history pamphlet final print order - USArmyGermany.com Corps History Revised Nov 2… · to supporting the NATO alliance and to carrying out the ... V Corps Operations in the ETO,

The Historyof

V Corps

The Historyof

V Corps

Published November 2001Author: Dr. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, V Corps HistorianEditing, layout and design: Bill Roche, V Corps Public Affairs Office

Learn more about V Corps by visiting our site on the World WideWeb at www.vcorps.army.mil

America�s victory corps!America�s victory corps!

On the cover:�American Troops Advancing� by Harold Brett

The scene is of American doughboys marching into battle inNorthern France during World War I, where V Corps was born andfought in the closing months of the �Great War.�

The image is one of many pieces of original art prints and postersin the U.S. Army Center of Military History�s Army artwork collec-tion. For information on ordering CMH products and publications,go to www.army.mil/cmh-pg/catalog/HowTo.htm

Preface

V Corps soldiers, veterans, and friends:

V Corps has been serving the nation in peace and war since 1918. Organized overseas, in France, in World War I,the Corps has spent most of its organizational life outside of the United States, either committed to battle in the twoWorld Wars or on the front lines of freedom in times of uneasy peace. Today, V Corps remains in Europe, committedto supporting the NATO alliance and to carrying out the national security objectives of the United States.

The Victory Corps distinguished itself in eight campaigns in two World Wars, earning its nickname during the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War I and validating its reputation for hard, steady fighting at Omaha Beach in June of1944. The post-war years have been no less demanding, although in a different way. Veterans of Cold War service inV Corps well recall the exquisite state of training of Corps units and the high tension and watchful readiness of thoseyears.

In the course of the last decade, the demands on V Corps have, if anything, increased, as the Corps has learned todeal with world events that remained somewhere between peace and war, and that ranged all across the spectrum ofconflict from peace enforcement through combat operations. Constantly involved in operations of one kind or anothersince 1990, V Corps has done much of the “heavy lifting” for the United States Army in places as widely separated asthe Balkans and east Africa.

This short history of the Corps tells the story of Victory Corps soldiers in the 83 years during which they have invari-ably met the challenge and won success for the nation. We dedicate this history to those who have served in V Corps,who are serving now in V Corps, and who will serve in V Corps in the future.

Victory Corps!

Dr. Charles E. KirkpatrickV Corps Historian

Interwar yearsKirkpatrick, Charles E. �Orthodox Soldiers: U.S. Army Formal Schools and Junior Officers between the Wars,� in Elliott V.

Converse III (ed.), Forging the Sword: Selecting, Educating, and Training Cadets and Junior Officers in the Modern World.Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1998.

Odom, William O. After the Trenches: The Transformation of U.S. Army Doctrine, 1918-1939. College Station, Texas: TexasA & M University Press, 1999.

World War IIBlumenson, Martin. Breakout and Pursuit. United States Army in World War II. Washington: USGPO, 1961.Blumenson, Martin. The Duel for France, 1944. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1963.Blumenson, Martin. The Patton Papers: 1940-1945. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974.Bradley, Omar N. A Soldier�s Story. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1951.Cole, Hugh M. The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge. United States Army in World War II. Washington: USGPO, 1965.Eisenhower, Dwight D. Crusade in Europe. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1948.

Eisenhower, John S. D. The Bitter Woods. New York: G. P. Putnam�s Sons, 1969.[First United States Army]. Reports of Operations, 20 October 1943 -1 August 1944. 7 volumes. Paris: n.p., 1946.[First United States Army]. Reports of Operations, 1 August 1944 - 22 February 1945. 4 volumes. Washington: USGPO,

1946.[First United States Army]. Report of Operations, 23 February - 8 May 1945. 3 volumes. Washington: USGPO, 1946.Gabel, Christopher R. The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941. Washington: USGPO, 1991.Harrison, Gordon. Cross Channel Attack. United States Army in World War II. Washington: USGPO, 1951.[Historical Division, War Department]. Omaha Beachhead (6 June - 13 June 1944). Army in Action Series. Washington:

USGPO, 1945.History V Corps June 6, �44. 688th Engineer Topographic Company, 1945.Huebner, Clarence R. �V Corps From Belgium to Czechoslovakia,� Army and Navy Journal: 83 (4 December 1945).Intelligence Operations of the V U. S. Army Corps in Europe. N.p.: 1945.Kirkpatrick, Charles E. An Unknown Future and a Doubtful Present: Writing the Victory Plan of 1941. Washington: USGPO,

1990.Kirkpatrick, Charles E. �The Very Model of a Modern Major General: Backgrounds of World War II American Generals in V

Corps,� in Judith L. Bellafaire (ed.), The U.S. Army and World War II: Selected papers From the Army�s CommemorativeConferences. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1998.

MacDonald, Charles B. The Battle of the Huertgen Forest. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1963.MacDonald, Charles B. The Last Offensive. United States Army in World War II. Washington: USGPO, 1973.MacDonald, Charles B. The Siegfried Line Campaign. United States Army in World War II. Washington: USGPO, 1963.MacDonald, Charles B., and Sidney Matthews. Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo and Schmidt. United States Army in World

War II. Washington: USGPO, 1952.Patton, George S. War as I Knew It. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1947.Pogue, Forrest C. The Supreme Command. United States Army in World War II. Washington: USGPO, 1954.V Corps Operations in the ETO, 6 January 1942 - 9 May 1945. Paris: Paul Viviers, 1945.Weigley, Russell C. Eisenhower�s Lieutenants. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.

Cold War and post-Cold War period

Benton, Barbara (ed.) Soldiers for Peace: Fifty Years of United Nations Peacekeeping. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996.Boettcher, Thomas D. First Call: The Making of the Modern U. S. Military, 1945-1953. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1992.Bolger, Daniel P. Savage Peace: Americans at War in the 1990s. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1995.Bradford, Edward M.. �The Replacement and Augmentation System in Europe (1945-1963).� Heidelberg, Germany: USAREUR

Historical Section, Operations Division, unpublished manuscript, 1964).Condon, Edward, and Raymond Matthews. A Historical Report of the V Corps�1949. N.p.: 1950.Frederiksen ,Oliver J. The American Military Occupation of Germany 1945-1953. Historical Division, United States Army

Europe, 1953.Gehring, Stephen P. From the Fulda Gap to Kuwait: The U.S. Army, Europe, in the Gulf War. Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1998.Kirkpatrick, Charles E. Building the Army for Desert Storm. Association of the United States Army, Institute of Land Warfare,

Land Warfare Paper No. 9. Arlington, Virginia: AUSA, November 1991.Kirkpatrick, Charles E. �Ruck it up!� The Evolution of V Corps from the GDP to an Expeditionary Corps, 1990-2001.�

Forthcoming from USGPO, 2002.[McGrath, John]. �U.S. Army Stationing in Germany 1945-2001.� United States Army Center of Military History Historical

Resources Branch Reference Tool, 16 January 2001.Morrison, Charles E. and Daniel T Murphy. The United States Constabulary. Occupation Forces in Europe series, 1945-46.

Office of the Chief Historian, European Command. Frankfurt Am Main, Germany, 1947.Snyder, James M. The Establishment and Operations of the United States Constabulary, 3 October 1945 � 30 June 1947. United

States Constabulary, 1947.Soeldner, Robert, et al. Blackhorse: The History of the 11th U.S. Cavalry 1901-1991. Bad Kissingen: T. A. Schachenmayer,

1991.Sorley, Lewis. Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.Stacy, William E. �U.S. Army Border Operations in Germany 1945-1983.� (Heidelberg, Germany: HQ, USAREUR and Seventh

Army History Office unpublished manuscript, 1984).Tevington, William M. The United States Constabulary: A History. Turner Publishing Company, Paducah, Kentucky, 1998.US Army Europe and Seventh Army, Annual Command History 1 Jan 92- 31 Dec 92.

The History of V Corps ❂50

Manuscript sources for the history of V Corps are held by the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington,D.C., and College Park, Maryland. Papers of Generals John J. Pershing and Charles P. Summerall are in the Library of CongressManuscripts Division, Washington, D.C. Other relevant materials, including Corps annual historical reports and privately pub-lished histories of the Corps and its subordinate units, as well as personal papers of soldiers assigned to V Corps and experi-ences questionnaires of soldiers who served in the Corps in the two World Wars, are held by the U. S. Army Military HistoryInstitute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

Detailed information about V Corps operations and the Seventh United States Army context in which they were carried outwere drawn from the series of V Corps Annual Historical Reports, 1972-1989, in V Corps and USAREUR History Office files, andfrom the Seventh Army Annual Historical Reports and subsequent USAREUR and Seventh Army Annual Historical Reports, 1954-1990, in the USAREUR History Office, where a series of important unpublished manuscripts, reference files and shorter paperswere also consulted.

Historian�s files in the V Corps history office supply miscellaneous data and details on current operations. Most records for theperiod 1949-1973 are unclassified. Unclassified portions of subsequent annual historical reports provide additional informationfor this edition of the Corps history. V Corps lineage files, as well as biographical sketches of V Corps commanding generals, areheld by the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D. C. The following selection from the many books and otherstudies about the general subject of U.S. Army operations since 1918 includes those most directly pertinent to the history of VCorps.

GeneralGanoe, William A. The History of the United States Army. Ashton, Maryland: Eric Lundberg, 1964 (reprint of 1942 edition

issued by Appleton Century Company, Inc.)Weigley, Russell F. History of the United States Army. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1967.Wilson, John B. Armies, Corps, Divisions and Separate Brigades. Army Lineage Series. Washington: USGPO, 1987.Wilson, John B., Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades. US Army Center of Military

History, Washington, DC, 1998.

World War I[American Battle Monuments Commission]. American Armies and Battlefields in Europe. Washington: USGPO, 1938.Berry, Henry. Make the Kaiser Dance. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978.Braim, Paul F. The Test of Battle: The American Expeditionary Forces in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign. Newark: University

of Delaware Press, 1987.Coffman, Edward M. The War to End all Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I. New York: Oxford University

Press, 1968.Cooke, James J. Pershing and His Generals: Command and Staff in the AEF. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997.Friedel, Frank. Over There: The Story of America�s First Great Overseas Crusade. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1964.Harbord, James G. The American Army in France, 1917-1919. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1936.Heller, Charles E., and William A. Stofft (eds.). America�s First Battles, 1776-1965. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,

1986.[Historical Division, War Department General Staff]. United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919. 17 Volumes. Wash-

ington: USGPO, 1948.[Historical Section, Army War College]. The Genesis of the American First Army. Washington: USGPO, 1945.[Historical Section, Army War College]. Order of Battle of the United States Land Forces in the World War. 5 volumes.

Washington: USGPO, 1937.Liggett, Hunter. Commanding an American Army: Recollections of the World War. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1925.Paschall, Rod. The Defeat of Imperial Germany 1917-1918. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books, 1989.Pershing, John J. My Experiences in the World War. 2 volumes. New York: Frederick J. Stokes, 1931.Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.Thomas, Shipley. The History of the A. E. F. New York: George H. Doran Co., 1920.[U. S. Army, American Expeditionary Force]. Final Report of Gen. John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief. Washington:

USGPO, 1920.[U. S. Army, American Expeditionary Force]. First Army. Summary of Operations, First Army, American Expeditionary

Forces, Aug. 9 to Nov. 11, 1918. N.p.: n.d.Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1977.Wilson, Dale E. Treat �em Rough! The Birth of American Armor, 1917-20. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1990.

Bibliography

49

PAGEPreface

I. V Corps in World War I, 1918-1919 .................................................................................................... 1The AEF is FormedV Corps Organized in FranceSt. Mihiel OffensiveMeuse-Argonne OffensiveEnd of the War and Return to the United States

II. Reactivation and Employment, 1940-1944 ....................................................................................... 7Reactivation of V CorpsThe Louisiana ManeuversDeployment to the European Theater

III. The War in Europe, 1944-1946 ...................................................................................................... 11The Normandy Landings and the Fight for Northern FranceBreakout and the Race Across FranceThe Siegfried Line Campaign and the Battle of the BulgeThe Rhineland and Central Europe Campaigns

IV. V Corps During the Cold War, 1946-1990 ......................................................................................... 18The Fort Bragg InterludeThe Move to GermanyDivisional ReorganizationsDefense of Western EuropeVigilance and Preparedness for War

V. V Corps After the End of the Cold War .............................................................................................. 26The Persian Gulf WarOperation Provide ComfortOperation Positive ForceOperation Provide PromiseOperation Restore HopeOperation Support HopeTask Force Able SentryChanges in Training, Organization, and Operational TechniquesThe Headquarters MoveOperations Joint Endeavor and Joint GuardThe Beirut Air Bridge and Other Aviation MissionsAir Defense DeploymentsOperation Victory HawkOperation Joint GuardianThe Assault Command PostExercise Victory StrikeA More Sophisticated Exercise DesignThe Immediate Ready ForceToward the Future

Appendix 1: V Corps Commanding Generals, Deputy Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff ............... 48

Appendix 2: Units Commanded by V Corps, 1918-2001 .......................................................................... 50

Appendix 3: V Corps Order of Battle, 1990 ........................................................................................... 51

Appendix 4: V Corps Order of Battle, 2000 ............................................................................................ 52

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 53

Table Of Contents

Order of Battle, 200014 Maneuver Battalions and Squadrons6 Maneuver Battalions and Squadronsstationed at Fort Riley, Kansas1 Battalion General Support andGeneral Support Reinforcing Artillery

1st Armored DivisionHeadquarters & Headquarters Company1st Brigade

1-36th Infantry1-37th Armor2-37th Armor

2nd Brigade1/6th Infantry2/6th Infantry1/35th Armor

3rd Brigade (Stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas)1/41st Infantry1/13th Armor2/70th Armor

4th (Aviation) Brigade1/501th Aviation (Attack)2/501th Aviation

Division Artillery2/3rd Field Artillery4/1st Field Artillery4/27th Field ArtilleryC/333rd Field Artillery Target Acquisition

BatteryA/94th Field Artillery (Multiple Launch

Rocket System)Division Support Command

501st Forward Support Battalion47th Forward Support Battalion125th Forward Support Battalion123rd Main Support Battalion127th DASB

Engineer Brigade16th Engineer Battalion40th Engineer Battalion70th Engineer Battalion (Located at Fort

Riley, Kansas)1/1st Cavalry1/4th Air Defense Artillery (Bradley/Avenger)501st Military Intelligence Battalion141st Signal Batalion501st Military Police Company69th Chemical CompanyBand

1st Infantry Division (Mechanized)Headquarters & Headquarters Company1st Brigade (Stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas)

1/16th Infantry1/34th Armor2/34th Armor


3rd Brigade2/2nd Infantry1/63rd Armor2/63rd Armor

4th (Aviation) Brigade1/1st Aviation (Attack)2/1st Aviation

Division Artillery1/7th Field Artillery1/5th Field Artillery1/6th Field Artillery1/33rd Field Artillery

Engineer Brigade9th Engineer Battalion1st Engineer Battalion (Located at Fort

Riley, Kansas)82nd Engineer Battalion

Division Support Command1st Forward Support Battalion201st Forward Support Battalion701st Main Support Battalion601st DASB

1/4th Cavalry4/3rd Air Defense Artillery (Bradley/Avenger)101st Military Intelligence Battalion121st Signal Battalion1st Military Police Company12th Signal CompanyBand

V Corps ArtilleryHeadquarters & Headquarters Battery41st Field Artillery Brigade

1/27th Field Artillery (Multiple LaunchRocket System)

3rd Corps Support Command16th Corps Support Group

18th Corps Support Battalion485th Corps Support Battalion

7th Corps Support Group71st Corps Support Battalion7/159th Aviation (Aviation Intermediate

Maintenance)181st Transportation Battalion

19th Corps Materiel Management Center27th Transportation BattalionSpecial Troops Battalion

11th Aviation Regiment12/6th Cavalry6/6th Cavalry

12th Aviation Brigade5/158th Aviation3/58th AviationF/159th Aviation

18th Military Police Brigade709th MP Battalion793rd MP Battalion

22nd Signal Brigade17th Signal Battalion32nd Signal Battalion440th Signal Battalion

30th Medical Brigade93rd Medical Battalion (DS)226th Medical Battalion (Log)421st Medical Battalion (Evac)67th Combat Support Hospital212th Surgical Hospital100th Medical Detachment (Vet HQ)79th Medical Detachment (Vet Small)21st Medical Detachment (Vet Small)72nd Medical Detachment (Vet Svc)64th Medical Detachment (Vet Svc)51st Medical Detachment (Vet Medicine)

69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade5/7th ADA (Patriot)6/52nd ADA (Patriot)

130th Engineer Brigade94th Engineer Battalion (Construction)54th Engineer Battalion565th Engineer Battalion

205th Military Intelligence Brigade1st MI Battalion (Aerial Exploitation)165th MI Battalion (TE)302nd MI Battalion (Operations)

Special Troops Battalion (Provisional)

Band

617th Air Support Operations Group(USAF)

1 This unit is usually referred to, althoughincorrectly, as the “11th Aviation Regiment.” ByMTOE, it is an aviation group and is so knownby HQ, DA.


