The "Name Enough Division

The "Name Enough" Division I ne nernarnauie Combat History of the 4th Armored Division, a Model for Mobile Warfare by Brigadier General Albin F. lrzyk (Ret.) Other divisions were acquiring nicknames, and Major General John S. Wood, commanding the Fourth Armored Division, was pressed to come up with one for his. He was so sure of the future greatness of his division that he declared, "The 4th Armored Division does not need and will not have a nickname - "They shall be known by their deeds alone." Those words, from that day forward, became the division's famous motto and the reason it was so often referred to as the "Name Enough Division". At Utah Beach, as my tank prepared to roll down the ramp of the LCT that had carried us across the English Channel, the British skipper shook my hand and said, "Good luck. I was so sure that great things were ahead for us that, as I mounted my tank, I called to him, "You'll he reading about us. Remember, it's the 4th Armored Division." He laughed and shouted back, "Oh, you Yanks are all alike." Not quite, for I knew even then that we were something special. When we landed in France, the esprit de corps of the troops matched the supreme confidence of the division commander. He had taught us to believe in ourselves, to feel that we could do anything, that we were the very best, a different breed. We all felt that we were destined for greatness, much the same feeling that a college football team must have when it senses the national championship, even before the first game has been played. In the weeks ahead, authoritative, confirmatory voices began to be heard General George S. Patton declared, "The accomplishments of this division have never been equaled. And by that statement, I do not mean in this war; I mean in the history of warfare. There has never been such a superb fighting organization as the 4th Arrnorei Division." Freed American POWs reported, 'The 4th Armored Division is both feared and hated by German frontline troops because of its high combat efficiency." GIs themselves said, "It is the best damned armored division in the European Theater of War." But before we learn too quickly what this division became, let US first examine how it all started. The 4th Armored Division was activated on April 15, 1941 at Pine Camp, N.Y. For nearly a year and a half, the division trained hard all day, even conducting schools at night. During the winter of 1941-42, it experienced intensive cold weather operations. By early fall of 1942, it was time to move on, and so we cut our ties to Pine Camp and headed for manuevers in Tennessee. While there, General Wood was reprimanded, ridiculed, and rebuked during weekend critiques of those maneuvers. His superiors told him that he had moved too fast, too far. They informed him that he just could not do it in combat with the enemy shooting, fighting, and attacking, so why was he doing it in Tennessee? He stood his ground and quietly told them, "We can do it, and we will do it." (And we did!) ~ ~ 20

The soldiers who would form the 4th Armored Division disembark from trucks as they arrive at Pinecamp, N.Y. in April, 1941. From Tennessee, we crossed the continent to the Mojave Desert, and its wide-open, unlimited spaces for moving and shooting. Our training was imaginative, realistic, and daring. Who else but the 4th would put a company of tanks in a wadi against another company of tanks, both firing live .N-caliber machine gun rounds at one another? Everyone else might be satisfied with a moving target that was a wooden frame on a sled, but not the 4th. It used a real, honest-to-goodness moving tank at which we fired live 30-calibers. Then it was on to the shimmering heat of Camp Bowie, Texas, with its great firing ranges, and an opportunity to sharpen our marksmanship with all the weapons in our arsenal. Shortly after our arrival at this Texas base, a 1st Sergeant - apparently jaded by what seemed endless training - was heard to say to a company lieutenant, "1'11 bet three months' pay that the 4th Armored Division never sees combat. Damned if we're not running out of places to manuever." Jt was at Camp Bowie that the 4th went through a period of reorganization and become the first light armored division. By this time, too, a unique bond had developed between the members of the division and its commander. The men recognized that they had a very special leader who was deeply and emotionally involved with them. There has never been a division commander before or since who loved every man in his division as he did, and who in turn was loved by every man in that division. No other division commander saluted his men before they had a chance to salute him. This mutual and competitive saluting had a great deal to do with the extraordinary spirit which developed. Still another important factor