"Old Ironsides" - First Into Rome

"Old Ironsides"- First Into Rome The 1st Armored Division drew two of World War 11's toughest assignments - North Africa and Italy

WORLD WAR II CAMPAIGNS

Algeria - French Morocco Tunisia Naples - Foggia Anzio Rome - Arno North Apennines Po Valley WWll COMMANDERS MG Bruce R. Magruder July 1940 - March 1942 MG Orlando Ward March 1942 - April 1943 MG Ernest N. Harmon April 1943 - July 1944 MG Vernon E. Prichard July 1944 - May 1945 73is article was prepared by the ARMOR staff Major soiirces included Elizabeth Rltoades Akroyd's "The First Amtored Division 1940- 1990," arid Shelby L. Stantort's "Order of Battle -US. A m y in World War II.." Although the history of the 1st Armored Division begins in 1940, its heritage is rooted in the 7th Cavalry Brigade (Mechanized), formed in 1932 as the Army's first true mechanized fighting force. The concept of the 7th Cavalry Brigade carried into the new armored divisions: that mechanized forces should stand alone, rather than being simply tank support for infantry divisions.

M3 OUTSIDE MAKASSNY, TUNISIA, IN 1943.

were organized. The 1st AD, for example, provided cadre for the formation of the 4th Armored Division, organized in April 1941. MG Orlando Ward was the new commander of "Old Ironsides" when the 1st AD shipped out for World War 11. Embarking on the Queen Mary, the division went first to Ireland, then England, lo prepare for the invasion of North Africa. The brigade became the nucleus for the new division and its former commander, Major General Adna Chaffee, became the first commander of the Armored Force, which included the 1st and 2d Armored Divisions. The first commander of the 1st AD was MG Bruce R. Magruder, who came from the provisional infantry tank brigade at Fort Benning. The division trained for war for two years, but frequently lost key Dersonnel as later armored divisions

NORTH AFRICA

The mission of Operation TORCH was to invade Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia - on North Africa's western shores - to keep Rommel's forces from moving west, away from the Libyan desert where the Germans were fighting a war of movement against British forces closing in from the east. Algeria and Morocco had been part of the French colonial emDire. and after

. the fall of France in 1940, were controlled by forces of the French Vichy government. No one knew whether the French would oppose the landings, which took place in November 1942. As it happened, they did. Attempting to land at Oran, Algeria, as part of the Center Task Force of the three-pronged invasion, the Third Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, part of Combat Command B of the 1st AD, took 180 casualties when French shore batteries opened up on two British ships bringing them ashore. Only 47 soldiers of the battalion were unhurt. French resistance subsided in a matter of days after the landings, allowing the 1st AD to move eastward to Tunisia, where reinforcements were pouring in to bolster the sagging Afrika Korps and to oppose this new threat to its supply lines. By late November, 1st AD units had tangled with Axis forces. The 1st AD’S CCB, fighting at El Guessa Heights, sustained heavy equipment losses during the first week of December ’and was placed in reserve. Its next attack, into the Ous-seltia Valley, was more successful. Combat Command A fought at Faid Pass in early February, pushing on to Sidi Bou Zid, where it sustained heavy losses on 14 February. A week later, a relief force counterattacked to support CCA and also sustained heavy losses. CCB successfully reacted to a German attack on Tebessa, leading to the beginniig of a German withdrawal. Despite their considerable tactical success in the series of battles now lumped together as the battle of Kasserine Pass, the Germans were denied operational success: they never drove any farther east. Three more months of hard fighting in Tunisia eventually forced a German withdrawal toward Bizerte. During this period, PVT Nicholas Minue, a 1st AD soldier, was awarded the Medal of Honor post-humously for his brave charges of enemy gunners entrenched on a hill. His was one of the few awards of the Medal in the North Africa campaign, which ended in the second week of May with the surrender of the German forces in Africa.

ITALY

“Old Ironsides” returned to Morocco to rest and refit before the Italian campaign. Its combat experiences, good and bad, became the basis for many changes in training, organization, and tactics for both the 1st AD and the other armored divisions still preparing for war. After the successful Sicilian campaign, the Allies planned a two- 18 ARMOR - July-AugUSt 1090

SHERMAN OF THE 1 ST TK BN CROSSES THE ARNO RIVER NEAR CASOINA ITALY pronged thrust up the Italian boot, the U.S. Fifth Army moving along the western coast of the peninsula, with the British Eighth Army pushing up the Adriatic side. Two of the 1st AD'S subunits, the 27th Armored FA Bn., and the 16th Engineers, were part of the initial landings at Salerno in early September

