European Center of Military History
Gold Remains a Good long-term Investment Whether the dollar goes up or down, gold is still going to be a good investment because we have virtually all the important central bankers focused on growth and not inflation. Gold is a dynamic metal....
Request for Identication - Crashed Plane 1945 I need the following answers : (Body) German or British ? (Plane) German or British ? I have studied the photos for more than an hour and I am still wondering because the Cockpit looks like an AAF P-38's...
Marty & Cindy : Unpublished Photos 17th A/B 1945 Another Wartime photos set and like the one before it's a really good one. Joe Summers Pontoon bridge over the Rhine River. Note signs : (left) seems to be a "one way - Red Ball Express",...
Marty & Cindy : Unpublished Photos 17th A/B 1945 And here is the next set Wartime photos of the 17th Airborne Division. My Dad took a photo of the same concrete bunker from a distance. It had a Russian star on top of it when he took the photo....
Marty & Cindy : Unpublished Photos 17th A/B 1945 Well, these new photos are fields photos and request from me some researches. This is exactly what I like to do, so it will take a little more time as usual to be posted. And once again thanks to Cindy...
Sep
21
2009
Category : Army Air Forces, XIX TAC
12.000 Fighter and Bomber Sorties, XIX Tactical Air Command’s First Month of Operations in Support of the US Third Army in France.
Content
May
17
2009
Members of the 2nd Infantry Division has been the wearers of the famed Indian Head Patch in five different wars around the planet. This insignia had its origin during World War One as the identifying insignia on the vehicles of the Division Supply Trains. The Commanding Officer of the trains held a contest in March, 1918, to select a distinctive identifying symbol for use upon the vehicles after he had seen the vehicles of adjacent French units decorated in this manner. Through his adjutant he sent out a memorandum authorizing prizes for the best designs submitted, with a first prize of forty francs. The winning insignia, which obtained the final approval of Division Headquarters for use upon supply train vehicles in April, 1918, was the striking red and blue Indian head, super imposed upon a white star. The head covered the reentrant angles of the star and exposed only the points. Maj Gen Omar Bundy, the Division Commander, and his Chief of Staff, Col Preston Brown, later Maj Gen Preston Brown, were riding in a command car one day in April when Gen Bundy’s eye was caught by the insignia emblazoned on a truck. According to a letter from Maj Gen Brown written some time later, Gen Bundy stopped the driver, asked the meaning of the device, and was told by the driver that it enabled him to find his vehicle in the dark. The letter does not bring out that the insignia had been authorized and was probably coming into use on all the vehicles of the trains but at that time and at any rate, the Gen and his Chief of Staff promptly sent their cars to the area to have the insignia painted upon them. In this manner the Indian Head became associated with the 2nd Infantry Division as its identifying insignia some time before it became the standard shoulder patch so proudly worn by men of the Division.
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Mar
03
2009
The 7th Armored Division was activated on Mar 1 1942 at Camp Polk, Louisiana and moved Sep 15 1942 to the IV Corps Louisiana Maneuvers. It returned to Camp Polk on Nov 9 1942, arrived then Mar 11 1943 at the Desert Training Center for the #2 California Maneuvers, was transferred Aug 12 1943 to Fort Benning, Georgia and arrived at Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts on Apr 22 1944.
The Division staged et Camp Shanks, New York, from May 2 1944 until departed New York Port of Embarkation on Jun 7 Jun 1944 and arrived in England on Jun 14 1944.
The 7th Armored Division landed in France on Aug 11 1944, crossed into Belgium on Sep 26 and into Holland on Oct 8 1944. It returned to Belgium on Dec 28 1944 and entered Germany Mar 15 1945.
The 7/AD arrived then at Hampton Roads POE on Oct 9 1945 and was inactivated at Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia on Oct 9 1945.
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Feb
05
2009
After Action Report
7th Armored Division
Period : 1st December 1944 -31st December, 1944
Area : St-Vith & Vicinity
Country : Belgium
Revised & Corrected : Gunter G. Gillot Jr
The 7th AD was activated on March 1 1942, reorganized on Sept 20 1943 and arrived in the United Kingdom in Jun 1944. The division landed on Omaha and Utah Beaches, on Aug 13-14 1944, and was assigned to Third (3rd) US Army.
The 7th AD drove through Nogent le Rotrou in an attack on Chartres which fell Aug 18. From Chartres, the Division advanced to liberate Dreux, then Melun, where they crossed the Seine River, on Aug 24.
The 7th AD then pushed on to bypass Reims and liberate Chateau-Thierry and Verdun, Aug 31, then halted briefly for refueling until Sept 6, when it drove toward to the Moselle and made a crossing near Dornot. This crossing had to be withdrawn in the face of the heavy fortifications around Metz.
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