in the development of the division was the constant requirement for the division to send out cadres to new units in our ever-expanding army. We moaned at the time, for we had to send out some really top people. But also, and more importantly, we used the cadres to weed out. Providing these cadres gave us an opportunity to sift, cull, refine, polish. When we finally sailed overseas, our barrel was filled with big, red, shiny, juicy, firm apples, with not a rotten one in the bunch. We said at the time that the 4th would go into battle "a division of non-corns." Because of extensive training, intensive schooling, and opportunity to cadre, many privates also knew the jobs of their corporals and sergeants. Later, as combat thinned the ranks of officers and non-coms, these individuals would step forward and keep the division going with undiminished efficiency. We were finally in England, but the training continued unabated on the fields, downs, and lanes of Wiltshire. It was during a dawn attack on the Salisbury Plain that we first heard and then saw the returning, damaged, aerial armada overhead. We knew instantly that the invasion was on and that we would soon be in France. It took time to extend the Normandy bridgehead, but we finally landed at Utah Beach on D+36. It was not long after, in Normandy, that the 4th Armored won its military immortality. It slashed rapidly and aggressively out of a depressingly stalemated situation to seize the tactically and strategically important city of Avranches, a decisive objective that gave access to Brittany on the south and west and to Le Mans, Chartres, and Paris on the east. For us, the action in Normandy was strongly reminiscent of Tennessee. We shouted excitedly at one another, "Just like maneuvers!" (except that our ammunition was live, the incoming fire was real, and the prisoners did not have aggressor armbands, but strange uniforms) . The 4th spearheaded the main effort of the VI11 Corps, and indeed, all of the US. ground forces. The U.S. Army Ofi-cia1 History was later to say, "...the sensational success of General Wood's 4th Armored Division had exploded the nightmare of static warfare that had haunted the Americans so long in the Cotentin." (Nomatidy was a part of Fratice's Cofetititt Penittsiila. -Ed). Despite July-August 1987

General Wood's protest that tt enemy was to the east, where tt war was to be won, his division wi ordered SOUTHWEST to seize tL-Atlantic ports of Lorient, Vannes, and St. Nazaire. The 4th Armored burst out of Avranches and swept across Brittany like the hordes of Ghengis Khan. The Army's Official History later put it most succinctly, "A naturally headstrong crew became rambunctious in Brittany." Wood had already reached the outskirts of the Atlantic ports and had lost much valuable time before he was finally ordered to turn around. Once the division headed east, it began what was to be an epochal sweep through France. As if to make up for lost time, one combat command left Lorient and moved 264 miles in 34 hours. From that point on, General Patton plotted the strategy and General Wood executed it and became the architect of the rampage through France. For weeks, as the 4th Armored went, so went 3rd Army. Wood's vision set the pattern for armor operations in Europe. His division, operating like cavalry, slashed and sidestepped with speed and surprise. It was confident and cocky, and demonstrated a daring, audacious, hard-riding, fast-shooting style. The 4th bypassed strongly held positions with rapid flanking movements and deep penetrations. When towns or strongpoints could not be bypassed, they were taken in stride with sudden, headlong assaults, bruising power, and violent fire which broke the enemy. The division wasted no time in rebuilding blown bridges, but found other river crossings instead. It had a restless ardor for pursuit of a defeated enemy. Its outstanding characteristics were its ability to move and shoot, but above all to move. Movement became its middle name, constant momentum its trademark. A German colonel captured during this period, an officer who had commanded units in Russia, exclaimed, "...To know the commander of this armored division would explain to me how this army managed to achieve such a speed of advance, which in many instances Three M4 Shermans of the 4th AD bum in a field outside Avranches, France after they were hit by 8&mm AT fire from guns emplaced on bluffs overlooking the city. caught us completely unprepared." During the sweep across France, the Third Army was the south flank of the entire Allied Expeditionary Force; the XI1 Corps protected the south flank of Third Army, and the 4th Armored was the south flank of XI1 Corps. There was nothing south of the 4th Armored. General Wood never worried about his flanks; he echeloned in depth. He also developed a long, amazing, unique, and