After Landing in Normandy, Spearhead Led the Way ARMOR Staff

50th Anniversary - Third Armored Division After Landing in Normandy, Spearhead Led the Way forged to Win in Europe During WWII, It Won Again Against Iraq's Best As the U. S. VII Corps raced from Normandy through Northern France and Belgium toward Germany, the 3d Armored Division earned its nickname the hard way. MG Collins, commanding the VI1 Corps, repeatedly told MG Rose, "You will spearhead the attack." Third Armored earned the sobriquet by being the first American unit to enter Belgium and the first to enter Germany, leading the fight across Europe. The 3d Armored began with the no-less-colorful slogan of "Bayou Blitz" when it began its honor-studded career at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, on April 15,

1941. Within two months, the entire division had transferred to Camp Polk, Louisiana, where the original cadre of some 600 officers and 3,000 enlisted men from the 2d Armored Division joined thousands of new recruits. Forging a combat-ready unit became more difficult when 3,000 men transferred to the fledgling 7th, 8th, and 11th Armored Divisions, then being World War II Campaigns of the 3d Armored Division Normandy Northern France Rbineland Ardennes-Alsace Central Europe 30 formed. While training, the 3d Armored moved around the United States, as it would move through Europe in combat. It moved to Camp Young, California, for desert training in July 1942; to Camp Pickett, Virginia, in November; and to a cold and snow-covered Indiantown Gap (Pa.) Military Reservation in January 1943. The Spearhead finally shipped out on September 5, 1943, to a then-secret destination. Only after embarkation did the soldiers of the 3d Armored learn that they were to land in EI prepare for the assault on. ". " ngland to Germany. M e r rune months ot training, the first major elements of the division landed at Omaha Beach on June 23,

1944. It was divided into two spearhead columns: Combat Command "A,," under BG Doyle Hickey, and Combat Command "B," under BG John J. Bohn. Combat Command "AA" was the first to see action, as it entered combat against the Villiers-Fossard salient northeast of St. Lo on June 29, attached to the 9th Infantry Division. CCB was blooded ARMOR - March-April1991 after crossing the Airel Bridgehead on 7 July, attached to the 30th Infantry Division. The unit secured the Haut-Vents crossroads by the 11th. On July 16, the two combat commands were united under 3d Armored control at St. Jean de Daye and became the spearhead of VI1 Corps, commanded by MG J. Lawton Collins. Third Armored was in the forefront of the fighting from the breakthrough near St. Lo to the Mayenne River, some 60 miles away. The attack was so swift and coordinated that, near Brecey, soldiers of the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, under LTC Leander Doan, caught German soldiers lolling under shade trees, drinking wine. On August 13, the 3d Armored attacked through Domfront to close the Falaise Gap, capturing Ranes after a hard battle on the 15th. It fought through Fromenthal on the 16th and 17th of August, and on the Zth, Combat Command "B" crossed the Seine River below Paris on a pontoon bridge constructed by the 23rd Armored Engineer Battalion. The division covered the.40 miles separating the Marne and Aisne rivers in just two days, capturing Meaux, the farthest point of the German advance in the First World War. The Aisne bridges were secured intact, and soon after the columns of 3d Armored forces crossed them, they were ordered to turn north, toward Belgium. The Spearhead crossed the Belgian border on September 2, the first American forces to arrive there. But the fighting around Mons was intense. An estimated 30,000 German troops attempting to retreat to the Siegfried Line were mauled by 3d Armored and the following 1st Infantry Division. The 3d Armored alone captured more than 10,000 enemy soldiers, including the crew of a German Mark V Panther tank, which a Combat Command "A" military policeman, directing traffic at night, directed into an American bivouac area. There was no rest for the weary fighters of the Spearhead. The division raced through Namur and Liege to Eupen, a town on the German border, covering more than 90 miles in one week. Units of the reconnaissance company of the 33d Armored Regiment were the first American troops to enter Germany as Task Force Lovelady captured Roetgen on September 12. Just ahead were the formidable defenses of the Siegfried Line, Germany's "West Wall" of antitank ditches and dragon's teeth protected by pillboxes. In a triumph of combined arms action, the division penetrated the enemy's last fvted line of defense in two days, although at great cost. By the close of fighting on the 15th, with the second line of the West Wall breached, only 100 of the division's orignal 400 tanks were still operational. Third Armored had dashed from the Seine River to the Siegfried Line in 18 days. It paused, exhausted from the intense fighting, to refit and rest as the First Army prepared for the final assault on Germany. When the winter offensive was finally launched on November 16, its objectives were the very heart of Germany the Rhine River and Cologne. Mud, mines, and antitank guns slowed the advance, and the front stabilized along the Roer River by the middle of December. The 3d Armored settled in to wait for the planned spring offensive. World War II Commanders of the 3d Armored Division MG Alvan C. Gillem, Jr. April 194 IJanuary 1942 MG Walton H. Walker January 1942-August 1942 MG Leroy H. Watson MG Maurice Rose August 1944-30 March 1945 (Killed in Action) BG Doyle 0. Hickey March 1945June 1945 BG Truman E. Boudinot June 1945July 1945 BG Frank A. Allen, Jr. July 1945 MG Robert W. Grow July 1945-November 1945 August 1942-Agst 1944 The Bulge The German Ardennes offensive, General Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's last bold gamble, shocked the Allies and caused a rapid redeployment of the Spearhead. Combat Command "A" was attached to the V Corps to assist in the defense of Eupen, where it engaged German paratroopers who had attacked near the Eupen-Malmedy road. Combat Command "B", with the 30th Infantry Division, fought the 1st Panzer Division near Spa. Fighting reached a peak on Christmas Eve, when the entire division - cooks, drivers, maintenance men, and clerks included - fought off bitter attacks. By the end of December, the enemy breakthrough in the Ardennes had been halted, and anew VI1 Corps offensive was planned for January 3. Bad weather neutralized American air superiority, while ice and snow slowed the offensive, but the division fought through to the Ourthe River by January 19 and seized Gouvy and Beho on January 22. ARMOR - March-April 7997 37