V Corps Order of Battle, 2000

The AEF is formed

The American Expeditionary Force thatwent to France in 1917 and 1918 was asketchily trained army built around a coreof fewer than 130,000 pre-war regularsoldiers. National Guardsmen called toduty had a solid basis of military training,but the bulk of the AEF consisted ofvolunteersa and draftees that had neverbeen in uniform before. The UnitedStates Army was as inexperiencedinstitutionally as its soldiers wereindividually. Many regulars and NationalGuardsmen had recently served on theMexican border and in the PunitiveExpedition into Mexico in pursuit ofFrancisco “Pancho” Villa, but thoseoperations rarely involved maneuver ofunits larger than regiments. More often,they were independent troop andsquadron patrols and raids.

The Army’s other recent combatexperience was little more relevant. TheSpanish-American War had been brief,and although a Fifth Corps headquar-ters—a unit that was later disbanded andthat had no connection to the V Corps ofWorld War I and afterward—was fielded,the conditions were undemanding byWorld War I standards. Neither didsuppressing guerrilla warfare in thePhilippines or securing Americaninterests in China offer many usefullessons for senior commanders. The onlygeneral officer in the entire AEF that hadcommanded even a brigade in battle wasGen. John J. Pershing.

Thus, as the Army went to war, first-hand knowledge about commanding andadministering large troop units was ascarce commodity. The Army had brieflyexperimented with organizing andemploying a division in the yearsbetween the War with Spain and 1917, butthe last significant experience with corps

and armies was in theCivil War. Therefore,when General John J.Pershing took the AEFoverseas, his seniorcommanders really hadas much to learn aboutthe art of modern war asdid the newest soldier.

V Corpsorganizedin France

The nine corpsheadquarters called forin the General Organiza-tion Plan of the AEFwere an essential part ofPershing’s scheme tobuild and train anindependent AmericanArmy in France. Train-ing specific to theEuropean theater of warwas necessary not onlyto teach the soldiers thetactical lessons that the British andFrench had assimilated over four years oftrench warfare, but also to train them inusing weapons with which they had noexperience. Among other things, the AEFhad to learn about the employment offield and heavy artillery and aerial artilleryobservation techniques; gas warfare; theuse of the tank; and such weapons astrench mortars and heavy machine guns.

Furthermore, corps commanders andstaffs needed the opportunity to learnhow to command divisions that numberedaround 28,000 men each. By comparison,French and British divisions were abouthalf as large, and German divisionsroughly one-third the size of the Ameri-can division. After the AEF activated

corps headquarters, the first task of eachcorps was to receive and begin thetraining of divisions that would get theirbaptism of fire in a final phase of trainingin the trenches under British or Frenchcommand. Only after that training waswell advanced, and after Pershingactivated First Army to command them,would the corps assume a combat rôle.Ultimately, Pershing’s goal was to createthe First U.S. Army with five subordinateoperational corps, a total of about onemillion men. He intended each corps tocommand four combat divisions andcontrol two replacement and trainingdivisions, but that scheme soon provedunworkable, and the corps became apurely combat organization, with replace-

1❂ It Will Be Done

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

V Corps� first commanding general, Maj. Gen.William M. Wright, 1918.

V Corps in World War I

I❂

1918-1919

ment and training services handled by theAEF headquarters.

Implementing Pershing’s orders, Maj.Gen. William M. Wright organized andactivated V Corps headquarters atRemiremont between 7 and 12 July in1918. Pershing activated First Army amonth later, on 10 August, and AEForders assigned V Corps to First Army on19 August. The following day, Gen.Wright turned over command of the corpsto Maj. Gen. George H. Cameron, whobecame its first combat commander.Wright enjoyed the unusual distinction ofcommanding four different corps while inFrance, overseeing their organization andearly training, but of never commanding acorps in battle. In battle, he insteadcommanded a division, for a while underV Corps control.

The war was a relatively short one forV Corps, spanning the four months from12 July through the armistice on 11November 1918. The combat actionsencompassed the three campaigns of St.Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne, and Lorraine1918. In the course of those campaigns,the corps fought two major offensiveactions at St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne.

St. Mihiel offensive

Five weeks after its activation, V Corpsmoved into battle for the first time. On 19August, the corps relieved a Frenchcorps in the trenches along the westernside of the St. Mihiel salient in Lorraine.For almost a month, until 10 September, VCorps troops defended their sectorwithout incident, and with comparativelylight casualties. The V Corps sector wason the left, or northern, flank of a salientthat was 24 miles wide at its base and thatextended thirteen miles into allied lines.The salient had changed little in shape infour years, and combined three lines ofexcellent field fortifications with naturaldefensive advantages that the Germanshad steadily developed throughout thewar. An elaborate system of wireentanglements covered defenses thatranged from six to eight miles in depth,and that the French had unsuccessfullyattacked several times.

Because Pershing had been interestedin the salient almost from the beginning,


he had arranged for many Americandivisions to be assigned to the trenchesalong its face for their combat seasoning.Thus, although the American divisionscould only be characterized as green,they did have some familiarity with theterrain and the conditions they wouldeventually face in their first major attack.For the offensive, First Army commanded550,000 Americans and 110,000 Frenchtroops in four corps, in what was the firstentirely American-planned and -ledoperation of the war.

IV Corps (1st, 42nd, and 89th Divi-sions) and I Corps (2nd, 5th, 82nd, and90th Divisions), on the southern side ofthe salient, delivered the main attack, withII French Colonial Corps and V Corps(26th Division, 4th Division, and 15thFrench Colonial Division) makingsupporting attacks on the western andnorthern faces, respectively. To increasesurprise, Pershing limited the preliminaryartillery barrage to four hours, openingfire at 0100 on 12 September. At 0500, theinfantry of the main attack jumped off andmade good progress, seizing Thiacourt,Nonsard, and Bouillonville, the first-dayobjectives. At 0800, artillery fire lifted infront of V Corps infantry, which went

over the top and made similar progress.By 1900 on the first day, the corps hadattained objectives specified for thesecond day, and the troops pushed on totake terrain beyond Dampierre-aux-Boisand Dommartin by around midnight.

The Germans had naturally observedthe preparations for an attack, but did notexpect it to be made until the second halfof September. Economizing on forces, theGerman command had planned a with-drawal from the salient and had justbegun that withdrawal when the Ameri-can attacks commenced. Soon, reports ofrapidly withdrawing German units floodedin to Pershing’s headquarters, and heacted immediately to take advantage ofthe situation.

Responding to First Army orders, VCorps rushed its 26th Division souththrough the forests to Vigneulles, where itmet troops of the IV Corps’ 1st Divisionabout 0600 on 13 September, closing thesalient and cutting off the retreat of theGermans to their west. Minor operationsto take control of prisoners throughoutthe area continued until 16 September,when the American units turned over theline to a French corps and redeployed forthe next major offensive.

The St. Mihiel offensive.COURTESY AMERICAN ARMIES AND BATTLEFIELDS IN EUROPE

Order of Battle at the end of theCold War, 1990

23 Maneuver Battalions and Squadrons10 Battalions General Support andGeneral Support Reinforcing Artillery

3rd Armored DivisionHeadquarters & Headquarters Company1st Brigade

2/36th Infantry3/36 Infantry2/32nd Armor4/32nd Armor

2nd Brigade1/48th Infantry3/8th Cavalry4/8th Cavalry

3rd Brigade1/36 Infantry2/67th Armor4/67th Armor

Aviation Brigade3/12th Cavalry2/227th Attack Helicopter3/227th Attack HelicopterH/227th Combat Aviation CompanyG/227th General Support Company

Division Artillery2/3rd Field Artillery4/82nd Field ArtilleryF/333rd Field Artillery Target Acquisition

BatteryA/40th Field Artillery (Multiple Launch

Rocket System)Division Support Command

45th Forward Support Battalion54th Forward Support Battalion503rd Forward Support Battalion122nd Main Support BattalionI/227th TAM

23rd Engineer Battalion3/5th Air Defense Artillery143rd Signal Battalion533rd MI Battalion503rd MP Company22nd Chemical Company

8th Infantry Division (Mechanized)Headquarters & Headquarters Company1st Brigade

3/8th Infantry5/8th Infantry4/34th Armor1/68th Armor


3rd Brigade4/8th Infantry3/77th Armor5/77th Armor

Aviation Brigade3/7th Cavalry

2/4th Attack Helicopter3/4th Attack HelicopterH/4th Combat Aviation CompanyG/4th Support Company

Division Support Command118th Forward Support Battalion208th Forward Support Battalion202nd Forward Support Battalion708th Main Support BattalionI/4th TAM Company

Division Artillery6/29th Field Artillery4/29th Field Artillery (155 mm)2/29th Field Artillery (155 mm)C/333rd Field Artillery Target Acquisition

BatteryC/16th Artillery (Multiple Launch Rocket

System)12th Engineer Battalion5/3rd Air Defense Artillery8th Signal Battalion108th MI Battalion8th MP Company25th Chemical Company

11th Armored Cavalry Regiment1st Squadron2nd Squadron3rd Squadron4th (Aviation) SquadronSupport Squadron

V Corps ArtilleryHeadquarters & Headquarters Battery41st Field Artillery Brigade

1/32nd Field Artillery (Lance)4/18th Field Artillery (8-inch)4/77th Field Artillery (8-inch)2/75th Field Artillery (155 mm)1/27th Field Artillery (Multiple Launch

Rocket System)42nd Field Artillery Brigade

2/32nd Field Artillery (Lance)3/32nd Field Artillery (Lance)5/3rd Field Artillery (8-inch)2/20th Field Artillery (8-inch)4/7th Field Artillery (8-inch)

3rd Corps Support Command16th Support Group

8th Maintenance Battalion19th Maintenance Battalion85th Maintenance Battalion142nd Supply and Services Battalion

68th Medical GroupSpecial Troops Battalion181st Transportation Battalion15th Ordnance Battalion8/158th Aviation (Aviation Intermediate

Maintenance)

12th Aviation Brigade5/6th Cavalry5/158th Aviation

18th Military Police Brigade709th MP Battalion93rd MP Battalion

22nd Signal Brigade17th Signal Battalion32nd Signal Battalion440th Signal Battalion

130th Engineer Brigade54th Combat Engineer Battalion317th Combat Engineer Battalion547th Combat Engineer Battalion568th Engineer Company (Combat Support

Equipment)814th Engineer Company (Assault Float

Bridge)516th Engineer Company (Medium Girder

Bridge)8591st Civil Support Group (attached)

205th Military Intelligence Brigade1st MI Battalion (Aerial Exploitation)165th MI Battalion (TEB HVY)302nd MI Battalion (CEWI)

5th Personnel Group52nd Personnel Services Company55th Personnel Services Company

177th Personnel Services Company178th Personnel Services Company198th Personnel Services Company258th Personnel Services Company

259th Personnel Services Company261st Personnel Services Company368th Personnel Services Company378th Personnel Services Company257th Personnel Services Company400th Personnel Services Company520th Personnel Services Company569th Personnel Services Company574th Personnel Services Company575th Personnel Services Company64th Replacement Detachment

5th Finance Group3rd Finance Services Unit8th Finance Services Unit14th Finance Services Unit17th Finance Services Unit22nd Finance Services Unit39th Finance Services Unit78th Finance Services Unit105th Finance Services Unit106th Finance Services Unit117th Finance Services Unit201st Finance Services Unit501st Finance Services Unit503rd Finance Services Unit

Special Troops Battalion (Provisional)

Band

47

V Corps Order of Battle, 1990

In terms of numbers, the results of theSt. Mihiel offensive were impressive.American attacks had eliminated a salientof some 200 square miles, captured 16,000prisoners, and taken 443 cannon, at a costof 7,000 casualties to the four allied corpsinvolved. More important than the purelymilitary results, was the fact that elimina-tion of the salient restored use of anumber of important railroad links thatGerman occupation of the ground haddisrupted. In terms of American battleprowess, however, the results weredebatable. The Americans and Frenchoutnumbered the German defenders ofthe salient by a factor of 46 to one.Moreover, the Germans were disorganizedand in the process of withdrawing whenFirst Army attacked, and the final line theoffensive achieved coincided very nearlywith the new defensive line the Germanshad intended to occupy after withdrawingfrom the area. Gen. Hunter Liggett,commanding I Corps, remarked that the“effect on the enemy, our own, and alliedmorale was all that we had hoped for.” Hequalified his satisfaction with the resultsof the battle by adding that “in our pridewe should not forget that it had been noeven fight.” As V Corps marched to itsassembly areas for the forthcomingoffensive in the Argonne, however, ittook with it soldiers who had a successfulbattle behind them and who had learnedthe techniques of breaking throughelaborately protected trench systems.

Meuse-Argonneoffensive

Following the St. Mihiel operation, VCorps moved a short distance to thenorthwest —the Meuse-Argonne sector— and took up positions near Verdun-sur-Meuse. While the St. Mihiel offen-sive was an American operation, theMeuse-Argonne attack in which V Corpswas about to participate was a generaloffensive involving both the Americanand French armies and planned byMarshal Ferdinand Foch, the alliedsupreme commander. The intention wasto push the Germans as far back towardthe Rhine River as possible, depleting theGerman reserves and preparing for thefinal offensive that Foch considered

3

ABOVE: The Meuse-Argonne offensive from 26 September to 4 Oc-tober 1918.TOP: Infantrymen from V Corps� 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infan-try Division, fighting in the Meuse-Argonne.

COURTESY AMERICAN ARMIES AND BATTLEFIELDS IN EUROPE

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

Units Commanded By V Corps

This list includes divisions and regimental maneuver units assigned to V Corps control. During wartime, the corpscommanded an average of three to five divisions at any one time. Army and field army orders often shifted divisionsamong corps, in response to the prevailing tactical situation. The normal Cold War era organization was one armoreddivision, one mechanized infantry division, and one armored cavalry regiment. Changes in V Corps organization at theend of the Cold War resulted from deployments of units to Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and fromreorganization incident to the drawdown of the Army. V Corps has always had a Corps Artillery organization assigned,and has also commanded a wide range of supporting arms and services of regimental, brigade, and smaller-sized units.

World War I, 1918-19191st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”)2nd Infantry Division (“Indianhead”)3rd Infantry Division (“Marne Division”)4th Infantry Division (“Ivy Division”)26th Infantry Division (“Yankee”)32nd Infantry Division (“Red Arrow”)33rd Infantry Division42nd Infantry Division (“Rainbow”)77th Infantry Division (“Statue of Liberty”)79th Infantry Division (“Lorraine”)89th Infantry Division (“Middle West”)91st Infantry Division (“Wild West”)15th (French) Colonial Infantry Division

Interwar years, 1922-1924(Organized Reserve Headquarters)5th Infantry Division (“Red Diamond”)(Regular Army, Inactive)37th Infantry Division (“Buckeye”)38th Infantry Division (“Cyclone”)

Interwar years, 1940-194132nd Infantry Division (“Red Arrow”)34th Infantry Division (“Red Bull”)37th Infantry Division (“Buckeye”)38th Infantry Division (“Cyclone”)106th Cavalry Regiment

World War II, 1941-19461st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”)2nd Infantry Division (“Indianhead”)4th Infantry Division (“Ivy Division”)5th Infantry Division (“Red Diamond”)8th Infantry Division (“Pathfinder”)9th Infantry Division (“Old Reliables”)28th Infantry Division (“Keystone”)29th Infantry Division (“Blue and Gray”)30th Infantry Division (“Old Hickory”)35th Infantry Division (“Santa Fe”)69th Infantry Division78th Infantry Division (“Lightning”)80th Infantry Division (“Blue Ridge”)82nd Airborne Division (“All American”)90th Infantry Division (“Tough ‘Ombres”)97th Infantry Division99th Infantry Division106th Infantry Division2nd Armored Division (“Hell on Wheels”)3rd Armored Division (“Spearhead”)5th Armored Division (“Victory”)7th Armored Division (“Lucky Seventh”)9th Armored Division (“Remagen”)16th Armored Division102nd Cavalry Group (Mechanized)2nd (French) Armored Division

Fort Bragg, 1946-195182nd Airborne Division (“All American”)

Cold War, 1951-19901st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”)4th Infantry Division (“Ivy Division”)8th Infantry Division (“Pathfinder”)10th Infantry Division2nd Armored Division (“Hell on Wheels”)3rd Armored Division (“Spearhead”)11th Armored Cavalry Regiment(“The Blackhorse Regiment”)14th Armored Cavalry Regiment

Post-Cold War, 1990-present1st Infantry Division (“Big Red One”)3rd Infantry Division (“Marne Division”)8th Infantry Division (“Pathfinder”)1st Armored Division (“Old Ironsides”)3rd Armored Division (“Spearhead”)2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment(“Second Dragoons”)11th Armored Cavalry Regiment(“The Blackhorse Regiment”)5th (German) Panzer Division(in the Bi-National Corps)13th (German) Panzer Division(in the Bi-National Corps)


necessary in the spring of 1919.The First Army’s mission was to attack

northeastward between the ArgonneForest and the Meuse River in thedirection of Sedan. Foch expected that,even if the Americans did not advance asfar as the plan called for, their attackwould force the Germans to withdrawtroops from other portions of the front toreinforce the Argonne sector. TheAmerican attack was also directed againstthe German lines of communication, andaimed at cutting the two importantrailways that ran northward from the areaaround Metz and paralleled the front.Because the Germans used the railroadsto move troops laterally along the frontand to supply their divisions, Fochbelieved that cutting the rail lines wouldinevitably force the German army towithdraw, perhaps as far back as theRhine.