1943. The rest of the division was to follow once the American forces were ashore. After the Salerno landings, German resistance crumbled, and the invasion force pushed ahead to Naples. During this period, soldiers of the 16th Engineers bridged a river on the average of on'ce every three or four days. Naples had been abandoned by the retreating Germans, who fell back to their Winter Line, one of the first of a series of great defensive barriers thrown up across the peninsula. The hilly, river-crossed country greatly favored the defense, which could situate on high ground and cover the valleys with withering indirect fire. By November, the remainder of the 1st AD arrived in Italy and assembled for the assault on the Winter Line. The 6th Armored Infantry, a 1st AD subunit, fought sharp actions along the Rapido River and in the Mount Lungo area. Another action, at Mt. Porchia, resulted in heavy losses, with the 6th Infantry and Co. A of the 16th Engineers winning Presidential Unit Citations for their part in the action. Although the Winter Line was pierced, the high country around Monte Cassino blocked any further advance to Rome. In an attempt to break this defensive stalemate, the Allies planned an amphibious landing at Anzio Beach, hoping to threaten the German rear and force a withdrawal of German troops from the heights blocking the approach to Rome. While CCB of the 1st AD remained near Mignano, the rest of the division leapfrogged ahead through the new beachhead, fighting off German counterattacks on the beachhead while supported by heavy air and artillery bombardment. CCA and CCB linked up to break out of the Anzio beachhead and push toward Rome. They took heavy losses in a victory at Campoleone Station and pushed ahead despite counterattacks by German rear guards. The division fought through to Albano, and the first tank - from Company H, 13th Armored Regiment - entered Rome on 4 June 1944. The pursuit up the Italian "boot" continued through July, when the 1st AD was reorganized in light of past battle experience. The regimental structure gave way to three separate tank and infantry battalions, and strength was cut from 14,000 to 10,OOO. In addition to CCA and CCB, division artillery, and division trains, a new headquarters was formed, called Reserve Command, to control the division reserve. The "new" 1st AD was more flexible, with roughly equivalent infantry and tank battalions capable of being tailored to a greater variety of missions. The additional infantry would be extremely important in the mountain fighting ahead. In much of the fighting that followed, the 1st AD tankers often had to light as infantry in the face of horrible winter weather, steep mountain terrain, and the formidable German defense, called the Gothic Line, that blocked the northern advance. The division was only thirty miles from the Po Valley, but the steep Appenine Mountains aided the defense in maintaining a stalemate until the spring of 1945. In mid-April, the Allied assault on the Germans entrenched in the northern Italian mountains continued again, with 1st AD units entering the Po Valley on 20 April. Milan fell on the Bth, and German forces in Italy surrendered four days later. Less than a week after, all German forces in Europe surrendered.

POSTWAR SERVICE

At the end of June 1945, 1st AD units transferred to Germany for occupation duty until the following spring. The unit headquarters returned to the United States and was inactivated, although many of the 1st AD subunits remained in ARMOR - July-AuguSt 1990 19

Germany as part of the U.S. Constabulary, the occupying military government. The 6th Infantry remained stationed in Germany until the 1950s.

KOREA

The success of North Korean tank units early in the war led to the reac-tivation of the 1st AD at Fort Hood on 7 March 1951. While the division did not participate in the war, it successfully fought another battle closer to home, the battle to integrate the Army. The division commander, MG Bruce C. Clarke, had commanded U.S. Constabulary units in Germany after the war and had successfully integrated black soldiers into these units, and upon taking command of "Old Ironsides" in 1951, he did the same thing. Although the rest of the Army was not integrated until 1953, black and white officers and men worked side by side in the 1st AD almost two years earlier, as photos in the division yearbooks show. As the only combat-ready armored division in the United States, the 1st AD was first to receive the new M48 tank in 1953, and the following year became involved in tests of a new organization, "The Atomic Field Army," designed to be effective in a nuclear warb In February 1957, the 1st AD was one of the first of the new "Pentomic" divisions, made up of five elements, each independent enough to fight and survive on a decentralized, nuclear-ravaged battlefield. This organization lasted less than a year, and again, the 1st AD was reduced in size. One combat command survived the reorganization, becoming one of the battle-ready units of the Strategic Army Corps (STRAC), formed to fight limited wars, rather than nuclear Armageddons.

TROOP 6.1-1 CAV RETURNS FIRE IN AN AMBUSH NEAR KHE SANH. 1971.

The 1st AD reorganized again in 1962, this time as a "ROAD" division, which could be reconfigured more easily. The Army was seeking a versatile, multi-purpose type of formation to fight whatever kind of conflict developed. The combat command structure gave way to brigades, and aviation units were added. New vehicles, notably the M60 MBT and the M113 APC, were tested by the 1st AD.

CUBA AND VIETNAM

The year 1962 brought the 1st AD up to combat status again in time for the Cuban missile crisis. It mobilized and moved to Fort Stewart, Ga. by rail and air. The division conducted live-fire exercises and practiced amphibious landing techniques in the six weeks of tension that followed. From 1965 to 1967, the 1st AD had a major role in training Vietnam replacements and lost many of its best soldiers to levies for the fighting in Southeast Asia. Then, relieved of its basic training mission, the 1st AD again attained combat-ready status. One occasionally sees the 1st AD patch on the right shoulder of a Vietnam vet. This is because two of the division's subunits, the 1st Sqn., 1st Cav., and the 501st Aviation Battalion, were never officially detached from the 1st AD when deployed to Vietnam. Also seeing action were three 1st AD infantry battalions and a 2d AD artillery battalion, reorganized in 1967 as the 198th Infantry Brigade. Serving in Vietnam for five years, the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry earned a Presidential Unit Citation, two Valorous Unit awards, and three Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry for action in Vietnam. During the late 196Os, soldiers of the 1st AD deployed to Chicago for riot control duty during the racial demonstrations that followed the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King. The division also helped out in several other civil emergencies, including floods and hurricanes near its Texas base. The 1st AD was to be disbanded in the post-Vietnam reductions in force, but a letter-writing campaign convinced officials to keep the 1st AD on the rolls of active units. Instead, it was decided to deactivate the 4th AD in Germany. The 1st AD took its place at Goeppingen, its first "return" to Germany since the war. It has remained there ever since. 20 ARMOR - JU/y-AUgUSt 7990