lasting relationship with the Thunderbolts and Mustangs of the XIX Tactical Air Command, which not only supported his operations, but watched his flanks. The teamwork between the XIX TAC and 4th Armored was probably closer in spirit and superior in quality to that of any other operation in WWII, and was not to be equaled again until the Vietnam war 20 years later. During this period, we moved too rapidly and were too widely scattered for the conventional gathering of commanders for the typically detailed, specific orders. General Wood resorted to oral or "mission-type orders". We received these by radio, or on overlays jeeped in or flown in by artillery spotter planes. The orders consisted of a line of departure, a broad directional arrow (&s of advance), a goose-egg (objective) and the terse order to "get going at first light." That's a11 we had; that's all we needed. And once when we ran out of maps and orders, all General Wood needed to say was, "Go East!" After nearly seven weeks of rapid movement and sensational and unprecedented success, the 4th was hit an anvil blow which stagered and slowed it. On the morning of September 18, German armor in two main columns attacked the vanguard of the 4th Armored around Luneville. Hitler had been trying to accumulate and concentrate armor in front of Patton. He now had the reconstituted Fifth Panzer Army, into which a great portion of German tank production had been poured. The German attacks and counterattacks, which were to be known as the Arracourt tank battles, would for the next nine days result in the biggest tank battles U.S. forces had yet fought in Europe. More than that, it would prove to be a supreme test for General Wood's superbly aggressive division. Could it fight and defend as well as it could raid and pursue? The furious attacks and counterattacks by the Germans should have been no contest. They were equipped with the new, powerful, sleek, huge Panther tanks . The American low-velocity 75-mm Shermans were just no match for them. But tankers of the 4th had already seen serious fighting, honed their skills, acquired experience, and ~~ 22 d Major General John S. Wood, commander of the 4th AD, rests in a French meadow following the successful campaign to liberate Brittany. Many credited the unit's combat success to his leadership. developed outstanding teamwork. They had learned thcir lessons well and quickly. They exploited their edge in maneuverability to take the Panthers in the side or rear; they fired at tracks to immobilize them; and they used their superior turret power traverse to get well-aimed shots off quicker, better, and faster. On September 19, one combat command alone reported 43 German tanks, mostly Panthers, destroyed or damaged as against losses of five Shermans and three tank destroyers. By the time the dust had settled at Arracourt and environs, the Germans had suffered a mortal blow. In the most formidable tank attacks since the battles against the British at Caen, the 4th Armored definitely proved itself as admirable a group of warriors in hard, defensive fighting as in the racing pursuit. Not long after, in a message to General Wood, General Eddy, XI1 Corps Commander, stated, "...the Germans are frightened by your superior equipment, frightened by your skillful tactics, and above all, frightened by your magnificent courage and will to win." Soon the rains came to France - constant, heavy rains. Streams and rivers flooded their banks. Water saturated fields became bogs with deep, sticky mud. The 4th Armored Division entered a completely new phase of operations. The division held back initially, pending an exploitation situation, but was quickly committed when the infantry bogged down. "Penny-packet" tactics now replaced massed armor employment. Because of the rain, mud, and terrain, the division had to operate almost on a one-tank front. .It was subjected to continuous fighting under almost impossible conditions for armor. The division took its lumps, but amazingly - even with a seriously reduced tank complement and heavy losses among experienced personnel - it continued to grind ahead slowly but steadily. Even under these conditions, captured General-Lieutenant Fritz Bayerlein considered the northward advance ol U S tanks (4th Armored, XJI Corps, 3rd Army) as a masterpiece of tank warfare, perfectly directed and executed. Then, without warning, the division received a devastating blow that left it stunned, demoralized and reeling. Word spread like wildfire to all corners of the division that General Wood was relieved of his command. We were told that he was tired and sick and was being sent home for a rest, and that he would be replaced by Major General Hugh J. Gaffey, Patton's chief of staff. It was difficult to comprehend that, after all we had been through together, the men and their beloved