Appreciating the importance of thearea, the German high command laidcareful defensive plans that exploited thedifficult terrain of the Argonne Forest,where numerous east-west ridgesprovided strong, natural defensivepositions. The Germans organized theirdefenses into four lines. In their sector,the Americans outnumbered the Germansby about six to one, but the German armyhad up to 15 full-strength divisions readyto bring forward if necessary. Thedefenders also had the advantages ofcarefully prepared positions with goodobservation and fields of fire.

The attack began on 26 September. Atotal of 2,700 guns fired an artillerypreparation from 0230 through 0530. At

4

COURTESY WORLD WAR I PHOTO ARCHIVE

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

ABOVE: V Corps logistical trains during the Meuse-Argonneoffensive.LEFT: Renault light tanks supported the V Corps attack inthe Meuse-Argonne.

0530, the guns then began to fire a rollingbarrage, behind which the infantryfollowed closely as it advanced into theGerman defenses. V Corps was the centerof the First Army line and commandedthree relatively inexperienced divisions,the 92nd, 37th, and 79th. Pershingplanned to have I Corps, on the left, andIII Corps, to the right, outflank the strongGerman defenses at Montfaucon, aboutthree miles behind the front line trace.While the other two corpscut the German positionoff, V Corps

was to capture it. First Army would thenuse the heights at Montfaucon as anartillery position to support the secondday’s attack through the Hindenburg Lineto seize Cunel and Romagne, both townsin the V Corps sector.

While the attack began well, and thetwo adjacent corps advanced accordingto plan, V Corps encountered difficultiesalmost immediately. The corps had only asingle road leading to the front to handleall the troop movements and traffic ofartillery and support units, a factor thatcomplicated operations. Hitting heavyresistance, the inexperienced divisionscould not reach Montfaucon, and thatfailure retarded the whole First Armyplan. The corps finally took its first-dayobjectives on day three of the attack,primarily as a result of the brilliantfighting of the 91st Division, but the slowpace of the advance gave the Germanstime to bring reinforcements up to thefront, with six infantry divisions arrivingby 28 September to bolster the defenses.Although an unfortunate developmentfor First Army, that fulfilled part of Foch’sintent of drawing German troops awayfrom other portions of the line.

After a brief pause, during which VCorps rotated its divisions out of the lineand received the veteran 1st, 3rd, and32nd Divisions, with the 42nd Division incorps reserve, the attack resumed on 4October. The attack went well for the firstfour days, with V Corps advancingtoward Romagne in coordination with IIICorps, but again the pace slowed, andFoch ordered another pause on 11

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

Maj. Gen. Charles P. Summerall,V Corps commander during theMeuse-Argonne offensive, laterbecame Chief of Staff of theArmy.

V CORPS DEPUTY COMMANDERS

The position of deputy commandinggeneral was first authorized under Table ofOrganization and Equipment 52-2H (28September 1974), but V Corps did not or-ganize under that TOE until 21 May 1977.Until that time it was under TOE 52-1H.

Cold War eraMaj. Gen. William L. Webb, Jr.15 January 1978-9 December 1978Maj. Gen. Charles C. Rogers1 December 1978-9 July 1980Maj. Gen. Philip R. Feir16 September 1980-23 July 1981Maj. Gen. John W. Woodmansee, Jr.23 July 1981-10 June 1982Maj. Gen. Stephen E. Nichols1 July 1982-31 October 1983Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Curry1 November 1983-15 December 1984Maj. Gen. Lincoln Jones III25 March 1985-16 July 1987Maj. Gen. Jack. D. Woodall20 August 1987-3 May 1988Maj. Gen. Donald E. Eckelbarger25 May 1988-9 August 1990

Post-Cold war eraMaj. Gen. Jay M. Garner9 August 1990-13 December 1991Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Rutherford21 January 1992-17 June 1992Maj. Gen. Jarrett J. Robertson17 June 1992-23 February 1993Maj. Gen. Henry A. Kievenaar, Jr.18 May 1993-23 September 1994Maj. Gen. Walter H. Yates26 September 1994-24 September 1996Maj. Gen. Gregory A. Rountree23 September 1996-28 August 1998Maj. Gen. Julian Burns28 August 1998-16 August 1999Maj. Gen. Reginal Graham Clemmons16 August 1999- 1 November 2000Maj. Gen. Robert F. Dees1 November 2000 -

V CORPS CHIEFS OF STAFF

World War IBrig. Gen. Wilson B. Burtt12 July 1918 - 10 February 1919

Reactivation and World War IICol. Walter S. DrysdaleJune - August 1940

Col. George M. PeekAugust 1940 - October 1941Col. John H. KnuebelNovember 1941-June 1942Col. Karl E. HenionJuly 1942 - December 1944Col. Stanhope MasonJanuary 1945 - September 1945

Cold War eraCol. Thomas J. FordOctober-December 1945Col. Wilhelm P. JohnsonJanuary-May 1946Brig. Gen. Orlando Ward7 June 1946 - 15 November 1946Col. Paul J. BlackNovember 1946 - December 1947Brig. Gen. Cornelius E. RyanJanuary 1948-December 1949Brig. Gen. Homer W. KieferJanuary-December 1950Brig. Gen. Peerson MenoherJanuary-December 1951Brig. Gen. George W. Read, Jr.January -March 1952Brig. Gen. Joseph H. HarperMarch 1952-April 1953Brig. Gen. Raymond E. BellJuly 1953-September 1955Brig. Gen. Marion W. Schewe6 September 1955-16 January 1956Col. William E. DePuyJanuary-June 1956Brig. Gen. William M. BreckenridgeJuly-December 1956Brig. Gen. Joseph W. StilwellJanuary 1957-June 1959Brig. Gen. David W. GrayJuly-December 1959Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Bastian, Jr.July 1960-June 1961Brig. Gen. Frank T. MildrenJuly 1961-June 1962Brig. Gen. Michael S. DavisonJuly 1962-March 1963Brig. Gen. Roderick WetherillApril 1963-December 1964Brig. Gen. Julian J. Ewell2 June 1965 - 15 May 1966Brig. Gen. Olinto M. Barsanti16 May 1966-29 September 1966Brig. Gen. Franklin M. Davis, Jr.30 September 1966-16 July 1967Col. Robert M. Tarbox17 July 1967-17 September 1967Col. Jack. F. Belford18 September 1967-16 October 1967

Col. Jack A. Rogers17 October 1967-9June 1968Brig. Gen. Marshall B. Garth3 September 1969-26 March 1970Col. Thomas H. Tarver27 Mar 1970-30 June 1970Col. Thomas W. Bowen1 July 1970-25 April 1971Brig. Gen. Harold R. Aaron26 April 1971-28 August 1972Brig. Gen. Richard J. Eaton29 August 1972-30 June 1974Brig. Gen. Daniel W. French1 July 1974-30 June 1975Brig. Gen. Jerry R. Curry1 July 1975-25 April 1976Brig. Gen. James H. Merryman26 April 1976-June 1977Brig. Gen. John L. Ballantyne II2 January 1977-15 June 1979Brig. Gen. Joe S. Owens23 February 1979-28 September 1980Brig. Gen. Joseph L. Nagel22 July 1983-24 August 1984Brig. Gen. Cecil N. Noely7 September 1984-14 October 1985Brig. Gen. Ross W. Crossley15 October 1985 - July 1988Brig. Gen. Timothy J. Grogan1 August 1988-5 October 1989

Post-Cold War eraBrig. Gen. James R. Harding5 November 1989-9 June 1991Brig. Gen. James S. Dickey10 June 1991-10 July 1992Brig. Gen. Henry A. Kievenaar, Jr.3 August 1992-17 May 1993Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs17 May 1993-28 August 1994Brig. Gen. George H. Harmeyer28 August 1994-25 June 1995Brig. Gen. George W. Casey, Jr.3 October 1995-17 August 1996Brig. Gen. B. B. Bell23 August 1996-30 May 1997Col. (P) Raymond T. Odierno21 July 1997 - 15 August 1998Brig. Gen. William H. Brandenburg, Jr.16 August 1998 – 21 June 1999Brig. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes21 June 1999 – 11 August 2000Brig. Gen. Randal M. Tieszen11 August 2000 – 2 August 2001Brig. Gen. Kenneth J. Quinlan27 August 2001 -

45

V CORPS COMMANDERS

World War IMaj. Gen. William M. Wright12 July 1918 to 20 August 1918Maj. Gen. George H. Cameron21 August 1918 to 11 October 1919Maj. Gen. Charles P. Summerall12 October 1918 to 2 May 1919

Reactivation and World War IIMaj. Gen. Campbell B. Hodges20 October 1940 to 16 March 1941Maj. Gen. Edmund L. Daley17 March 1941 to 19 January 1942Maj. Gen. William S. Key10 January 1942 to 19 May 1942Maj. Gen. Russell P. Hartle20 May 1942 to 14 July 1943Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow15 July 1943 to 17 September 1944Maj. Gen. Edward H. Brooks18 September 1944 to 4 October 1944Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow5 October 1944 to 14 January 1945Maj. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner15 January 1945 to 11 November 1945

Cold War eraMaj. Gen. Frank W. Milburn12 November 1945 to 6 June 1946Maj. Gen. Orlando Ward7 June 1946 to 15 November 1946Maj. Gen. S. LeRoy Irwin16 November 1946 to 31 October 1948

Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge1 November 1948 to 31 August 1950Lt. Gen. John W. Leonard1 September 1950 to 18 June 1951Brig. Gen. Boniface Campbell19 June 1951 to 1 August 1951Maj. Gen. John E. Dahlquist2 August 1951 to 4 March 1953Maj. Gen. Ira P. Swift5 March 1953 to 17 June 1954Lt. Gen. Charles E. Hart18 June 1954 to 28 March 1956Lt. Gen. Lemuel Mathewson29 March 1956 to 16 August 1957Lt. Gen. F. W. Farrell17 August 1957 to 31 March 1959Lt. Gen. Paul D. Adams1 Aprl 1959 to 30 September 1960Lt. Gen. Frederic J. Brown1 October 1960 to 28 August 1961Lt. Gen. John K. Waters29 August 1961 to 14 May 1962Lt. Gen. J. H. Michaelis15 May 1962 to 14 July 1963Lt. Gen. Creighton W. Abrams15 July 1963 to 3 August 1964Lt. Gen. James H. Polk1 September 1964 to 27 February 1966Lt. Gen. George R. Mather28 February 1966 to 31 May 1967Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Boyle1 July 1967 to 31 July 1969Lt. Gen. C. E. Hutchin, Jr.15 September 1969 to 23 January 1971Lt. Gen. Willard Pearson14 February 1971 to 31 May 1973

Lt. Gen. William R. Desobry1 June 1973 to 24 August 1975Lt. Gen. Robert L. Fair25 August 1975 to 4 January 1976Lt. Gen. Donn A. Starry16 February 1976 to 17 June 1977Lt. Gen. Sidney B. Berry19 July 1977 to 27 February 1980Lt. Gen. Willard W. Scott, Jr.27 February 1980 to 15 July 1981Lt. Gen. Paul S. Williams, Jr.15 July 1981 to 29 May 1984Lt. Gen. Robert L. Wetzel29 May 1984 to 23 June 1986Lt. Gen. Colin L. Powell23 June 1986 to 1 January 1987Maj. Gen. Lincoln Jones III1 January 1987 to 23 March 1987Lt. Gen. John W. Woodmansee, Jr.23 March 1987 to 21 July 1989Lt. Gen. George A. Joulwan7 August 1989 to 9 November 1990

Post-Cold War eraLt. Gen. David M. Maddox9 November 1990 to 17 June 1992Lt. Gen. Jerry R. Rutherford17 June 1992 to 6 April 1995Lt. Gen. John N. Abrams6 April 1995 to 31 July 1997Lt. Gen. John W. Hendrix31 July 1997 to 16 November 1999Lt. Gen. James C. Riley16 November 1999 – 18 July 2001Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace18 July 2001 to

Command Roster

The History of V Corps ❂44 5❂ It Will Be Done

October. At that point, Pershing replacedCameron with Maj. Gen. Charles P.Summerall as corps commander andreshuffled divisions, giving V Corps theexperienced 42nd and 32nd Divisions,with the 89th Division as a reserve.

Summerall was the right choice tocommand the corps at a difficult moment.An artillery officer with a considerablereputation for innovation and aggressive-ness, Summerall had previously com-manded the 1st Field Artillery Brigade ofthe 1st Infantry Division in the firstAmerican attack of the war at Cantigny, inthe summer of 1918, and then hadcommanded the 1st Infantry Division.Disdainful of enemy fire himself, heexpected similar behavior of his com-manders and staff and was quick torelieve any officer he saw as incompetent,hesitant or shy under fire. Summerall haddeveloped infantry-artillery coordinationto a fine art, within the limitations of thecommunications available in 1918, andhad already demonstrated that he was

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

A monument honoring V Corps soldiers who fought and died in Franceduring World War I was erected near Mouzon, France in November1918. The monument, later damaged by fighting in World War II, wasrebuilt and rededicated in 2001.

one of the most brilliant tactical com-manders in the AEF. When he tookcommand, Summerall promptly reorga-nized the artillery support corps providedthe infantry divisions, and the next attackon 21 October overran the Germandefenses around Cunel and broke thethird German defensive line, theKriemhilde Stellung. First Army was atthat point poised to attack the finalGerman line.

The final phase of the offensive beganon 1 November. V Corps launched the89th Division and the seasoned 1st and2nd Divisions toward the Freya Stellung,the final German defenses before Sedan,and broke through by noon. The Germanarmy began a general withdrawal with theAmericans in close pursuit. On the nightof 6 to 7 November, 1st Division of VCorps captured the heights in front ofSedan, opening the way for the XVIIFrench Corps to capture the city. Duringthe morning of 8 November, the corpsbegan crossing the Meuse River and

continued to advance until the cessationof hostilities on 11 November.

End of the war andreturn to the United

States

Throughout the war, V Corps operatedunder close control of First Army andsuffered its due proportion of that Army’s117,000 casualties. Some allied observerscommented that Americans took unduelosses because they did not properlylearn their tactical lessons from the Britishand French. Criticisms notwithstanding,the corps emerged from World War I withthe appellation “Victory Corps,” inrecognition of its hard fighting and therapid advances it made during the lastphase of the Meuse-Argonne offensive.In the years between the two WorldWars, professional soldiers carefullystudied the problems American forcesencountered in 1918, however, and oneresult of the AEF experience was that asmall, but influential number of officerslaid the groundwork for the mechanizedand armored style of war that the U.S.Army waged between 1942 and 1945.

Officers assigned to V Corps had somepersonal experience that helped them tounderstand later developments in themechanization of military forces. In boththe St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonneoffensives, V Corps attacks were sup-ported by American armored battalionscommanded by then-Col. George S.Patton. Summerall’s practice of sendinghowitzers forward to support the assaulttroops presaged the development ofmotorized artillery to accompany theinfantry. Especially in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, V Corps leaderslearned something about developingplans that included tactical air supportfrom the new Air Service. Finally, mobileantiaircraft artillery, a new arm of servicedeveloped in 1918, accompanied V Corpsunits and protected river crossings,artillery, supply depots, and headquartersfrom German air attack.

