpoints and ambushes to deliver it.

[16] Borotra asked for an American military uniform, then joined the force as it made haste to reach the prison before its defenders fired their last rounds of ammunition.

[37] Gangl died during the battle from a 7.92×57mm Mauser round while trying to move former French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud out of harm's way,[35][38] and was honored as an Austrian national hero;[39] a street in Wörgl was named after him.