division commander had parted company. With heavy hearts, we continued to slug it out. Already beyond exhaustion, but with its nose in the Maginot Line, the 4th was finally relieved by the new and fresh 12th Armored Division to rest, refit, and reorganize. It was not long after, with broken tracks and tank and vehicle parts scattered in and around tiny, French farm villages, and with the rest, refitting and reorganizing still incomplete, when the "fire call" came. We were alerted for a move north where, according to confused reports which reached us, some sort of a German breakthrough had occurred. We rapidly put our vehicles and tanks back together again, packed up, and were soon moving toward a confused situation and parts unknown. Except for brief halts, the lead combat command traveled unceasingly for over 22 hours - half of one night, all day, and half of another night - under blackout conditions. Remarkably, they had travelled 161 miles over frequently difficult roads, without maps and without confusion, to the environs of a city called Bastogne. Such endurance was a tribute to both men and vehicles. The 4th Armored was the vanguard of what President Nixon, a Parton admirer, later called the greatest mass movement of men in the history of warfare. Patton's troops had been poised to attack the Saar. He then abandoned this plan and ordered the major part of the 3rd Army to make a gigantic 90- degree wheeling movement and then drive north at full speed. Involved in this spectacular achievement were probably a quarter of a million men and thousands of vehicles, operating in damnable weather over often-icy roads, led by the 4th Armored Division. There followed five days of bitter fighting. The 4th AD fought day and night; fought German tank counterattacks and fanatical defenses; and even fought snow, ice, and bitter cold. And just before dark on the day after Christmas, 1944, elements of the division succeeded in making contact with "the be-July-August 1987

I Faces of the Fourth There was time for mountain music during a break in combat in France, at left, but the stress and fatigue of the division's intense fighting later in the war was reflected in the weary faces of its men as they drew closer and closer to the heart of Germany. leagered, battered bastards of Bastogne". The dramatic link-up of the two forces, an emotional, historic moment, broke the siege of Bastogne and was one of the great turning points in the Battle of the Bulge and of the war in Europe. Shortly after, General Patton wrote to General Gaffey, the new division commander, "The outstanding celerity of your movement and the unremitting, vicious, and skillful manner in which you pushed the attack terminating at the end of four days and four nights of incessant battle in the relief of Bastogne, constitute one of the finest chapters in the glorious history of the United States Army." And from the commanding general of the IOlst Airborne Division, MG Maxwell D. Taylor, came these words, "It has been an honor and privilege for this division to serve alongside the 4th Armored Division. If we are ever in a tight spot again, it is our hope that the 4th Armored Division will be sent to get us out." For three more weeks the division was engaged in operations against fierce German resistance to reduce the Ardennes salient. Another possible German counterattack was feared, so the 4th was moved south into Luxembourg, where it remained for an extended period of time. When it was thrust back into action, the division embarked on a whole new phase of spectacular achievements that won it even greater glory. It crossed into Germany and quickly made its presence known. On 23 February 1945, the division seized crossings over the Our River in the vicinity of Vianden, and breached the Siegfried Line. Shortly after, it began a drive toward the city of Bitburg. The attack went well and by the end of the month the division had seized the high ground north of Bitburg and occupied the west bank of the Kyll River. Once again the division's advance was so rapid that many prisoners were captured and large amounts of equipment seized. On 5 March, the 4th crossed the Kyll River and in actions so reminiscent and so characteristic of its performance during the earIy weeks in France, spearheaded the Third Army's advance to the Rhine. This river was reached north of Koblenz on 7 March, a distance of 55 miles covered in 48 hours. As a result of this advance, enemy resistance north of the Moselle and west of the Rhine was thoroughly disorganized. At that point, the division was the easternmost unit on the Western Front. It had come farther and faster to the Rhine than any other outfit. The division's feat electrified the Allies. After a long winter of bitter struggles for gains of yards, the division's 65-mile sweep from Bitburg demonstrated