Another important aspect of theAmerican experience in World War I wasthat officers gained some understandingof the cost of modern warfare and timeneeded to develop the industrial base for


total war. The War Department GeneralStaff estimated that World War I had costthe United States an average of $1 millionper hour for the 25 months of mobiliza-tion, fighting, and immediate post-waroccupation duty. Staff officers learned tothink differently about costs, since payfor officers and men accounted for only13 percent of that total of $22 billion, anamount equivalent to the costs ofoperating the United States governmentfor the entire period from 1791 through1914.

At the individual level, many of theofficers who commanded V Corps and itssubordinate divisions during World WarII gained their battle experience in France,many of them in V Corps, during the FirstWorld War. Two of those men wereparticularly significant. Clarence R.Huebner stood out as one of the bestcombat leaders in the AEF. Enlisted forsix years in the 18th Infantry before thewar, Huebner obtained a commission andcommanded at every level in the 26thInfantry from platoon through regiment.At the front from November 1917 throughthe end of the war, Huebner fought inevery major action and was decoratedwith two Distinguished Service Crossesfor valor and the Distinguished ServiceMedal for leadership. He was twicewounded in action. A temporary lieuten-ant colonel at the end of the war, Huebneroutranked all of his contemporariescommissioned in 1917. Leonard T. Gerow,six years Huebner’s senior, did not havethe opportunity to command in battleduring World War I. Instead, he servedon the staff of the AEF. Despite havingno opportunity for distinction, he alsoreached the temporary rank of lieutenant

colonel. Later becoming one of theArmy’s foremost staff officers, Gerowbecame chief of the War Plans Division ofthe War Department General Staffimmediately before the Second WorldWar. During World War II, those twoofficers commanded V Corps.

Many other officers who later com-manded divisions under V Corps controlin World War II had their first taste ofbattle in World War I as well. JohnLeonard, who commanded the 9thArmored Division, was an infantrymanwho had marched into Mexico with the6th Infantry in the Punitive Expedition of1916 and who commanded the 3rdBattalion of that regiment in the St. Mihieland Meuse-Argonne battles, earning aDistinguished Service Cross and beingwounded in action. Edward Brooks, whocommanded the 2nd Armored Division,served in the 76th Field Artillery in WorldWar I and was also decorated with theDistinguished Service Cross. Louis Craigcommanded 9th Infantry Division. InWorld War I, he served both in the lineand on division, corps, and army staffs,took part in four campaigns and earnedforeign awards that included the BritishDistinguished Service Order, the FrenchChevalier of the Legion of Honor andCroix de Guerre with Palm, and theBelgian Order of the Crown of Leopoldand Croix de Guerre. Charles Helmickcommanded V Corps Artillery in WorldWar II, including the decisive action atthe Battle of the Bulge, where CorpsArtillery orchestrated the fires of 37 fieldartillery battalions at Elsenborn Ridge. InWorld War I, he commanded Battery B,15th Field Artillery, was later regimentalexecutive officer, fought on the Marne

and at Soissons, and won two SilverStars. Paul Baade commanded the 35thInfantry Division in World War II. In theFirst World War, he was a companycommander in the 332nd Infantry of the81st Infantry Division in the last monthsof the war. Charles Gerhardt commanded29th Infantry Division during the assaulton Normandy in World War II. He wentto France in 1918 with the 3rd CavalryRegiment, and was at the front as aide-de-camp to Maj. Gen. William M. Wright in VCorps, VII Corps, and in the 89th InfantryDivision. Robert Hasbrouck, whocommanded 7th Armored Division, wentto France in 1918 with the 62nd CoastArtillery. Leland Hobbs, who commandedthe workhorse, and very successful, 30thInfantry Division, arrived in France in1918 with the 11th Infantry Division justin time for the armistice.

V Corps remained in Europe from thearmistice through March 1919, respon-sible for training the divisions that wereto serve in the American Third Army,assigned to occupation duty in theRhineland. In March, the corps stooddown, as the Army inactivated all itscorps headquarters, and on 2 May, VCorps was demobilized at Camp Funston,Kansas. Two years later, on 29 July 1921,V Corps was among the headquartersreconstituted as inactive units in theArmy Reserve. The corps was brieflyactive at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, from 17February 1922 through 15 November1924, and then remained in the activereserves. On 1 October 1933, the WarDepartment allotted V Corps to theRegular Army, although the headquartersremained on the inactive list in the tinyinterwar service.

43

Soldiers: Our Heritage,Our Greatest Resource

PHOTO BY BILL ROCHE


Toward the future

In 2001, V Corps found itself with a com-pletely new set of missions, far removed

from the mission it accomplished during theCold War. Emphasizing the kind of agility and

flexibility that characterized Gen. CrosbieSaint�s 1989 vision of the �capable corps,� V Corps remainedpoised to respond to crises anywhere in the hemisphere. Theplanning for regional operations throughout the EUCOM area ofresponsibility prompted the corps to adopt an additional and in-formal motto that V Corps was �an ocean closer� in case of emer-gency.As 2001 drew to a close, V Corps was sobered by the events of

September 11, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Towersin New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., causinggreat destruction and loss of life. As a consequence, the corps,along with the rest of the Army in Europe, enacted a series ofstringent security measures to protect its soldiers, families, andinstallations and prepared itself to carry out its part in the war onterrorism that had just begun. Having taken all of those precau-tions, however, V Corps proceeded with its normal regimen ofexercises and other military activities to maintain its proficiencyfor combat anywhere in the region and at any point along thespectrum of conflict.Thus, the 83rd anniversary of its activation found the Victory

Corps still in Europe, where it was created in 1918. After twoWorld Wars, decades of Cold War and threat of another world war,the first hectic decade of what some called peace, and the open-ing of an entirely different sort of war against international ter-rorism, the corps remained where it has spent the greatest partof its organizational life, �an ocean closer� to potential troubleand prepared to do what is required of it. In 2001, as in 1918and all the intervening years, the Victory Corps remained readyto fulfill its motto . . .

It Will Be Done!

7

Reactivation ofV Corps

V Corps reentered the active rolls of theArmy because of the growing threat of war.During the two years between the Germaninvasion of Poland in September 1939 andthe Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, theArmy conducted a partial mobilization toprepare itself for the war many fearedwould eventually involve the UnitedStates. By the summer of 1940, the Germanarmy’s rapid conquest of France and theGerman Luftwaffe’s aerial assault on theUnited Kingdom heightened concernsabout American preparedness. Congres-sional reluctance to institute a peacetimedaft was overcome in August when thesummer encampments of the NationalGuard revealed many deficiencies in whatwas theoretically a combat-ready force.

As the Army gradually expandedthrough the working of the newly enactedSelective Service law and through bringingthe National Guard under federal command,additional headquarters became necessaryto train the growing number of troops.When he became chief of staff of GeneralHeadquarters of the Army, Lt. Gen. LesleyJ. McNair immediately recommended, andthen supervised, the activation of addi-tional field armies and corps to train thedraftees and National Guardsmen inductedinto federal service. Thus, War Departmentgeneral orders activated V Corps at CampBeauregard, near Alexandria, Louisiana, on20 October 1940, and assigned it to ThirdU.S. Army, then under command of Lt. Gen.Walter Krueger.

The Louisianamaneuvers

Throughout the winter and spring of

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

ABOVE: Louisiana Maneuvers, 1941.TOP: Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, V Corps headquarters in 1940 and1941.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

Reactivation and Employment

II❂

1940-1944

8

1940-1941, Maj. Gen. Campbell B.Hodges’ new corps supervised thetraining of the 32nd, 34th, 37th, and 38thInfantry Divisions, all National Guardunits, conducting numerous smallexercises and then maneuver with largerformations as the regiments and divisionsgradually became more tactically profi-cient. In March 1941, Hodges retired fromactive duty and handed over command toMaj. Gen. Edmund L. Daley. In one of hisfirst acts after assuming command, Daleygave the corps its motto, “It will bedone!” In selecting the motto, Daleyintended to emphasize that V Corpswould routinely carry out the mostdifficult of missions as a matter of course.

The culmination of the corps’ pre-wartraining came during the General Head-quarters Maneuvers of 1941, which pittedKrueger’s Third Army against Lt. Gen.Ben Lear’s Second Army. The 1941maneuvers, involving more than 472,000soldiers, were the largest that the Armyhad ever conducted to that time. Gen.George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff,called them a “combat college for troopleading,” and announced that he pre-ferred for mistakes to be made in maneu-vers, rather than in battle. As eventsturned out, the maneuvers fulfilledMarshall’s expectations about mistakes,but they also gave the Army a chance totest both its tactical assumptions and theabilities of its recently promoted youngmajors, lieutenant colonels, and colonelsas tactical commanders.

While other units were arriving inLouisiana, Krueger took his Third Armyto the field for a final round of corpstraining, maneuvering V Corps and VIIICorps against IV Corps to practice thebattle he expected against Lear’s SecondArmy. Then he marched his 10 divisionsinto the assembly area to the north ofLake Charles. The maneuvers themselveswere a triumph for Third Army and for theman generally credited with devising itsplan for battle, then-Col. Dwight D.Eisenhower. During Phase I (15 to 18September), V Corps was the pivot uponwhich Krueger maneuvered IV and VIIICorps in an attempt to trap Second Armyagainst the Red River betweenNatchitoches and Alexandria.

The corps, commanding the 32nd,34th, and 37th Divisions and the 106thCavalry Regiment, made a textbook

advance to seize crossings over the RedRiver and then turned to march furthernorth as Krueger modified his plan toallow for Second Army’s deployments. InPhase II (21 to 29 September), the corpsconfronted Second Army’s VII Corpswhile the 2nd Armored, 2nd Infantry, and1st Cavalry Divisions enveloped the leftflank of Second Army, establishing thereputations both of the 2nd ArmoredDivision and of its commander, George S.Patton.

A plodding infantry organization whencompared to the few, and highly publi-cized, new mechanized and armored units,

V Corps had no such moments ofdistinction, but the maneuvers werenonetheless important to the corps, bothas tests of its capabilities and as trainingfor its leaders and soldiers. Unfortu-nately, many of those benefits were short-lived. Before long, Marshall decided toreplace both senior commanders—some31 generals in the two armies—and manyoverage company and field grade officers,particularly in the National Guarddivisions, with younger men. Nor did thedivisions themselves benefit from theincreased proficiency the maneuversproduced, because they were later

When Maj. Gen. Edmund L. Daley assumedcommand of V Corps in March 1941, he wanted a mottofor the corps that stressed

that V Corps would carryout the most difficult

missioins as a matter ofcourse. His slogan: �It Will

Be Done!�

The motto has beenincorporated into the V

corps crest, approved in1969 for wear by members

of the corps.

The design is basedupon the authorized sleeve

insignia for V Corps. Thefirst �demi fleur-de-lis�

capping the design repre-sents France, where the corps was activated in 1918.The three stars commemorate the Lorraine, St. Mihiel

and Meuse-Argonne campaigns the corps fought induring World War I.

The second fleur-de-lis represents World War II.The five radial lines represent the Central Europe,Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland, Northern France andNormandy campaigns, with the line capped by the

arrowhead symbolizing the assault landing at Normandy.

�IT WILL BE DONE!�

U.S. ARMY PHOTO


enhancement module designed to providemobile command and control for taskforce or battalion tactical command post.

The corps planned a process by whichthe brigades of the 1st Armored and 1stInfantry Divisions could establish anorderly rotation of the IRF mission andinstituted a series of emergency deploy-ment readiness exercises in conjunction

with SETAF to test and hone the deploy-ment concept. The first test came in June2000, when Meigs directed an evaluationof the IRF. Soldiers from the SouthernEuropean Task Force’s 173rd AirborneBrigade and 1st Armored Divisiondeployed as an IRF in C-130s and UH-60s to Hungary as part of ExerciseLariat Response. Two months later,

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

A V Corps Military Policeman prepares to throw a grenade into a bunker in training at Grafenwoehr,Germany.

USAREUR deployed elements of 1stInfantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 18thInfantry, and 1st Military Police Companywhen it sent the Medium Ready Companyto Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, to augmentTask Force Falcon units involved in thepeacekeeping operation there. Thecompany remained in Kosovo just over amonth before returning to Germany.

40

could consider cooperation acrossdivision boundaries and the other issuesinvolved with flank units. At a morefundamental level, however, UrgentVictory ’01 offered a scenario moreattuned the kind of situation that V Corpscould actually encounter. It began as amovement to contact exercise with allunits in motion as the exercise started,and developed into a meeting engage-ment in which units had far less preciseintelligence about the enemy forces thanwas characteristic for the WFX. Giventhe experiences corps units and otherelements of the U.S. armed forces hadundergone in Balkans operations, Rileybelieved that less information about theenemy was more realistic.

Innovative in many ways, ExerciseUrgent Victory ’01 was a success for VCorps. The exercise design providedmany opportunities for leaders to try outtactical ideas and develop the situationwithin their understanding of thecommander’s intent, thereby beginningthe process of linking leader developmentwith the corps exercise program. At thesame time, both divisions were wellexercised and tested in the traditionalsense, so that the basic BCTP objectivewas accomplished as well. After theBCTP, the corps began working toimplement the same exercise philosophyat every echelon of command, and toextend the same kinds of leadershipdevelopment opportunities throughoutthe chain of command.

The ImmediateReady Force

The development of USAREUR’sImmediate Ready Force was closelyconceptually linked to the developmentof the corps Strike CP—both representedsmall, agile, rapidly and easily deployableelements that the commander-in-chiefcould use in a crisis. In 1994, the corpsstaff began devoting some thought tohow heavy armored forces could bequickly deployed outside of Germany ifthe need arose. The initial concept wasto create an alert roster for a heavycompany that would use a set of equip-ment packaged in pre-configured air loadsfor a heavy company-team mission. Workon the idea was interrupted in 1995 and

1996 when V Corps turned its entireattention to the ongoing NATO missionin Bosnia-Herzegovina, but both thecorps and USAREUR resumed work afterTask Force Hawk returned from Albaniain the spring of 1999.

To give EUCOM a more rapidlydeployable force, Meigs began discuss-ing the idea with Lt. Gen. John Hendrix,the V Corps commander. Hendrixsuggested using the model of the 3rdInfantry Division, which had created animmediate ready company (IRC) for hastydeployments. The V Corps concept thatevolved by September 1999 was abalanced mechanized company team thatcould be augmented as required by forceenhancement modules that includedcommand, control, communications,computers, and intelligence; aviation;multiple launch rocket system; logistics;and engineers. The corps aimed athaving such a company operational by 15December 1999, and the concept assumedthat the designated ready companywould have normal standards of profi-ciency, so that the IRC would requireonly familiarization gunnery. The 1stArmored Division took over the IRCmission from December 1999 through 1July 2000.

When Meigs returned to Heidelbergfrom his position as COMSFOR inOctober 1999, he reviewed the conceptand incorporated the V Corps concept ofthe Immediate Ready Company into theevolving USAREUR plan. Meigs basedhis concept on equipment that could bedeployed quickly by the C-130 aircraftdaily available in theater, which meant ineffect that the force had to be mounted inM-113 Armored Personnel Carriers andHMMWVs. The highest alert force wasSETAF’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, whichcould deploy its 1st Battalion, 508thAirborne Infantry task force, including afield artillery battery and an air defensebattery, within twelve hours. The heavyforce from Central Region was intendedto link up with the theater strategicreserve on order to give USAREUR aquick strike capability.

Within V Corps, the Medium ReadyCompany was the most ready force.Force Enhancement Modules werecreated to follow the MRC, including aHeavy Ready Company with armor;engineers for reconnaissance, mobility,and route clearance; military police forsecurity; scouts for reconnaissance orsecurity; combat service support; and atactical command and control force

PHOTO BY SGT BRENT HUNT

Soldiers from V Corps� 22nd Signal Brigade and Special Troops Battal-ion train on loading the �Strike CP� and its associated equipment atRamstein Air Base in the summer of 2001. Both the corps and U.S.Army Europe are working toward command and control elements thatcan be quickly packaged, moved and set up wherever needed.


dismembered to provide the cadres for arapidly expanding wartime Army.

Instead, the point of the GeneralHeadquarters Maneuvers was that theyset the pattern for operations that thecorps would follow throughout WorldWar II: maneuver with infantry-artilleryteams supported by independent tankbattalions. The other important aspect ofthe maneuvers was that they allowed theArmy to begin to come to grips withthose technical aspects of modernwarfare that had appeared, but that hadreally not been developed, during WorldWar I or the succeeding peacetime years:the use of armored forces, the tactical useof air forces, and the organization ofantitank units. When the maneuversended, the corps returned to CampBeauregard, where it was still involvedwith training divisions at the time of PearlHarbor.