The Rhineland After a month's rest at Stolberg, the Spearhead pointed east, out of the Elle River bridgehead, on 26 February, and gained a bridgehead the next day over the Erft River. Tanker of Tankers: SSG Lafayette G. Pool, and "In the Mood" One of the proudest pages in the proud history of the 3rd Armored Division is the one devoted to SSG Lafayette G. Pool, who commanded his Sherman tank, "In the Mood," to a combat record unequalled in the history of the Armored Force. SSG Pool led his task force in 21 full-scale attacks and is credited with the destruction of 258 enemy vehicles and the capture of 250 prisoners of war before being wounded near Munster-busch, south of Aachen. Pool, a one-time sectional Golden Gloves champion, who turned down a chance to box at the nationals because his unit needed him, was in the ranks at the activation of the division in Louisiana in 1941, when it was known as "Bayou Blitz." His crew - T/5 Del Boggs, loader; CPL Wilbert "Red Richards, driver; CPL Willis Oller, gunner; and PFC Bert Close, assistant driver - played a large role in the earning of the title "Spearhead" for the division. Ace of Aces, SSG Lafe Pool was the point of the Spearhead in its charge across Europe. 32 After reaching the Rhine on March 4, 3d Armored assaulted Cologne on the 5th of March with the support of the 104th Infantry Division (See "Armor Takes Cologne," ARMOR, Sep-Oct 88, p. 32). Defenses crumbled by the 7th, and MG Collins, commander of VI1 Corps, congratulated the division for "spearheading the VI1 Corps, the leading First Army troops, to the Rhine." The Final Drive The 3d Armored attacked over the Rhine on the 25th of March, reaching the Lahn River at Marburg on 28 March. The division commander, General Rose, assisted personally in the capture of a dozen prisoners of war, herding them in with his.45 pistol (See related story on page 21 of this issue). Swinging sharply north to close the Ruhr pocket, the Spearhead covered more than 90 miles in a single day, surprising and disorganizing the enemy defense. The Battle of Paderborn, from 31 March to 1 April, closed the pocket, but cost the division its gallant commander. BG Hickey led the division on to the Weser River on 7 April, and the Mulde River on 15 April before assaulting Dessau on 21 April, having spearheaded VI1 Corps across 175 air miles of Germany in three weeks. On April 25, the 3d Armored was relieved by the 9th Armored, of Remagen Bridgehead fame, and deactivated on November 9, 1945 in Aalen, Germany. Fort Knox In 1947, the Department of the Army decided to rename replacement training centers after wartime divisions that had distinguished themselves in combat. It was appropriate, then, that the replacement training center at Fort Knox was named after the 3d Armored, one of the most distinguished armored units of the Second World War. The Spearhead served in the important role of teaching armor soldiers and leaders the fundamentals of their service from July 15, 1947 to June 14, 1955, when the division was reorganized tactically under the command of MG John