graphically that the lightning warfare of the past summer was still possible. A captured German general, Edgar Rohrich, was heard to say, "I'd ask nothing more of life than a chance to command a division like this 4th which I see here." On 15 March the division passed through bridgeheads over the Moselle in the Trier area and in 36 hours reached Bad Kreuznach, a distance of 40 miles, thereby outflanking the Siegfried Line, covering the Sarre, and threatening the entire German defensive position in the Palatinate. Shortly after, the division reached the outskirts of Worms, thereby cutting the vital Frankfurt-Sarre lines of communication. On the 17th of March, General Bradley sent these words to General Patton: "This is the second time in two weeks that this division has broken through the enemy's defenses and contributed so materially to cutting them to pieces. They have both been magnificent operations." Virtually without halting, the division passed through bridgeheads over the Rhine in the Oppenheim area, and by 27 March had seized bridgeheads over the Main River at Hanau and Aschaffenburg. Still without pause, the 4th continued its dynamic thrust northeast and ever deeper into the heart of Germany. Major General Hoge, who had recently succeeded Major General Gaffey as division commander, received a message from General Eddy, his corps commander, which read, "Your immediate smash beyond the Main, one hundred miles to the northeast into central Germany, proceeded to open the 24 way for a sweeping corps advance and to electrify our Nation at home." Much of the time, during this period, the situation map at General Eisenhower's headquarters showed a finger bulging forward of the front lines. That finger was the 3rd Army and its tip was the 4th Armored, still the spearhead. Although the terrain, the weather - in fact the total environment - was now vastly different from that of France in the summer and fall of 1944, the rapid movement, the aggressive slashing, hard-riding, fast-shooting, shock-action style of the 4th continued unabated. As it spurred on its advance, town after town and city after city were left bchind - Hungen, Grunberg, Ulrichstein, Schlitz. When the division passed Bad Hersfeld, it moved into what is now East Germany, and in its headlong dash to the east either overran or bypassed a series of major German cities whose names are no longer familiar to Americans. First it was Eisenach and then Gotha. And south of Gotha was Ohrdruf. It was at Ohrdruf that the men of the 41h had an experience that will be imprinted in their minds for the rest of their lives. Elements of the division liberated Ohrdruf Nord, or North Stalag 111, on April 4th, the first concentration camp to be liberatcd by U.S. forces. By this time, men of the 4th were hardened warriors. They had seen death many times, in many different forms, as well as every imaginable type of wound. But what they saw here shocked, stunned, and silenced them. They saw at first hand the brutal evidence of the bestiality of man, and now had a clear vision of the terrible, inhuman Nazi beast that they were fighting so hard to defeat. With renewed determination, it was time to move on. More ma.jor cities fell in their wake - Erfurt, Weimar, Jena, Gera and finally on to Chemnitz (now Karl Marx Stadt). As the lead elements of the division were approaching the environs of Chemnitz, the reins were suddenly pulled back tight and they came to an abrupt stop. Unknowingly, in their zeal to keep advancing, they had passed the "restraining line" which had been agreed to by the highest of councils. Ironically, after months of pushing hard, they were now told they had gone too far. Members of the 4th were then at the easternmost point reached by U.S. forces. Here, the command, "Go East" would no longer be given to them. So after a brief pause - and with the German populace, because of their fear of the Russians, pleading for them not to leave - the division pulled back and then made a 225- mile forced march to the south, skirting the Czech border all the way to a location on the Danube River. From that p i n t , the division attacked to the northeast, through mountain passes, through the Sudetenland, and well into Czechoslovakia. They were stopped once again for political reasons, something the enemy had never been able to accomplish, and this time they finally stopped for good. It was the final stop, for VE Day came soon after. Elements of the 4th met elements of the Russian Army, and subsequently moved to their occupation areas. Thus ended an amazing IO-month odyssey. A group of ordinary men had done some most extraordinary things. They had led the breakout in Normandy, captured Avranches, swept across Brittany to the Atlantic, turned around, set the pattern for armor operations in Europe, and rampaged across France, won one of the great