Deployment to theEuropean theater

Immediately upon declaration of war inDecember 1941, the War Departmentselected V Corps to become a headquar-ters dubbed magnet force, and ordered itto Northern Ireland with the two-foldmission of receiving American units asthey were sent to the United Kingdomand helping the British prepare for

defense against invasion. Advanceelements of the corps headquarters leftthe United States on 10 January 1942 andestablished a command post in Belfast on23 January. By 3 March, the first troopunits began arriving as the 34th InfantryDivision and the 107th Engineer Battaliondebarked. Daley was retired from theArmy at the same time the movementorders were issued, and Maj. Gen. WilliamS. Key took command briefly during theperiod of overseas movement. Maj. Gen.Russell P. Hartle assumed command inIreland on 20 May 1942.

It soon became clear that there was nolonger any serious threat of a Germaninvasion of the British Isles, and thecorps concentrated on receiving andtraining troops. Besides the 34th InfantryDivision, V Corps supervised training ofthe 1st Armored Division, which arrivedin Ireland in June, 1942. The corpsbecame a testing ground for the develop-ment of less conventional forces as well.Impressed with the capabilities of Britishcommando units and seeing a need forsimilar forces, the War Departmentauthorized Maj. William O. Darby toorganize the 1st Ranger Battalion from VCorps volunteers. In November, 1942,when II Corps left England to take part inthe North African campaign, the 1stArmored and 34th Infantry Divisionswent with it. V Corps remained behind asthe senior U.S. Army tactical formation in

the United Kingdom and moved itsheadquarters from Brownlow House,Lurgan, in Northern Ireland, to CliftonCollege near Bristol, England.

Once in England, the corps continuedto receive and train units for eventualcombat in Europe, including the 29thInfantry Division from the United Statesand the 5th Infantry Division, whicharrived from a brief tour of duty inIceland. On 15 July 1943, Maj. Gen.Leonard T. Gerow assumed command ofthe corps and moved the headquarters toNorton Manor Camp near Taunton inSomerset, where the corps became a partof First U.S. Army.

Slated to take part in the eventuallandings in France that were the keystoneof American strategy for the war, V Corpswas also a part of the operationalplanning process for the assault. Startingin June, 1943, the corps carried outOperation Wadham, a deception thatinvolved planning and training for earlylandings on the Brest peninsula inFrance. The purpose of Wadham, whichwas part of a larger diversionary plan,was to pin down German divisions inFrance by threatening landings before theend of 1943. Various parts of Wadhameventually became part of the overlordplan for the Normandy invasion.Through it, the Allies learned somethingabout how many divisions could bemounted through the British coastal ports

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

LEFT: V Corps headquarters on board the RMS QueenMary en route to Europe in January 1942.ABOVE: V Corps troops disembarking in Ireland inJanuary 1942, the first American troops in the Eu-ropean Theater.

for an invasion, and identified most of thelogistical problems that an invading forcewould encounter. Meanwhile, the corpscontinued to train its divisions inamphibious techniques.

To iron out problems discoveredduring the planning for Wadham and totest various concepts for landing troopsover beaches, the corps conducted the


first amphibious exercise, Duck, atSlapton Sands on England’s south coastin December 1943 and January 1944,landing 29th Infantry Division troops in atest of equipment, embarkation proce-dures, and assault techniques. Thelanding exercises refined the techniquescorps troops would use in Neptune, theFirst Army portion of Operation Overlord.

Training for the invasion of Normandy with M-4 Sherman tanks at England�s Wollacombe Training Center,1943.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

V Corps� Exercise Atlantic withM-3 Grant tanks in Ireland, 1942.

39

A moresophisticated

exercise design

As the corps and its major subordinatecommands accumulated experience withdeployments, proficiency with a widerrange of missions also developed assuccessive corps commanders required aconcomitant increase in operationalsophistication. The evolution of themission rehearsal exercise was animportant step in that process. Anothercame in 2001, when Riley linked exerciseswith leader development. In February ofthat year, he convened a seminar with hissenior commanders and staff to discussthe attributes of the ideal leader in themodern operational environment and tofind ways to adjust the conditions withinV Corps to foster development of thoseattributes wherever necessary. A keypoint was that much would be demandedof leaders at all levels if they were tooperate effectively and efficiently on the

many types of battlefields the corpscould expect, at any point in the widerange of missions from peace enforce-ment or humanitarian relief to heavy forcecombat, and in difficult operationalenvironments, particularly in the thirdworld. From the discussions emerged aconsensus that leaders had to beadaptable, innovative, aggressive, willingto act in the absence of orders, andwilling to take calculated risks on thebattlefield; that such leadership shouldbe rewarded; and that some adjustmentsto the way the corps did business neededto be made to foster the growth of thatkind of leadership.

The first major aspect of corps opera-tions to be so adjusted was the exerciseprogram. Riley took the point of viewthat the kind of leadership necessary inthe post-Cold War world had to bedeveloped at home station according to acarefully thought out plan that involvedall of the corps training and exercises.The seminar had addressed the idea,noting that exercises and rotations in thecombat training centers needed to make

allowance for the fact that units andleaders arrived in differing states oftraining and with varying capabilities.The conduct of training and exercisesneeded to be managed so that a morecapable and advanced unit, for example,would be given more complex andchallenging maneuver or other trainingtasks. Revising the process of trainingwas also necessary to subject units toreal sustained operations in whichcommanders would have to rely on theirstaffs and subordinates rather thanrunning everything themselves, reservingthe after action review for later. Layingstress upon “actions without orders,”tactical initiative, and keying operationsto the commander’s intent, rather thanmerely to stated objectives, were allelements of the change that Riley wantedto make. He determined that leaderscould not be flexible if their training wasinflexible.

As a first step, he applied that truism tothe major divisional training event, theBattle Command Training ProgramWarfighter Exercise, or WFX. The WFXscheduled for 2001 was to be given to 1stArmored Division and was based on thefamiliar heavy force operational scenario.From the point of view of developing thekind of leadership that Riley sought, theBCTP had shortcomings, since theexercise was predictable and scripted andpresented few opportunities for leaders atany level to be innovative. Working withGen. (Ret.) Fred Franks, who was one ofthe BCTP senior mentors, and with Lt.Gen. W. M. Steele, commanding theCombined Arms Center at FortLeavenworth, Kansas, Riley developed adifferent and more challenging scenariofor the exercise and then obtainedapproval from Meigs, commander ofUSAREUR and Seventh Army, and theChief of Staff of the Army, to implementthat scenario.

The first major difference that distin-guished Exercise Urgent Victory ’01 fromprior Warfighter exercises was that itinvolved both of the V Corps divisions.As the exercise began, 1st InfantryDivision and 1st Armored Division wereseparated by 3rd Infantry Division, whichwas represented by a response cellmanned by members of the V Corps staff.Later in the exercise, the two divisionsoperated side by side, so that the corps

PHOTO BY SGT ALFREDO BARRAZA JR.

An ammunition sergeant checks the munitions on an Apache helicop-ter flown by V Corps� 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry, 11th Aviation Regi-ment, prior to a live-fire in Bosnia and Herzegovina during OperationJoint Forge in 1998. Today, V Corps leaders at all levels have to beready for all types of missions, from peacekeeping to heavy combat.


2000 when the corps held its first VictoryStrike exercise. The mission in Albaniahad revealed areas in which attackaviation operations could be improved,and Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs inFebruary 2000 sent the Chief of Staff ofthe Army an Aviation White Paper inwhich he detailed ways to makeUSAREUR Army aviation “the premieraviation force for the U.S. Army over thenext two years.”

Riley assumed responsibility for a morestringent form of aviation exercise as oneof the major corps actions in support ofthat initiative. Riley believed that attackaviation battalions needed to have aCapstone training event that was similarto the National Training Center rotationsthrough which maneuver battalions hadbeen going since 1983. To provide foraviation battalions the same rigor, realismof the battlefield, and high fidelityfeedback that combat training centersgave maneuver battalions, he directed thecorps staff, working with USAREUR, todevise the exercise that became VictoryStrike.

Conducted at the Drawsko Pomorskietraining area in Poland, Victory Strikeexercised all of those elements of deploy-ing and employing a deep strike taskforce that previous corps missions shownwere critical components of a successfuloperation. Deployment, both by variousground means and by tactical airlift, was akey part of an exercise that involved live-fire by attack helicopters, the employmentof Multiple Launch Rocket Systems fromthe corps artillery to fire joint suppressionof air defense missions, and the use of69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade unitsto simulate an opposing enemy airdefense force. In addition, the exerciseestablished ties with the Polish armedforces, which also took part, and exer-cised the deployment and employment ofa much smaller and more mobile corpscommand post and deep operationscoordination cell.

Exercise Victory Strike II in 2001 builtupon the successes of the first exerciseand was much more joint in nature. Theexercise was expanded to includePoland’s Wedrzyn Training Area, andadded Polish units such as the 23rdBrigade of Artillery to the opposing forceheaded by 69th ADA. Exercise play wasclosely monitored by a vast array of PHOTO BY SPC JOHN SOUCY

PHOTO BY SPC KRIS STEWARD

A combined op-posing force tookon V Corps� 11thAviation RegimentApaches duringforce-on-force ex-ercises in exerciseVictory Strike II.At top, a Stingerteam from Hanau�s5/7th Field Artil-lery tried to takeout the attackcopters with theirrocket simulatorwhile their �team-mates,� a MultipleLaunch RocketSystem crew fromthe Polish 23rd Bri-gade of Artillery(below), did thesame.

sophisticated new battlefield trackingsystems expected to be the keystone inmaking Riley’s vision of providing NTC-type training for aviation and maneuverunits available in the European theater,using a deployable training package to

provide real-time recording of exerciseevents and near-immediate feedback forcommanders. It also built upon prepara-tory exercises in Germany by furthervalidating the Strike CP concept, puttingthe CP to its first real field test.

11

On June 6, 1944, V Corps entered battlein France. Before World War II ended 11months and three days later, the corpssaw 338 days of continuous combat andadvanced roughly 1,300 miles fromNormandy to Czechoslovakia in thecourse of five hard-fought campaigns.

The Normandylandings and the

fight for northernFrance

At 0415 on the morning of June 6, V

COURTESY U.S. ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY ARMY ARTWORK COLLECTION

�On the Way to the Assault Boats,� original painting by Olin Dows, 1944. The troops theartist depicts moving into the English surf could well be V Corps soldiers, who played anintegral part in Operation Overlord.

Corps troops sat in landing craft that lay10 miles off the Normandy beaches,awaiting the dawn. At 0630, local time,“Force O,” soldiers from the 1st and 29thInfantry Divisions under command ofMaj. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, com-mander of the Big Red One, beganwading through the surf on a beach code-named Omaha. It was a hard fight fromthe very beginning. Expecting to findonly a single German regiment defendingthe beach, the assault troops wereinstead confronted by major elements ofthe 352nd Infantry Division that hadcome through the preliminary aerial and

naval gunfire bombardment with littledamage to its prepared defenses on thebluffs above the shore. Heavy seas andbad weather complicated landings for the34,142 soldiers and 3,306 vehicles of theinitial assault wave. Almost three-fourthsof the assault vehicles and artillery werelost when landing craft capsized orfoundered, and nearly all of the amphibi-ous (Duplex Drive) M4 Sherman tankslaunched 6,000 yards out failed to reachthe shore. Those tanks that Army andNavy commanders on the spot decided toland directly on the beach, rather thanlaunching at sea, suffered heavy losses in

The War In Europe

III❂

1944-1946

12

the opening minutes of the assault.Soldiers struggled through heavy surf

and then across 200 to 300 yards of open,mined beach, and then found themselvespinned down behind a seawall or, furtherdown the beach, a line of dunes, byunexpectedly heavy fire. Eventually, theyalso discovered that virtually every unithad landed in the wrong place, and thattheir carefully prepared assault plans,thoroughly rehearsed against terrainmodels in England, were worthless.When “Force B,” under Maj. Gen. CharlesH. Gerhard, commander of the 29thInfantry Division, began landing its25,117 men of the follow-on waves, mostof the first two attack waves were still atthe water’s edge, having taken heavy

casualties among officers and non-commissioned officers.

Desperate for information, Gerow, thenaboard the command ship U.S.S. Ancon,dispatched his Assistant Chief of Staff,Col. Benjamin B. Talley, to find out whatwas happening on the beach. Talleyembarked on an amphibious truck, aDUKW, and with a detachment of troopsspent several hours cruising back andforth some 500 yards off Omaha beach,ultimately landing there to serve as aliaison officer between elements of the 1stInfantry Division and the corps com-mander. At first impression, the situationwas a disaster, with the assault evidentlystopped and follow-on boats millingabout offshore. Talley, later decorated

with a Distinguished Service Cross for hisactions on D-Day, was eventually able toreport to an anxious Gerow and Huebnerthat the corps attack was making its wayinland, but not before several anxioushours had passed.

Omaha turned out to be the mosttenaciously defended of the invasionbeaches, and the site of the bloodiestfighting. Around noon, Lt. Gen. OmarBradley, First Army commander, fearedthat the landings on Omaha had failedand seriously considered evacuating thebeach. By the time that decision had tobe made, however, the movement off thebeach that Talley had observed had

finally begun toretrieve the

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

ABOVE: Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division�s Company E, 16thInfantry assault Normandy�s Omaha Beach under V Corps commandon 6 June 1944.TOP RIGHT: Maj. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner commanded the Big RedOne during the invasion at Normandy. Huebner rose from the rankof sergeant in 1916 to command a battalion of the 1st InfantryDivision�s 26th Infantry. Huebner went on to assume command ofV Corps in January 1945 and lead it through the end of World War IIin Europe.BOTTOM RIGHT: Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow was V Corps com-mander on D-Day and through the Battle of the Bulge. A friend ofGen. Dwight Eisenhower, Gerow was acknowledged as one of theArmy�s best and brightest. A consummate infantryman, he led thecorps through some of the toughest fights of World War II.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO


Force Hawk units were returned toGermany and the Marine 26th MEU waslikewise released. The 1st InfantryDivision and 1st Armored Divisionshared the Task Force Falcon mission on179-day rotations until 1 June 2001, whenthe XVIII Airborne Corps assigned unitsto Kosovo. With that transfer of author-ity, V Corps operations in Kosovo ceasedfor the time being, although USAREURdirected the corps to monitor and assistin subsequent transfers of authoritybetween units assigned to Task ForceFalcon.

The assaultcommand post

The composition and operation ofcorps command posts was a matter ofdeep interest for all corps commanders.In the Cold War era, the corps maintaineda structure of a rear command post thatco-located with the Corps SupportCommand, a main command post whereplanning for future operations andsupport of current operations went on,and a tactical command post that ran thecurrent battle. There were many varia-tions on the detailed operation of thosecommand posts to suit the style of

command of various corps commanders,but the overall structure remained more orless unchanged until 1992, when V Corpsbegan considering ways to move itsforces to a battle somewhere other thanalong the inter-German border.

The first steps in that direction in1992 and 1993 involved designing avery small, mobile command post onseveral trucks that the corps commandercould use on the traditional battlefieldwhen he was in transit between corpscommand posts or visiting one of thedivisions, and that could also be usedas the basis around which a commandpost deployed outside of Germanycould be build. That led directly to anew design for a deployable commandpost that the corps called the “Tac-Plus,” and which was based upon thetactical command post, augmented insubsequent air missions by othercapabilities needed to sustaincommand of deployed forces in theopening phases of acampaign.

When the corps moved its commandpost to Albania for Operation VictoryHawk, the vans, trailers, and other truck-mounted equipment required an inordi-nate amount of heavy, strategic airlift.

Reasoning that the corps could not relyon getting priority on strategic airlift, andthat a command post that could be movedby the C-130 tactical airlift aircraftavailable in Europe would be more usefulto the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Euro-pean Command, the corps began anintensive effort to make the commandpost smaller, lighter, more mobile, andmore quickly deployable.

The resulting “Victory Vanguard”command post, designed in 2000 andtested in the Victory Strike exercise inPoland along with the deep operationscoordination cell, was the first step in aprocess of design and testing that led upto the “Strike CP” that the corps exercisedin Exercise Victory Strike II and demon-strated to the Secretary of the Army inSeptember 2001.

