The 5th Armored Division ("Victory") was an armored formation of the United States Army active from 1941 to 1945 and from 1950 to 1956.
The 9th Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army during World War II. In honor of their World War II service, the 9th was officially nicknamed the "Phantom Division."
The 12th Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army in World War II. It fought in the European Theater of Operations in France, Germany and Austria, between November 1944 and May 1945.
Operation Cobra was an offensive launched by the First United States Army under Lieutenant General Omar Bradley seven weeks after the D-Day landings, during the Normandy campaign of World War II. The intention was to take advantage of the distraction of the Germans by the British and Canadian attacks around Caen in Operation Goodwood, and thereby break through the German defenses that were penning in their forces, while the Germans were unbalanced. Once a corridor had been created, the First Army would then be able to advance into Brittany, rolling up the German flanks once free of the constraints of the bocage country. After a slow start, the offensive gathered momentum and German resistance collapsed as scattered remnants of broken units fought to escape to the Seine. Lacking the resources to cope with the situation, the German response was ineffectual mainly due to the effect of Operation Bluecoat and the entire Normandy front soon collapsed. Operation Cobra, together with concurrent offensives by the British Second Army and the Canadian First Army, was decisive in securing an Allied victory in the Normandy campaign.
Operation Plunder was a military operation to cross the Rhine on the night of 23 March 1945, launched by the 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. The crossing of the river was at Rees, Wesel, and south of the river Lippe by the British Second Army under Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, and the United States Ninth Army under Lieutenant General William H. Simpson.
The Falaise pocket or battle of the Falaise pocket was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. Allied forces formed a pocket around Falaise, Calvados, in which German Army Group B, consisting of the 7th Army and the Fifth Panzer Army, were encircled by the Western Allies. The battle resulted in the destruction of most of Army Group B west of the Seine, which opened the way to Paris and the Franco-German border.
Operation Lüttich was the codename of the Nazi German counter-attack during the Battle of Normandy, which occurred near U.S. positions near Mortain, in northwestern France. Lüttich is the German name for the city of Liège, Belgium. In British and American histories of the Second World War, the German Operation Lüttich is known as the Mortain counter-attack, which Hitler ordered to regain territory gained by the First United States Army during Operation Cobra by reaching the coast of the Avranches region, which is at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, in order to isolate the units of the Third United States Army that had advanced into Brittany.
The 79th Infantry Division was an infantry formation of the United States Army Reserve in World Wars I and II.
Operation Lumberjack was a military operation with the goal of capturing the west bank of the Rhine River and seizing key German cities, near the end of World War II in Europe. The First United States Army launched the operation in March 1945 to capture strategic cities in Nazi Germany and to give the Allies a foothold along the Rhine.
The French 2nd Armored Division, commanded by General Philippe Leclerc, fought during the final phases of World War II in the Western Front for the liberation of France. The division was formed around a core of units that had fought in the North African campaign, and re-organized into a light armored division in 1943. The division embarked in April 1944 and shipped to various ports in Britain. On 29 July 1944, bound for France, the division embarked at Southampton. During combat in 1944, the division liberated Paris, defeated a Panzer brigade during the armored clashes in Lorraine, forced the Saverne Gap and liberated Strasbourg. After taking part in the Battle of the Colmar Pocket, the division was moved west and assaulted the German-held Atlantic port of Royan, before recrossing France in April 1945 and participating in the final fighting in southern Germany, even going first into Hitler's "Eagle's Nest". Deactivated after the war, the 2nd Division was again activated in the 1970s and served through 1999, when it was downsized to the now 2nd Armored Brigade.
The Western Allied invasion of Germany was coordinated by the Western Allies during the final months of hostilities in the European theatre of World War II. In preparation for the Allied invasion of Germany east of the Rhine, a series of offensive operations were designed to seize and capture its east and west banks: Operation Veritable and Operation Grenade in February 1945, and Operation Lumberjack and Operation Undertone in March 1945; these are considered separate from the main invasion operation. The Allied invasion of Germany east of the Rhine started with the Western Allies crossing the river on 22 March 1945 before fanning out and overrunning all of western Germany from the Baltic in the north to the Alpine passes in the south, where they linked up with troops of the U.S. Fifth Army in Italy. Combined with the capture of Berchtesgaden, any hope of Nazi leadership continuing to wage war from a so-called "national redoubt" or escape through the Alps was crushed, shortly followed by unconditional German surrender on 8 May 1945. This is known as the Central Europe Campaign in United States military histories.
The XV Corps of the US Army was initially constituted on 1 October 1933 as part of the Organized Reserves, and was activated on 15 February 1943 at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. During the Second World War, XV Corps fought for 307 days in the European Theater of Operations, fighting from Normandy through France and southern Germany into Austria. The corps was commanded in combat by Major General Wade H. Haislip, initially as a subordinate unit to the Third U.S. Army and later as part of the Seventh U.S. Army.
The XX Corps of the United States Army fought from northern France to Austria in World War II. Constituted on 10 October 1943 by re-designating the IV Armored Corps of the Army Ground Forces, a training organization which had been activated at Camp Young, California on 5 September 1942, XX Corps became operational in France as part of Lieutenant General George S. Patton's U.S. Third Army on 1 August 1944.
The Battle of Remagen was an 18-day battle during the Allied invasion of Germany in World War II. It lasted from 7 to 25 March 1945 when American forces unexpectedly captured the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine intact. They were able to hold it against German opposition and build additional temporary crossings. The presence of a bridgehead across the Rhine advanced by three weeks the Western Allies' planned crossing of the Rhine into the German interior.
The 773rd Tank Destroyer Battalion was a tank destroyer battalion of the United States Army active during the Second World War.
The 708th Infantry Division was a German Army infantry division in World War II.
George Douglas Wahl was a highly decorated officer in the United States Army with the rank of Brigadier General. A veteran of both world wars, he distinguished himself as Artillery Commander and later as Assistant Division Commander, 79th Infantry Division during Normandy and Rhineland Campaigns.
Major General Roderick Random Allen was a senior United States Army officer, who commanded the 20th and 12th Armored Divisions during World War II. Under his command of the 12th AD, the division defended Strasbourg from recapture; it provided the armored contingent in the closure of the Colmar Pocket and the liberation of Colmar; it spearheaded General George Patton's drive to the Rhine; captured intact the remaining bridge over the Danube River and broke the German defense line; and played a major part in blocking the Brenner Pass, thereby trapping over a million German soldiers in Italy as the war ended. En route to the Brenner Pass it overran eleven concentration camps at Landsberg, Germany.
Major General John Millikin was a senior United States Army officer who served in both World War I and World War II. During the latter, Millikin commanded III Corps in General George S. Patton's U.S. Third Army during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.
The 1139th Engineer Combat Group was a technical United States Army Headquarters Unit providing administration and supervision support to Combat Engineers on bridge building and other construction activities during World War II. The 1139th Engineer Combat Group was part of the Third Army and was attached for operations to the XX Corps in direct support of the 7th Armored Division. The 1139th Engineer Combat Group fought from northern France to Austria in World War II, supporting General George Patton's Third Army's rapid movements during the war.
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