tank battles of the war, made the reckless, wide-open, headlong dash to Troyes, slogged through rain and mud to the Maginot Line, pulled back and made the "fire call" to Bastogne, Belgium, relieved the lOlst Airborne, moved back to Luxembourg, spearheaded 3rd Army's advance to the Rhine, breached and outflanked the Siegfried Line, liberated the first concentration camp, swept deep into central Germany and reached Chemnitz, the easternmost advance of Allied forces, moved south to the Danube River, pushed aggressively into Czechoslovokia, and met the Russians. No other division moved so fast, ranged so far, or covered so much ground. Three thousand miles were registered on the mileage meters of the 4th Armored Division's forward echelon vehicles, which only moved from one division command post to the next. Combat miles covered by the battalions in the 295 days from Normandy to Czechoslovakia were nearer double July-August 1987 the 3,000. The combat troops had an unsurpassed and unforgettable tour of Europe that could never be matched. In ten months, the division took 90,364 prisoners, killed 13,641 of the enemy, wounded an estimated 30,OOO more; destroyed or captured 847 German tanks, 3,668 other vehicles, 603 artillery and antitank guns, 1,192 horse-drawn wagons, 103 locomotives; shot down 128 Nazi planes; took scores of major cities and hundreds of towns and villages. The 41h's losses were 1,519 killed, 5,029 wounded and 270 missing. A total of 418 tanks were lost. Members of the 4th won more than 4,000 individual decorations. Three were Medals of Honor, and there were 34 Distinguished Service Crosses, 802 Silver Stars, 3,031 Bronze Stars, 88 Air Medals, 11 Soldiers Medals, 92 Crok de Guerre. Forty mcn received battlefield commissions as officers and nearly 6,000 received the decoration grimly known as the "German Markman-ship Medal" - the Purple Heart. The division compiled a record unsurpassed in results achieved as compared to casualties taken. Perhaps there has never been a division which inflicted such discrepant los- "...NO division had been ex osed to in such a wide variety of locations ..." more different facets of tr J? ining ses upon an enemy. Statistics portray a graphic, remarkable portrait of the division's achievements. Yet, numbers cannot depict the full, complete picture. There is absolutely no way to calculate mathematically the paralyzing effect and the consequences of one of the many armored breakthroughs produced by the 4th. There is no equation yet developed that determines the value of an important piece of ground that has been overrun or a strategic city or bridge that has been captured. Add these elements to the cold statistics and the total reflects a most imposing record. The Third Army and the 4th Armored have always been mentioned in the same breath. One final, revealing statistic confirms that relationship. Of 3rd Army's 281 combat days, the 4th was in 3rd Army for 280 of them, more than any other division. Earlier, it was mentioned that the 4th Armored had no formal nickname. Newspapers and magazines A self-propelled 1OImm howitzer of the 4th AD rolls across a pontoon bridge over the Main River, near Hanau, in late March, 1945. had a field day, however, and applied an almost endless number of monikers in their published accounts of the division's exploits. Among the most frequent appella-tions: "Patton's Best", "Breakthrough", "Patton's Favorite Spearhead", 'Crack, "Ubiquitous", "Irrepressible", "Phantom't, "Invincible", "Immortal", "Fabulous", "Hard-riding", "Romping". All of these prompt the inevitable question: "Why all the accolades?" "Why was this division so different?', and the most often-asked, "What made the 4th Armored Division great?" There are so many intangibles that the answer still remains difficult to box in. Of his men, General Wood said, "I have seen nothing like them in the three wars 1 was part of, in my time". Yet in 1960, a few years before his death, General Wood himself had difficulty finding an answer to the question. He stated, "1 wish I were able to draw up a set of rules for developing a fighting unit like the 4th Armored Division. I am convinced that it was almost unique in its fighting characteristics and esprit, but it did not conform to the rules. In fact, that is perhaps its most outstanding characteristic. Outsiders could never understand what made us so different nor just how we operated." He continued, "...But for the production of a fighting organization like the 4th Armored Division, it would be like giving an artist a set of draftsman's rules and a color chart and asking him to produce the Mona Lisa. There is very little science in command - it is merely the most difficult of arts, done with the lightest of touches!" Although I was a member of this division, the question of greatness has long puzzled me, together with other soldiers, correspondents and historians. What combination of what ingredients gave this division its greatness? ~~ 26