The goal that the corps comman-der, Lt. Gen. James C. Riley, expressed,was for the Strike CP to be quicklydeployable with a small number ofC-130 air missions. The specificdesign of the command post wasunderstood to vary depending onthe mission of the force it was tocommand, and the goal was to givethe commander-in-chief a goodcommand and control capability inthe very early phase of a deterrenceor defense mission. Throughout 2001,the corps worked at making theStrike CP more strategically deploy-able and, at the same time, figuringout how to make it tactically mobileonce in a theater ofoperations.

Meanwhile, the corps retained thecapability to go to the field with the fullcommand post structure of tactical, main,and rear in the event of a heavy forceoperation of a conventional nature.Doing both allowed V Corps to planrealistically to command forces inoperations at any point on the spectrumof conflict with a command post appropri-ate to the troops employed and themission to be accomplished.

ExerciseVictory Strike

The earlier work that V Corps had donein developing the mission rehearsalexercise was further elaborated upon in

PHOTO BY BILL ROCHE

Secretary of the Army Thomas White (center) listens intently asU.S. Army Europe Commander Gen. Montgomergy Meigs (right) ex-plains V Corps rapidly deployable command post, the �Strike CP,�during a recent test trial for exercise Victory Strike II.


situation. Leadersof every rank beganto collect groups ofsoldiers togetherand took them upthe bluffs, wherethey assaulted theGerman defensesfrom the rear andthus, at last, beganto establish abeachhead. Gerowrevised the landingschedule for follow-on waves of troopsto reinforce thoseportions of theshore whereprogress waspossible andcoordinated navalgunfire to supportthe assaults to takethe five draws thatled away from theinvasion beach.“Thank God for the Navy,” Gerow toldBradley, reporting that destroyers hadliterally sailed into the surf as little as 800yards from the beach to fire directly atbunkers and machine gun positions thatwere holding up the attack. By mid-day,valor and leadership at all levels hadresolved a dangerous situation. In theearly afternoon, the corps beachhead andall five exits from the beach were securedand weary soldiers had begun to moveinland. That afternoon, the corpsestablished its first command post inEurope five hundred yards from the frontline just below the bluffs along the beachat Le Rouquet. The first day of war hadbeen a sobering one. In 15 hours ofcombat, V Corps had taken approximately2,500 casualties.

The corps landed the remainder of thetwo assault divisions and the 2ndInfantry and 2nd Armored Divisions overthe succeeding days. During the nexttwo weeks, the corps gradually expandedits shallow lodgment on the Normancoast, taking the fighting into thehedgerow country behind the beaches.A belt of land averaging 50 miles indepth, the hedgerows, or bocage,consisted of a seemingly endless seriesof interlocked fields, each bounded byearthen berms on which shrubbery and

trees grew thickly. The fields were naturalforts that gave the Germans enormousdefensive advantages and denied theallies the use of their single most impor-tant advantage — mobility. The fightingwas extremely costly, and V Corpssuffered another 3,300 casualties beforethe hedgerows were behind it. By 11June, the corps had finally reached its D-Day objectives, and two days lateroccupied an eight-kilometer front that lay30 kilometers inland from the shore.Defensive operations consumed the nexttwo weeks as the Allies brought suffi-cient supplies and ammunition ashore tosupport a general attack.

Breakout and therace across France

First Army’s plan to break out of thelodgment area was Operation Cobra, a 25July attack by VII and XIX Corps thatshattered the German defenses at thetown of St. Lô and passed infantry andarmored columns through the gap andout of the Brittany peninsula. Once clearof the bocage country, the spearheadsturned east toward Paris, rapidly encir-cling portions of two German armies inwhat became known as the Falaise-

Argentan pocket.V Corps, which had been holding on

the left flank of the breakthrough,received orders to help close the trap atthe town of Coutances. In four days ofheavy fighting between 17 and 21August, the corps cooperated withBritish and Canadian units to prevent theGermans from escaping to the east.Although the pocket was closed too lateto encircle all the enemy that had origi-nally been in the vicinity of Falaise, thecorps ultimately captured elements of sixarmored and seven infantry divisions, atotal of more than 40,000 prisoners. Thebattles around the Falaise Gap marked theend of German resistance west of theSeine River. The road to Paris was open,and First Army ordered V Corps toliberate the city.

On 25 August, the 2nd French ArmoredDivision, the 4th Infantry Division, andthe 102nd Cavalry Group captured Pariswithout firing a shot. While the Frenchtroops assumed control of the city, the4th Infantry Division marched through tosecure crossings over the river Seine tothe south. On 30 August, the corpsprovided troops for a formal victoryparade, marching the 28th InfantryDivision down the Champs Élysées,through the city, and directly into

U.S. ARMY

V Corps operations in World War II stretched from England to Czechoslavakia.

36

Squadrons, 6th Cavalry, from the 11thAviation Brigade; a general aviationorganization based around the 5thBattalion, 158th Aviation, from the 12thAviation Brigade; the 1st Battalion, 27thField Artillery (MLRS); the 7th CorpsSupport Group and ground forces of the2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st ArmoredDivision. The 2nd BCT organizationincluded the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry(Mechanized) with an attached tankcompany and supporting artillery, airdefense, signal, and other serviceforces, and the 2nd Battalion, 505thAirborne Infantry, attached from the82nd Airborne Division. The 2/505thbrought with it a towed howitzerbattery. In addition, task force headquar-ters troops, controlled by the corpsSpecial Troops Battalion, commandedelements of many of the corps separatebrigades.

The lead elements of Task ForceHawk arrived in Albania on 8 April 1999and forces continued to build up, thelast units arriving 29 days later. Shortlyafter arrival at Tirana-Rinas airport, asmall and highly congested field thatwas already being used by military andcivilian organizations from many na-tions to provide humanitarian relief toAlbanian Kosovars crossing the borderinto Albania, heavy rains began thatswiftly reduced the land around theairfield to a quagmire. Major engineeringwork had to be contracted before theApache helicopter task force and generalaviation task force, then waiting in Italyfor permission to cross the Adriatic,would have any place to land or any firmdispersal areas. The helicopters arrivedon 21 April and established a minimumcapability to conduct offensive opera-tions the next day. By 26 April, 18 daysafter the mission started, Task ForceHawk had an operational force thatincluded AH-64 Apache attack helicop-ters.

After 78 days of air operations,through most of which Task Force Hawkwas present and threatening its ownoperations against Serb forces, theYugoslav government finally agreed tosign the Military Technical Agreementauthorizing the entry of NATO peaceenforcement troops into Kosovo. Thatact, on 10 June, ended Operation AlliedForce.

OperationJoint Guardian

Following immediately upon theconclusion of Operation Victory Hawk,elements of V Corps’ 1st ArmoredDivision and 1st Infantry Division movedinto the province of Kosovo as part ofNATO’s peace enforcement missionunder command of the Allied Forces,Central Europe, Ready Reaction Corps.The American contribution to KosovoForce, or KFOR, was a reinforced brigadeoperating as Task Force Falcon inOperation Joint Guardian. The corps hadplanned to send the 3rd Brigade CombatTeam, 1st Infantry Division, as theAmerican component of the five multina-tional brigades under ARRC control. Theforce, under command of the assistantdivision commander, Brig. Gen. JohnCraddock, and carefully trained the baseforce, the 3rd BCT, in a series of exercisesin the months prior to the deployment,completing a mission rehearsal exercisein February still involved in a combatmaneuver training center rotation inthe late spring, when the deploymentorder was issued. The need, however, toplace American units in Kosovo asquickly as possible led to a change,and V Corps framed orders to deploycombat units then in Albania as thelead elements of Task Force Falcon.Thus, most of the force came fromthose elements of the 1st ArmoredDivision and 82nd Airborne Divisionthat had been stationed at Tirana,Albania.

The military technical agreement withSerbia was signed on 9 June, and Serbmilitary forces began withdrawing fromKosovo on 10 and 11 June, with KFORbrigades flowing into the provinceimmediately to the areas the Serbsvacated. While other elements of thecorps headquarters and supporting unitswere moving from Albania back to theirhome stations in Germany, the helicoptersof the 5th Battalion, 158th Aviation,carried the 2nd Battalion, 505th AirborneInfantry, from Tirana-Rinas Airfield tosecure an initial cantonment area inKosovo, with other forces following byroad march. At the same time, the 26thMarine Expeditionary Unit temporarilycame under Craddock’s command to

increase the immediately availablecombat power. The American brigademelded into a British march unit andentered Kosovo at the same time,leading with the Task Force Falconheadquarters and a platoon from the2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1stInfantry Division, brigade reconnaissancetroop. Craddock selected two base campareas, one in the eastern part of the sectorand one in the west, which his units thenoccupied and built up as CampsBondsteel and Monteith. By 14 June, allof Task Force Falcon was in Kosovo.

As the brigade was built up, the corpsdeployed four force packages into thearea of operations. The first were theTask Force Hawk units and the 26thMEU, and they were followed in the first30 days of the operation by the mainbody from Germany, and then by themultinational unit forces that came underTF Falcon control—a Greek mechanizedinfantry battalion, a Polish airbornebattalion, and a Russian airborne taskgroup.

The brigade took up peace supportoperations immediately in a seven-countyarea, performing the same kinds of tasksthat Task Force Eagle had carried outearlier in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As 1stInfantry Division forces arrived, the Task

COURTESTY U.S. ARMY CENTER OFMILITARY HISTORY ARMY ARTWORK COLLECTION

�Waiting to Phone Home� byMaster Sgt. Henrietta Snowdendepicts a 1st Infantry Divisionsoldier in Kosovo.

PHOTO BY BILL ROCHE

35

and asked the United States to augmentits air defenses.

Under command of the V Corps deputycommanding general, Maj. Gen. J. B.Burns, Joint Task Force Shining Presencedeployed to Israel with an Army forcebuilt around Task Force Panther, whichinvolved three MEPs from the batteries ofthe 5th Battalion, 7th Air DefenseArtillery. The task force arrived deployedout of Germany within 48 hours ofnotification and arrived in Israel on 12December. It immediately conducted jointexercises with Israeli air defense forcesbefore moving to firing locations atvarious key spots in Israel. The battalionremained in Israel until the coalitionbombing campaign ended on 20 Decem-ber, and then returned to Germany overthe next day and a half.

Iraq remained at the center of events.Allied determination to enforce theUnited Nations resolutionsconcerning the “no-fly zone” innorthern Iraq in January 1999 appearedlikely to provoke some response fromSadaam Hussein. Since allied aircraftwere operating from Incirlik Air Base inTurkey, it appeared possible that Iraqmight fire missiles at the Incirlik area topunish Turkey for providing the basesfrom which allied aircraft werelaunched. Thus, the government ofTurkey asked the United States forassistance.

On 15 January 1999, the Joint Chiefs ofStaff gave USAREUR the mission ofsending a Patriot task force to Incirlik.USAREUR passed the mission to V Corpsand its 69th ADA Brigade, whichdispatched a MEP from the 6th Battalion,52nd Air Defense Artillery that arrived inTurkey by 20 January. Task Force 6-52came under control of Operation NorthernWatch upon arrival in Incirlik and swiftlyset up a battery location that the soldierssteadily improved over time. The initialforce came from Battery D, with elementsof the Headquarters and HeadquartersBattery and the 549th MaintenanceCompany. When it became clear that theNorthern Watch mission would not beshort, the battalion established a rotationof units, sequentially sending MEPs fromBattery E, Battery A and Battery C toIncirlik. In March 1999, the deploymentcame to an end and the fire unit returnedto Germany.

Two things characterized the airdefense deployments that V Corpscommanded. The first was a very shortresponse time to a mission order, madepossible in large part by the developmentof the MEP and careful brigade planningto detail how the deployment would behandled. The second was that overseasoperations of air defense artillery unitsbegan decisively to affect the evolutionof air defense artillery doctrine, inasmuchas the Air Defense Artillery Schoolquickly adopted the MEP concept andmade it a part of new editions of ADAfield manuals.

OperationVictory Hawk

When the ethnic Albanian populationof the province of Kosovo agitated forindependence or union with Albania inthe spring of 1999, Yugoslav authoritiesemployed military force to regain controland bloodshed reminiscent of the worstyears of the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina threatened. Internationaltalks not having produced an agreement,chiefly because Serbia refused to acceptthe presence of a peacekeeping force inKosovo, NATO decided in March of thatyear to use force to compel Serbian

president Slobodan Milosevic to agree.Thus, on 24 March, began OperationAllied Force, an air campaign launchedagainst Serbia and Serb military forces inKosovo.

Gen. Wesley Clark, the Supreme AlliedCommander, Europe, and Commander-in-Chief of U.S. forces in Europe, directedUSAREUR to send an aviation andartillery task force to neighboringMacedonia as a means of increasing thepressure on Milosevic. The plannedApache helicopter task force,supported by Multiple Launch RocketSystems, offered another way to attackSerb units, particularly Serbian armoredunits, in Kosovo. USAREUR directed VCorps to prepare the task force. Lt. Gen.John W. Hendrix, the V Corps commander,rapidly put together a somewhat largerforce when the destination was changedfrom Macedonia to Albania, where therewere more demanding security require-ments. The mission was calledOperation Victory Hawk, and the forceemployed was Task ForceHawk.

Hendrix used the corps command postand deep operations coordination cell,including V Corps Artillery commandelements, to control operations and builta force structure that included an attackhelicopter organization of the 2nd and 6th

V Corps aviation assets have become more vital than ever, for mis-sions that couldn�t have even been imagined 20 years ago.


assembly areas to the north of thesuburbs to continue the pursuit, joiningother units of the corps that had attacked

the day before.On 29 August, V Corps marched on in

the direction of Sedan, joining in the race

across France that brought U.S. forces tothe borders of Germany by the end ofSeptember. One week after leaving Paris,and 26 years after its previous visit there,V Corps captured Sedan. Three dayslater, it liberated the city of Luxembourg,and on 10 September, although theadvance was considerably slowed byshortages of gasoline, the corps closedon the German border. Lt. Gen. CourtneyHodges, the First Army commander, gaveV Corps permission to conduct a recon-naissance in force, and Gerow sent the4th and 28th Infantry Divisions, the 5thArmored Division, and the 102nd CavalryGroup forward to attack the SiegfriedLine. In the early evening of 11 Septem-ber, the 85th Reconnaissance Squadronof the 5th Armored Division sent adismounted patrol into Germany itself, inthe vicinity of the town of Wallendorf.The 85th Recon was therefore the firstallied unit to enter Germany.

The Siegfried Linecampaign and the

Battle of the Bulge

Anticipating that the Germans wouldresist fiercely on the Rhine River line, theAllies planned a two-pronged attack thatwould cross the river north of Koblenzand south of Mainz, setting up theconditions necessary to take the indus-trial Ruhr valley. The V Corps missionwas to move through the frontier fortifica-tions and seize key terrain in the vicinityof Aachen, and particularly the dams overthe Roer River, as part of the First Armyattack into the Siegfried Line and theHuertgen Forest. The corps sector was42 miles in width, extending from St. Vithin the south to the vicinity of the city ofLuxembourg in the north. When theattacks began on 14 September, Hodges,the First Army commander, also directedV Corps to protect the flank of VII Corps,which was leading the First Army attackinto Germany.

The Siegfried Line, constructed beforethe German attack on France in 1940 asthe Westwall, was not as formidable abarrier as it had once been. Many of itsguns had been removed and emplaced onthe Atlantic and Channel coasts ofFrance, and the fortifications themselveshad fallen into disuse over the interven

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

ABOVE: A V Corps infantryman during the battle of the HuertgenForest.TOP: V Corps infantry used direct fire from 155-mm self-propelledhowitzers such as this to crack open German pillboxes on the SiegfriedLine in 1944 and early 1945.

15

ing years. Still, the Germans rapidlymoved troops in to reoccupy the de-fenses, and the corps could count onfacing prepared concrete pillboxes andsophisticated antitank barriers known as“dragon’s teeth,” fields of concretepyramids as much as two meters inheight. Furthermore, the Germans hadsown extensive minefields, particularly ofthe dreaded S-mines and “Schuh” mines,some of which had too little metal to reactto minesweeping devices. Again, theinfantry-artillery cooperation that hadbeen a hallmark of V Corps operations inWorld War I and that had been empha-sized during the Louisiana Maneuvers,offered a solution to cracking theSiegfried Line. The artillery brought up155-mm self-propelled howitzers and firedthem directly at the pillboxes the infantryhad identified. At a rate of one shell, onepillbox, V Corps gradually opened a waythrough the German defenses. After twoweeks of intense fighting, V Corps brokethrough the Siegfried Line in its sector.

Then, on 29 September, Gerow receivedorders to suspend his attack, turn hissector over to VIII Corps, and breakthrough another section of the SiegfriedLine on a narrow front of 12 miles nearMonschau, Belgium, with the objective ofreaching the German town of Schleidenand continuing toward the Roer dams.