M. Willems. It met the challenge of becoming combat ready by May 1, 1956. Germany Once More The fitst major elements of the Spearhead returned to Germany on May 12, 1956. Assistant division commander, Robert W. Porter, Jr., told his troops, "You come not with orders to participate in battle, but with a NATO-assigned mission to preserve peace in Europe and in the world." For nearly 35 years, the proud Spearhead division has fulfilled this important mission in Germany, serving with the determination, courage, and elan that have characterized soldiers of the 3d Armored Division since its formation 50 years ago. This article was prepared from Shelby Stanton's Order of Battle: US. Amiv in World War II and the unit history, "A History of the 3d Armored Division. I' ARMOR -

The 3dAD Fought Saddam Hussein's Toughest Troops Through Rain and Wind of DESERTSTORM The most recent chapter in the glorious combat history of the 3d Armored Division was written in the sands of the desert in southern Iraq last month. As this issue was in preparation, President Bush had ordered a cessation of hostilities and elements of the 3d AD, fighting with other heavy divisions of the VI1 Corps, had completed one of the most difficult missions of the war, the destruction of Iraq's once-vaunted Republican Guards, an armored and mechanized force that had been the pride and cutting edge of Saddam Hussein's army. The 3d AD was one of the U. S. and allied heavy divisions sent on what General H. Norman Schwartzkopf, CENTCOM commander, called the equivalent of a football team's "Hail Mary play, a lightning rush north, skirting the western border of Kuwait, to frnd and destroy Guards divisions in northern Kuwait and southern Iraq. As the cessation of hostilities began, news reports had the 3d AD engaging the Guards' "Medina" Division" in southeastern Iraq and preparing to fight the Guards' "Hammurabin Division dug in near Basra, an Iraqi city that had been the administrative headquarters of Saddam Hussein's forces in occupied Kuwait. The 3d AD attack began on the afternoon of February 24th, when the VI1 Corps moved through the Iraqi defense breached by the 1st ID. The U. S. 1st AD, the 3d AD, and the British 1st AD swept through the barriers and plunged north to attack the Guards, concentrated 50-70 miles away. To their left, the 82d Airborne Division and a force of French armor screened the flank. The lOlst ABN and the 24th ID were meanwhile racing toward Nasiriyah, on the Euphrates River, to cut off the retreat to the west. According to news reports, the 3d AD was part of the force that engaged and destroyed the Guards' Tawalkana Division on the 26th. The battle against the Republican Guards was described in press reports as not so much a series of short actions, but a 42-hour tank melee in driving rain and sand storms. The VI1 Corps divisions then turned east to tighten the trap. The remaining functional Iraqi units were unable to move west because of the approaching allied heavy armor, and could not get across the Euphrates. to the north because of Air Force interdiction of the bridges. Hundreds of Iraqi vehicles, including tanks, trucks, artillery, and confiscated Kuwaiti vehicles were attempting to leave Kuwait in the final hours before hostilities ceased. They were trapped between the armored divisions and the forces pressing into Kuwait from the south and west. The escaping vehicles, moving along a superhighway flanked by a minefield and a ridge, were trapped on the road and hammered by fighter-bombers as they attempted to escape north to Basra. Although it was impossible to reach armor field commanders prior to our printing deadline, press accounts told of 3d AD units in decisive battles with the Iraqis. One company destroyed 40 tanks and other vehicles, according to a pool report, which noted that SGT Glen Wilson's MlAl was responsible for five of the armored vehicles. ARMOR - 33