The personnel of the 4th had the same geographic and ethnic mixes, the same age group, the same educational and economic levels, membership in the same strata of our society as all other divisions. Nothing different - no advantage here. However, I do believe that there were some ingredients that were peculiar to the 4th that gave us a big edge over other divisions. The first of these was training. We were provided with the time and the places. The division had the bliz-zards of northern New York, the spaces and sand of the Mojave Desert. In between were the rivers, streams and valleys of Tennessee, the great tiring ranges at Camp Bowie, and the opportunity for the final tune-up on the Salisbury Plain of England. No division had been exposed to more different facets of training in such a wide variety of locations. By the time it crossed the English Channel, thc division was superbly trained, already seasoned, and honed to a razor's edge. No unit could have been more ready for combat than we. The second ingredient was the demand and requirement to send out cadres. This turned out not to be a disadvantage, but a great advantage, for the division was left with quality troops throughout; individuals who from top to bottom were knowledgeable, experienced, dedicated, professional. The third ingredient that we had that no other division had was Major General John S. Wood. This was a unique, unusual, and truly great leader - undoubtedly the greatest division commander of World War 11. Liddell Hart, the eminent British historian, military writer, and critic, referred to him as "The Rommel of the American armored forces ... one of the most dynamic commanders of armor in World War I1 and the first in the Allied Armies to demonstrate in Europe the essence of the art and tempo of handling a mobile force." General Wood believed deeply in sparing the men he had the honor to lead unnecessary hardships and useless losses, and possessed the willingness and desire to share their General Jacob L. Devers, then-CG of the 6th and 12th Army Groups, addresses the men of the 4th Armored Division at Landshut, Germany in June 1945, as the unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. hardships and face the same dangers. The men knew that he referred to them as "my people". His was leadership at its absolute bcst. He was not only loved and admired, but today is idolized. As General Jacob L. Devers simply stated, "They would follow him to hell today." The fourth important ingredient that I am sure of was our army commander - General Patton. He was the right one for us, and was daring, imaginative, audacious, visionary. But to be successful, he needed the right tool - the 4th Armored. Patton plotted the strategy and Wood executed it. Patton and the 4th - the perfect combination. Supposing our army commander had been Monty. He would have told us to move three miles and we would have moved three miles in a day. The world would never have known that we could have moved 20, 30, or even 50 miles a day. General Devers knew we could, for he said, "You were always on my left, but we knew you were at the front of Third Army. You did not stop at 5 or 15 miles a day, but went 70 or a few miles less." So we had the right army commander to pull the best out of us - to send us on impossible missions which we made possible. The fifth ingredient that we had was people. We had Creighton Abrams - "Abe" - who was the hero, the architect of the victory in the tank battles at Arracourt and whose tanks were the first to link up with the IOls1. H e became the number one soldier in the Army, its chief of staff, and the one for whom the current main battle tank is named. There was Bruce Clarke, who left his post as division chief of staff to distinguish himself as a combat commander in the sweep across France. His exploits were rewarded with a promotion and transfer to the 7th Armored Division, where he gained fame in his tenacious defense of the St. Vith area during the Battle of the Bulge. He later became the commander of the United States Army in Europe. The division had ILT, (later CPT) James H. Fields, who won the first Medal of Honor to be awarded in Third Army - "He gave himself first aid by cramming the compress from his first aid packet into his mouth. Holding another compress over his right cheek, he continued 27 July-August 1987 shooting with his left hand. When three Panther tanks moved up, Fields shot the tank commander of the lead tank left-handed. . ." And who but a cocky member of the 4th would have the audacity, the effrontery - with Germans prowl-ing around him in all directions - to boldly, recklessly announce, "They got us surrounded again, the poor bastards!" Sgt. Constant