By that time, the Germans had heavilyreinforced their defenses, and V Corpscould make little progress. Operationswere temporarily suspended during themonth (17 September through 16 October)that the 1st Allied Airborne Army andBritish XXX Corps tried to cross theRhine at Arnhem, Holland, in OperationMarket Garden. On 2 November, with theweather by then considerably harsher, VCorps resumed its attack, sending its 28thInfantry Division into the dense HuertgenForest to seize the key terrain aroundVossenack and Schmidt. Later acknowl-edging the attack to have been a mistake,Gen. Omar Bradley characterized it assome of the toughest fighting in theEuropean theater. Although the 28thInfantry Division met with early success,the corps was unable to make good useof armor and tactical air support. HeavyGerman counterattacks through 20November pushed the division out ofSchmidt and the surrounding villages,inflicting losses of more than 6,000 men

killed, wounded, and missing, in one ofthe most costly actions of the entire war.Although a failure, the attack on Schmidtdid have a positive aspect, in that itrelieved pressure on the VII Corps front,from which the Germans withdrew unitsto meet the 28th Division’s attack.

Worse fighting was yet to come, asFirst Army directed V Corps to supportthe VII Corps attack deeper into theHuertgen Forest. On 21 November, thecorps began an attack that was evencostlier in terms of casualties than thedebacle at Schmidt, but which was moresuccessful. Fighting in bad weather anddense forests, the corps capturedHuertgen and progressed in the directionof the Roer River by the 27th of themonth. Controlling the ridge overlookingthe Roer valley by 7 December, V Corpsbegan an attack with four divisionsabreast four days later. The 99th, 2nd,8th, and 78th Divisions were making goodprogress when the German counterattackin the Ardennes brought allied offensiveoperations to a halt.

Beginning on 16 December, the Battleof the Bulge, one of the greatest andcertainly most decisive battles of WorldWar II, was also the single greatest battlethat the United States Army fought atany time in the entire war. In it, the Armyreached maturity. The judgment of HughCole, who wrote the definitive officialhistory of the battle, continues to ring

true today. In the Ardennes, he wrote,“the mettle of the American soldier wastested in the fires of adversity and thequality of his response earned for him theright to stand shoulder to shoulder withhis forebears of Valley Forge,Fredericksburg, and the Marne.”

It was not just the success of the Armyas an institution that sustained Cole’sevaluation. Above all, it was the fact thatthe great battle was won by Americansoldiers in small groups, often isolatedand usually without knowing the overallsituation, who fought tenaciously, withenormous determination and greatcourage, in the face of odds that almostalways appeared overwhelming. Obsti-nately, the American soldier fought onwhen there seemed to be no hope, andhis stand in the Ardennes confoundedHitler’s hopes and the plans of theGerman high command in Germany’s last,desperate bid to win the war.

The weight of the German offensive,which had been prepared in great secrecyand with exceptionally good operationalsecurity, fell in the VIII Corps sector,although a secondary thrust threatenedthe inexperienced 99th Infantry Divisionof V Corps. Gerow ordered a tacticalwithdrawal, and the 99th Division slowlypulled back about 12 miles to the vicinityof Monschau, where it establisheddefensive positions along ElsenbornRidge with the other three divisions, right

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

Soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division road march near Buetgenbach,Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.

PHOTO BY 1ST LT JAMIE BROWN

A Patriot missile crew of V Corps� 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade live fires a rocket in Israel during arecent deployment.


the town of Galtür, Austria, 40 kilometersnorthwest of Innsbruck, and blocked allthe roads to the site of the disaster. Some12,000 vacationers were trapped in Galtürand surrounding villages. The AustrianGovernment asked Switzerland, Germany,and the United States to help airlift thestranded vacationers from the avalanchearea. Ten aircraft and a ground supportpackage from the 5th Battalion, 158thAviation, arrived in Austria on 24February and started relief operations thenext day. After flying 186 missions andlifting 3,109 passengers out of theaffected area, the task force completed itsoperations on 26 February and returnedto Germany.

Air defensedeployments

After the end of the Persian Gulf War,air defense artillery units in USAREURwere reorganized. In the process the32nd Army Air Defense Command, whichhad commanded all Army air defenses intheater, was returned to the United States,and all but two of the air defense artillerybrigades were likewise returned to other

stations. As part of that reorganization,the 69th ADA Brigade was assigned to VCorps, and it was soon reconfigured fromstandard corps air defense artillerybrigade organization to become a purePatriot missile brigade.

In June 1992, Operation SouthernWatch officially began, under the ægis ofUnited States Central Command, andspecifically of Joint Task Force South-west Asia. Operation Southern Watchmonitored and controlled airspace southof the 33rd Parallel in Iraq, in accordancewith United Nations Security Councilresolutions regarding Iraq at the end ofthe Persian Gulf War. As part of thatoperation, the United States dispatched aregular rotation of Patriot missile battal-ions to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait tosecure the airspace. The battalions of69th ADA Brigade assumed that missionon three occasions, each time on a six-month rotation, after 1992. The 6thBattalion, 52nd Air Defense Artillery,went to Southwest Asia from Marchthrough July 1996 and again from Junethrough November 1998, and the 5thBattalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery hadthe mission from December 1999 throughMay 2000.

Tactical developments that began inUSAREUR’s 94th ADA Brigade and thatwere completed by 69th ADA Brigademade it much easier to deploy a Patriotfire unit on short notice. The MinimumEngagement Package that the twobrigades developed involved only twolaunchers, one engagement controlstation, a radar and associated powerunit, 12 missiles, a small amount ofancillary equipment, and 55 soldiers.The point was that the MEP could betransported in a single sortie of fourC-5 aircraft. The battalions in the corps’69th Air Defense Artillery Brigaderigorously rehearsed the MEP conceptand developed detailed plans forpackaging and loading itsequipment. The concept was soontested.

In December 1998, Sadaam Husseinagain prevented United Nations weaponsinspectors in Iraq from doing their workto make certain that the Iraqis possessedno weapons of mass destruction. Inresponse, the United States and its alliesthreatened to conduct air strikes in whatbecame Operation Desert Fox. TheIsraelis feared that the Iraqis might firetheir Scud missiles at Israel in retaliation,


those detachments, remained in Heidel-berg and commanded normal corpsoperations. With one division serving asthe larger part of the 25,000 Americantroops in Bosnia and the bulk of theCorps Support Command serving inHungary, the troops-to-task ratio was wellbelow that to which units in Germanywere accustomed. Despite that, all normalcorps operations, including trainingrotations and NATO exercises, continuedwithout interruption throughout theduration of the Bosnian deployment.

Corps (Main) and TF Victory plannedthe redeployment of 1st ArmoredDivision to Germany at the end of its yearin Bosnia. A brigade of the 1st InfantryDivision entered Bosnia in December1996, as a covering force to facilitate thewithdrawal of 1st Armored Division, andthen the Big Red One assumed the TFEagle mission as of 21 December. On thatdate, Operation Joint Endeavor endedand the NATO Implementation Force(IFOR) ceased operations. Immediately,Operation Joint Guard began, with 1stInfantry Division committed to the newNATO Stabilization Force (SFOR).Subsequent rotations of forces intoBosnia have included not just brigades ofthe two divisions assigned to V Corps,but also the 2nd Armored Cavalry

Regiment from the U.S. As the operationproceeded, other units from the UnitedStates, including the 1st Cavalry Division,took up the peace enforcement mission inBosnia in six-month rotation with 1st Ar-mored Division and 1st Infantry Division.

Aside from its direct involvement in themany operations in Hungary and theformer Yugoslav republics, V Corpsplayed a central role in preparing andtraining the forces that carried out theNATO missions. The process began inthe summer and fall of 1995, when thecorps conducted Exercise MountainShield for a proposed Southern EuropeanTask Force mission in Bosnia, andcontinued with the Mountain Eagle seriesof exercises. Mountain Eagle exercises,planned and conducted by the corps andits major subordinate commands, trainedeach unit that assumed the IFOR, andthen SFOR, mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Beirut AirBridge and other

aviation missions

After the 1984 bombing of the U.S.embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, the Depart-

ment of State decided that it could nolonger safely use the Beirut InternationalAirport, and the Department of Defensestationed a helicopter detachment onCyprus to take diplomats, diplomaticpapers, and a limited amount of cargo intoand out of the embassy. In 1986, whatwas then the 12th Aviation Group tookover the mission, which V Corps unitsretained from the time of the Persian GulfWar until the embassy once again beganusing the Beirut airport in 1998.

The Executive Flight Detachmentstationed at Akrotiri Royal Air ForceStation, Cyprus, became a standingmission of the 5th Battalion, 158thAviation, of the 12th Aviation Brigade,and specifically of that battalion’sCompany C, 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation.The UH-60 flight detachment wasequipped with special navigationequipment and other systems requiredby the mission and one platoon ofsoldiers wo were rotated on a 60-daybasis with the other platoons in Co. C,7/158th. In addition to being qualified forlong over-water flights, the flight detach-ment also was qualified to land on thedecks of U.S. Navy ships operating in theMediterranean. Because 5/158th Aviationwas at the same time maintaining asecond Black Hawk company in supportof the Operation Provide Comfort reliefoperations in northern Iraq, managementof limited aircrew and critical aviationmaintenance skills became a continuingissue.

The standard mission from Cyprus toBeirut and back consumed seven hoursfrom briefing through debriefing, and thedetachment planned to fly up to 15 on-call missions every month. The missionprofile required the standard two-aircraftmission to land at the embassy after alow-altitude final approach, remain on theground for a very brief period, and abortthe mission if fired upon. As far as couldbe determined, no flight detachmentaircraft were ever fired at in the years theBeirut Air Bridge was in operation. In1998, with a general easing of tensions inLebanon, a civilian service replaced theArmy flight detachment and the platoonreturned to Germany.

Another aviation mission attracted agood deal of publicity when one of theheaviest snowfalls in Europe in recentyears caused an avalanche that engulfed

V Corps soldiers from D Co., 5th Bn., 158th Aviation Regt. clean snowfrom the rotor blades of their Black Hawk helicopter in Garmisch,Germany on their way to help rescue tourists stranded by avalanchesin the town of Galtur, Austria.

PHOTO BY TROY DARR

16

at the boundary with VIII Corps. TheGerman Sixth Panzer Army, attacking on afront 15 miles wide, rapidly gainedsuccess on its left flank, with divisionsadvancing 30 miles from the starting line,but was stopped early by the toughAmerican defense at Monshau, on itsright flank. The artillery at Monschauliterally stopped a German attack by itself,and in the V Corps sector, the 99thInfantry Division Artillery helped thatgreen unit to hold its ground for twodays, until the V Corps artillery onElsenborn Ridge began to carry theburden. The weight of fire was tremen-dous: on the night of 17 December, forexample, one V Corps infantry battalionwas covered by a defensive barrage of11,500 rounds. By the end of the Battle ofthe Bulge, V Corps Artillery controlled 37field artillery battalions behind ElsenbornRidge. With the stand of V Corps at thetwin villages of Krinkelt and Rocherathand along Elsenborn Ridge, the entireGerman attack fizzled out. Thereafter, theGerman center of gravity shifted awayfrom the crucial roads that the V Corpsdefense had denied the attackers andfocused on the only remaining alterna-tive, Bastogne.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

The Victor Bridge over the Rhine erected by V Corps engineers. At the time it was the longest tacticalbridge in the world.

While the dramatic events of the siegeand relief of Bastogne were unfoldingfurther to the south, V Corps secured thenorthern shoulder of the Bulge againstcontinuous German attacks. In thecourse of four weeks of fighting, thecorps held its ground, so restricting thewidth of the front that the Germans coulduse only one Panzer army, instead of two,and disrupting the delicate timetable ofthe enemy advance. The cost of successwas high, though, with V Corps casual-ties for the Battle of the Bulge amountingto almost 8,000 in its four divisions.

Gerow left the corps to assumecommand of Fifteenth Army on 15January 1945, and Huebner, until then incommand of the 1st Infantry Division,succeeded him as corps commander justas it became clear that the Germancounteroffensive was over. In thefollowing two weeks, the corps resup-plied and reorganized itself to resume itsattacks into Germany. In the center of theline for the general offensive that beganon 30 January, V Corps pushed throughthe Siegfried Line recaptured terrain it hadbeen forced to give up a month earlier.Fighting in deep snow and difficultterrain, the corps once again marched in

the direction of Schmidt and the RoerRiver dams, finally taking the town on 5February and securing the last of thedams late on 9 February.

The Rhineland andCentral Europe

campaigns

With the capture of the Roer Riverdams, the way was open for VII Corps tomove on into Germany and for the FirstArmy to close on the Rhine. Because theGermans had committed the bulk of theirreserves to their Ardennes offensive,only limited force was available to resistthe allied attacks of the late winter andearly spring. V Corps marched toward theRhine on 10 March and spent the next 12days supporting III Corps as it built andextended its bridgehead over the Rhine atRemagen. Then the corps crossed theriver and pushed out of the bridgehead,swinging north along the eastern bank ofthe river to capture the town of Limburgby 26 March and the city of Koblenz andits fortress of Ehrenbreitstein the nextday. Following up those successes, thecorps continued to drive up the Lahn


River, capturing Fritzlar on 31 March andGießen on the first of April. Arriving inKassel on 5 April, the corps receivedorders to push on into eastern Germanyand meet the Russians near Leipzig.

The corps captured Leipzig on 19 Apriland elements of the 69th Infantry divisionmet Russian troops on the Elbe River nearTorgau on 25 April. Responding to FirstArmy orders, the corps again turned overits sector to VII Corps and on 29 Aprilmoved into Czechoslovakia, where itfought under Third Army control. On 6May, V Corps took Pilsen and, three dayslater, on the last day of the war, acceptedthe surrender of representatives of theGerman high command in Czechoslovakiaand escorted them to surrender ceremo-nies. The last bullet to be fired by VCorps in the war against Germany wasexpended by a rifleman in the 2ndBattalion, 16th Infantry, of the 1stInfantry Division, at 0908 in the morningof 8 May.

During World War II, V Corps estab-lished and held the Normandy beach-head, helped to make possible thebreakthrough at St. Lô, effected ajunction with the British and Canadianforces to close the Falaise-Argentanpocket, liberated Paris and marchedquickly through northern France,Belgium, and Luxembourg, to be the firstallied unit to enter Germany. The corpsbreached the Siegfried Line in threeplaces, held firm against the Germanattack in the Battle of the Bulge, crossedthe Rhine River, and advanced to Leipzig,making the first junction with the RussianArmy. In addition to offensive operationsthat covered more than 1,300 miles, thecorps established command posts in 39different locations and directed theoperations of 25 different divisions. Bythe end of the war, modifying its motto tosuit the circumstances, V Corps wasjustified in reporting to First Army that “Ithas been done!”

After the cessation of hostilities, thecorps began executing its portion ofOperation Eclipse, a plan than called forunits to retain possession of the areasthey occupied at the end of the fightingand disarm the remainder of the Germanarmed forces. In accordance withinstructions, the corps simply dischargedmost German enlisted soldiers in itscustody and arranged for their transpor-

tation to their homes. In addition, thecorps undertook the evacuation ofrecovered allied prisoners of war, evacu-ating American, British, French, and

Dutch military personnel from camps inCzechoslovakia. In March, 1946, V Corpsreceived orders to return to the UnitedStates.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

ABOVE: A sign that the end of the war in Europe was approaching.Soldiers of V Corps� 69th Infantry Division met the Russians at Torgau,on the Elbe River, on 25 April 1945.TOP: V Corps soldiers escorted members of the German high com-mand from Prague, Czechoslavakia to deliver the terms of Germany�ssurrender in May 1945.

ron, 1st Cavalry, led the 1st ArmoredDivision across the Sava River bridge andinto a NATO peace enforcement opera-tion in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a missionthat no one would have envisioned onlya few years before, in a place that theCold War-era planners would haveconsidered highly unlikely.

It was not only a great physicaldistance from the Fulda Gap to thePosavina Corridor, but it was also a greatconceptual distance from the philosophyof corps operations that underlay thenotional conventional armored battle inNATO’s central region, to the philosophyof corps operations that enabled V Corpsto serve in 1996 as what its commander,Lt. Gen. John N. Abrams, called an“expeditionary corps.” That shift infocus was five years in the making, andthe deployment for Operation JointEndeavor represented the maturing of amore versatile forward-based corps thathad drawn on the experience of the out-of-sector operations that it had under-taken since the end of the Persian GulfWar.