A. Klinga uttered what was to be an oft-quoted 4th Armored battle cry just outside Avranches. He said it for the last time in Germany, as he was killed beyond the Seigfried Line. People. Yes, people - thousands of them who were inspired, dedicated, who did everything that was asked of them and more. People who had an easy confidence and were a bit cocky; who took savage satisfaction in their expert use of the shock power given to their division; who turned over at least three times in critical slots and continued to operate with undiminished efficiency, who were motivated always by the highest esprit de corps. People - yes, outstanding people - all of them. The final two ingredients that the division possessed were spirit and a soul. Early on, the division - because of the attitude and actions of its outstanding leader - developed an indomitable, unquenchable spirit that persisted until the end of the war. It began simply with pride in saluting and from then on manifested itself in every word, move, action. With spirit came a soul. That soul had elan, aggressiveness, the will-to-tight, dash, confidence, audacity, and a debonair, reckless, but ordered, discipline. The soul of the 4th Armored will march forever and will never die. The ingredients unique to the 4th Armored mentioned above partially explain the question of its greatness, but because of intangibles, speculation among students of World War I1 will persist and the answer will probably never be fully developed. We came to one last unique aspect of the division. After significant achievements in the battle across France, General Wood began to receive recommendations for the award of the Presidential Unit Citation for platoons, companies, and battalions which had distinguished themselves during the weeks of combat. He relused to approve any and declared that he would not single out any unit within his division. He said if such an award were to he granted, he would wait until the entire division, as a unit, received it. He showed great prescience and faith in his division. On 28 March 1945, the "Stars and Stripes'' carried a five- paragraph story that stated, 'The War Department, by direction of the President, has cited the entire 4th Armored Division for 'extraordinary tactical accomplishment during the period from December 22 to March 27, in-clusive'.'' No one in the 4th saw the story, because the division was then roaring northeast into Central Germany after crossing the Main River. Nearly three months later, the troopers of the division were dressed in fresh-pressed ODs instead of battle-stained combat jackets, wore lacquered helmet liners instead of mud-spattered tank helmets. They stood proudly in rigid ranks in Landshut on captured German soil, which they had played such an important role in seizing. They shivered with emotion as they heard the language of the Presidential Citation echo across the German field. Then, with eyes glued to it, they watched the red and green colors of their beloved Fourth Armored Division dip while the four-star general tied the blue streamer of the Distinguished Unit Citation to the staff and then saluted it. They listened as General Jacob L. Devers, the former commander of the Armored Force, say, "I am proud to present this citation to the Fourth Armored, and 1 say this with a great deal of ego, for I feel I had a part in the training of this division." So on June 14, 1945, at Landshut, Germany, the Fourth Armored became the only tank division and the second entire division in U.S. Army history to be so decorated by the order of the President. They now stood ready for their finest and last review together. It was to be the first division formation since Camp Bowie, Texas. Once again, they rose to the occasion. After ten months of combat, they were now momentarily parade soldiers again. As the band moved out, unit after unit passed the reviewing stand tightly dressed, in step, with chests fully extended. They marched well and impressively, like the proud veterans they now were. As they left the field, they knew this would be the last time they would be together, that the division would soon begin breaking up. However, they were consoled somewhat by the knowledge that they were marching into the pages of history and would one day occupy their rightful places in the pantheon of combat heroes.

BRIGADIER

GENERAL

ALBIN F. I R N K trained and fought with the 4th AD from its formation in 1942 through five campaigns in the European Theater and service in the postwar occupation. His 44 months of overseas service included assignments as a company commander, battalion commander, division G1, G3, and chief of staff. He commanded the 8th Tank Battalion during the relief of Bastogne. His long and illustrious military career later included service at numerous posts in CONUS, USAREUR, and the Pacific. ~ 28