At first purely a force-provider for theoperation, V Corps quickly became moredeeply involved. Because the ARRC wasthe headquarters commanding theoperation in Bosnia, the 1st ArmoredDivision, configured as Task Force Eagle,fell under ARRC command. USAREURdetermined that it was necessary to createa National Support Element to carry outall of the various Title 10 responsibilitiesfor U.S. forces in Bosnia, however, andtherefore created a headquarters knownas USAREUR (Forward), which it locatedin Taszar-Kaposvar, Hungary.

The USAREUR (Forward) headquarterswas under command of Abrams, whowore the second hat of Deputy Com-mander, USAREUR (Forward), and drewheavily on V Corps to provide his staff. VCorps planners had already written thedeployment plan that was incorporated inthe USAREUR operations plan, and manyof those officers moved to Hungary tosupervise creation of the IntermediateStaging Base there and the execution ofthe operations plan. The NationalSupport Element was operated by the21st Theater Area Army Command(Forward), which was itself mannedalmost entirely by the commander andgeneral staff of V Corps’ 3rd Corps

32

Support Command. All of V Corps’separate brigades sent units or elementsto Hungary or, as required, to Bosnia, tomanage the support requirements forTask Force Eagle. The Initial Entry Forcebegan arriving in Bosnia by 16 December1995 and paved the way for the 1stArmored Division deployment, whichreached into Bosnia from the base area inHungary on 1 January 1996. Thereafter,USAREUR (Forward) and its NSEmanaged the support for TF Eagle.

Meanwhile, V Corps headquarters hadto constitute another general staff, thistime in Germany. Task Force Victory,under Maj. Gen. Walter Yates, the DeputyCorps Commander, and using the generalstaff of V Corps Artillery, commencedoperations at Wiesbaden Air Base. TFVictory commanded the rear detachmentsof deployed units and non-deployingunits and managed the replacement flowinto Hungary and Bosnia. The CorpsMain headquarters, much depleted by all

ABOVE: An engineer soldier beckons V Corps wheeled and trackedvehicles across the Sava bridge linking Zupania, Croatia with Bosniaand Herzegovina, Jan. 1, 1996. The 2,033-foot bridge was longerthan New York�s Brooklyn Bridge.TOP: A Combat Engineer Vehicle from V Corps� 130th Engineer Bri-gade smashes a bunker near Dubrave, Bosnia and Herzegovina duringOperation Joint Endeavor in January 1996.

PHOTO BY SPC ALEJANDRO CABELLO

PHOTO BY STAFF SGT. BRIAN CUMPER

31

V Corps. USAREUR signed the imple-menting arrangement for the bi-nationalcorps with the Federal Republic ofGermany in 1993, and V Corps signed theTechnical Arrangement with II Korps on14 June 1994.

Allied to the evolving exercise focus,corps planners also began consideringthe new problem of displacing the corpsto the region in which it would givebattle. The first step in that process wasa concept known as the AdvanceSupport Echelon, in which the corpsplaced its combat units in a corpsmarshaling area and then laid downcombat service support behind a cavalryscreen and under an air defense umbrella,subsequently passing the maneuver unitsthrough the combat service support andinto battle. That was an important firststep away from what one corps plannercalled “logistics to four decimal places,”and toward the uncertainties of support-ing a deployment outside of Europe andin an immature theater of operationswhere the highly developed logisticsinfrastructure of NATO would not beavailable.

As the series of deployments outsideof Germany continued, the headquartersand major subordinate commandsdeveloped a sophisticated understandingof how to move units of various size andcapabilities not only within Germany, butalso outside of Germany, and by usingevery imaginable means of transportation.

The headquartersmove

On 25 February 1994, Department of theArmy announced a decision that hadbeen reached in 1993 to move V Corpsfrom Frankfurt am Main to Heidelberg.The move was a logical extension of thecontinued drawdown of U.S. forces inEurope. As a general principal,USAREUR had attempted to consolidateits units in the military communities thathad the best and most modern facilities,as well as the best locations in terms oftraining and other administrative require-ments. The general conclusion was that,although the Frankfurt military commu-nity was ideally located from the point ofview of communications and transporta-tion nets, as well as being virtually in the

center of the corps area, the communityitself was too expensive to maintain.

Thus, chiefly in the interests of costsavings, V Corps received orders to moveto Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg, thusending a 43 year presence in the financialand banking capital of Germany and,incidentally, vacating the C. W. AbramsBuilding, probably better known as the I.G. Farben Building, one of the icons ofthe Army’s Cold War service. Detailedplanning had been undertaken prior topublic announcement of the move, andthe corps immediately began to implementthe plans.

From the point of view of V Corps, theessential fact about the move was that ithad to be so planned, organized, andexecuted that it was possible for theheadquarters to continue to functionthroughout the 18 months the processwould take. Normally, units scheduled tomove were permitted to stand down whilethat move was taking place. Because VCorps was the only tactical formationremaining in the theater at the time of itsmove, USAREUR could not afford togrant the corps that luxury. Thus V Corpsconducted the move, with all of itscomplications, against the background ofa sustained high tempo of training anddeployments. By December 1994, themove had been largely completed, andthe building was returned to control ofthe German government in early 1995.

The essential element of the move planwas that the headquarters would operate

simultaneously in both Frankfurt andHeidelberg while the move progressed, inorder to provide the continuity ofsupervision required by corps operations.The success of the move planning maybe gauged from the facts that corpstraining and deployment missionscontinued without interruption, and thatthe move of the headquarters wentlargely unnoticed by both subordinateand superior headquarters, neither ofwhich noted any decrease in the capabil-ity of the staff or the efficiency withwhich the corps operated.

OperationsJoint Endeavor and

Joint Guard

In many ways, the NATO deploymentto Bosnia-Herzegovina was for V Corpsthe culmination of the preceding fiveyears of preparation. When V Corpstanks and fighting vehicles moved duringthe winter of 1989-1990, they still invari-ably marched along the familiar pathsfrom their garrisons in Germany to theirunits’ general defense positions alongthe inter-German border, or else to rangeswhere crews honed their skills forconventional, heavy-force battle. Thesoldiers followed a routine that hadhardly changed in more than threedecades of Cold War duty in Germany.On New Years’ Eve in 1995, however, theM-1A1 Abrams tanks of the 1st Squad

A trio of 1st Armored Division M-1 tanks coordinate their fire with apair of Apache helicopters on a range in Glamoc, Bosnia andHerzegovina during Operation Joint Guard in April 1992.

PHOTO BY PFC R. ALAN MITCHELL

Exercise Tarheel, 1950. The exercise was conducted during the years(1945 to 1951) when V Corps was headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C.


The Fort Bragginterlude

The great demobilization followingWorld War II swiftly returned most of thewartime Army to civilian life. In 1946, VCorps left the European theater and wasstationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina,soon moving to Fort Bragg, NorthCarolina, where it quickly become one ofthe few organizations of its size thatremained on the active rolls. Lt. Gen.John R. Hodge assumed command of thepost and of a much smaller corps thanEuropean veterans remembered; the onlymaneuver unit was the 82nd AirborneDivision.

The Army charged V Corps with themission of preparing and modifyingcontingency plans, but the headquartersspent the majority of its time and effort ininspecting units of the General Reservethroughout the country; training units ofthe reserve, civilian components, andWest Point cadets; preparing to activateor build up any active force units thatThird U.S. Army, the corps’ superiorheadquarters, might direct; and trainingunits assigned to the corps itself.

Because of drastic reductions in theArmy’s budget and the general demobili-zation, much of the corps’ missionactually concerned itself with planning,rather than doing. Inasmuch as the 82ndAirborne Division was virtually the onlycombat-ready and deployable forcewithin the continental United States atthe time, available training money andresources went chiefly to maintain thatunit’s proficiency. Across the corps,personnel shortages plagued tactical andsupport units alike and hampered trainingand readiness. The corps commandercomplained of being hobbled with anexcessively large number of soldiers that

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

had low Army General Classification Testscores, and many more that had badArmy records. Many soldiers were onlybriefly assigned to the corps, while theyawaited their discharge orders. Oneconsequence of the corps’ personnelproblems and the absence of a clearlydefined mission was that AWOL and VDrates, traditionally the indicators of unitsthat had problems, soared. Part of thesolution was an aggressive program todischarge such soldiers, and in time thecorps grew in stability, if not in size.

Again, just as in the years after WorldWar I, there was no obvious potentialenemy or impending conflict for which toprepare, and training concentrated on thebasic soldier skills that were rapidlyeroding as the Army dwindled in size andits combat veterans were discharged from

the service. Exercise Tarheel, run in Apriland May 1949, was typical of the kind oftraining the corps was able to do in thoseaustere years between the end of WorldWar II and the beginning of the Cold War.The headquarters reconstituted itself asTask Force Victor for an exercise theArmy commander, Lt. Gen. Alvin C.Gillem, intended to use to train theheadquarters and V Corps troops insimulated combat conditions, and toprovide the utmost in practicable trainingin troop movement and field operationsfor battalion and regimental combatteams.

Besides a small aggressor group andvarious supporting units from corpstroops, the major participant was the 82ndAirborne Division. The 3rd InfantryDivision and the 31st Infantry Division

V Corps During the Cold War

IV❂

1946-1990

19

were in the order of battle for the exercise,but did not actually participate, insteadbeing represented by small planningstaffs that served as response cells.

Small unit skirmishes in the sand hillsaround Fort Bragg involved the maneuverof tank and infantry units, coordinatedwith airborne assaults. Soldiers refreshedtheir proficiency in basic tactical skillswhile the battalion, regimental, and corpsstaffs exercised themselves in theplanning and direction of tactical maneu-ver. Hodge subsequently characterizedthe exercise as successful and praised thecorps headquarters and subordinateunits. Tactical procedures were generallygood, he thought, an indication that theArmy was recovering the skills that theextended demobilization had allowed toatrophy.

Indicative of the condition of the Armyas a whole, however, was Hodge’sconcluding remark that the 82nd Airbornewas “a very fine division — a now-unusual division — but for the future it isnot to continue to be regarded asunusual, for there must be more divisionsjust as fine.”

The move toGermany

International events soon underscoredHodge’s observation. Relations betweenthe Soviet Union and the West, neverreally cordial even during the war, firstcooled and then became progressivelymore antagonistic as the great powersdebated the future political shape of theworld. The four-power occupation ofGermany and of Berlin became a focus ofthe growing confrontation as the Sovietsattempted to force the western Allies outof Berlin during the blockades of the landroutes into the city in 1948. The KoreanWar that erupted in July 1950 furtherexacerbated fears that the Soviets wereplanning a general offensive. Manythought that the war in Korea was adiversion that was intended to captureAmerican attention and the majority ofAmerican combat power. Once decisivelyinvolved in Asia, the United Stateswould, according to that line of reason-ing, be unable to resist a Soviet takeoverof western Europe. Such fears turned outto be baseless, but they contributed to

The AbramsBuilding

Upon its move to Germany,V Corps took up residence in

Frankfurt am Main�s I.G. FarbenBuilding, which was renamed theAbrams Building (above) in honorof Lt. Gen. Creighton W. Abrams

(right). The general asssumedcommand of the corps in 1963and later was named Chief of

Staff of the Army.

The Abrams Building was home to the corps for 43years, from 1951, until the end of 1994 when the headquar-

ters began moving to its present location on CampbellBarracks in Heidelberg.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

the eventual decision to station morepowerful forces in Europe.

By 1946, most American military unitsin Germany had been reorganized asconstabulary forces. Intended to regulatethe American occupation zone, constabu-lary units were lightly armed and struc-tured for what was essentially policework. More to the point, their constabu-lary functions overrode their training ascombat forces. As American leadersbecame increasingly alarmed about the

aggressive policy the Soviet Union waspursuing in Europe, the need to stationconventionally organized combat troopsin Germany to replace the 30,000 con-stabulary soldiers became evident. Theopening days of what came to be knownas the Cold War thus saw the movementof major Army units from the UnitedStates to Germany. Among them was VCorps, which moved from Fort Bragg toBad Nauheim in 1951, and to the I. G.Farben building in Frankfurt am Main


training design began to accommodatethe shift away from operations basedentirely on the general defense plan andbuttressed the experience of ongoingdeployments through exercises designedto explore the new problems involved. By1990, the force-on-force REFORGERexercises, focused entirely on centralEurope, were things of the past. Thereaf-ter, both corps and USAREUR exerciseshad already begun the extensive use ofcomputer-driven battle simulations andwere considering the requirements foroperating in other places and againstother threats. For the corps, that startedwith a series of corps-level command postexercises in 1991 and 1992. by 1992, withExercise Dragon Hammer in Sardinia, thefocus of corps operations had shiftedalmost completely to out-of-sectormissions. Ultimately, when ExerciseAtlantic Resolve replaced REFORGER asthe principal USAREUR annual exercise,operations in NATO’s central region hadclearly been supplanted by the expandedcorps mission of reacting to contingen-cies anywhere in the EUCOM area ofresponsibility.

The Partnership For Peace program,introduced at the end of the Cold War,

represented a broadening of corpstraining to allow it to include support fornational objectives in the post-Cold Warworld. PFP sought direct contact with thearmed forces of the former Warsaw Pactnations through a series of joint exer-cises. In part intended to establishrelations with those nations, the PFP alsobroadened the military horizons of all thearmies involved as they learned from eachother. V Corps took part in almost all ofthe PFP exercises. The corps alsodispatched a steady stream of soldiers,experts in various skills, as part of MobileTraining Teams assisting the armedforces of eastern Europe.

A further refinement of the exerciseprogram was the Mission RehearsalExercise, which was foreshadowed in thecarefully designed training through whichbattalion task forces went before takingup the Able Sentry mission inMacedonia, but which took their finalform when V Corps began sending troopsto Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of Opera-tion Joint Endeavor at the end of 1995.The Mission Rehearsal Exercise was acarefully planned and structured exercisethat rehearsed units for operations in aspecific theater of operations, in pursuit

of very specific missions, and in a waythat reflected the most current operationalcontext to which the unit would have toadapt. Forging a partnership withUSAREUR’s Seventh Army TrainingCommand, V Corps drew upon theexpertise of units then serving in Bosnia-Herzegovina for current information andbuilt a series of mission rehearsalexercises that prepared a succession ofunits for duty in the Balkans in a way thataccommodated the rapidly changingconditions there. The series of MountainEagle exercises proved a very successfulway to match the unit with its mission.The Mission Rehearsal Exercise thereafterbecame a normal tool for training V Corpstask forces.

As time went on, the V Corps forcestructure introduced new variables intothe planning process, for the corps by themid-1990s was much smaller than it hadbeen during the Cold War years. Thatmeant not only that fewer units wereavailable for the various missionsassigned the corps, but also that therewere fewer soldiers in each skill availablefor taskings to support ongoing missionsand the plethora of Partnership For Peaceexercises conducted throughout easternEurope. In 1991, V Corps numbered112,000 soldiers. By 1995, that numberhad dropped precipitously, since theArmy in Europe counted only slightlymore than 62,000 troops by then. By thatyear, the V Corps Artillery retained onlyone field artillery brigade, and thatbrigade commanded a single battalion;the corps’ armored cavalry regiment hadbeen reassigned to the United States; the5th Personnel Group and 5th FinanceGroup had been inactivated; and each ofthe two divisions had been reduced totwo maneuver brigades.

With that drawdown of forces nonethe-less came additional missions. Incidentto the post-Cold War reorganization ofNATO, V Corps contributed the 1stArmored Division to a NATO contin-gency force, the Allied Forces, CentralEurope, Rapid Reaction Corps — ARRCfor short. The corps also took part in theactivation of a pair of bi-national corps tobe used in European contingencies. The1st Armored Division was again assignedto the German II Korps, while the German5th Panzer Division, in 2001 replaced bythe 13th Panzer Division, was assigned to

Soldiers of the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital at work in Zagreb,Croatia in 1992. In the early 90s it became apparent that in thefuture V Corps� missions would take it beyond its traditional centralEuropean boundaries.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO


as time went on. The first V Corps unit todeploy was the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry,of the 3rd Infantry Division, and it wasfollowed by a series of other battalionsdrawn from both the 3rd Infantry Divisionand the 1st Armored Division.

When the 1st Infantry Divisionreplaced the 3rd Infantry Division in the VCorps order of battle, different numberedbattalions thereafter assumed the duty ofproviding task forces for the Able Sentrymission. While the names changed,however, the soldiers were drawn fromthe same locations in Germany as before.With the deployment of 1st ArmoredDivision in December 1995 and January1996 to serve as the core of Task ForceEagle in Operation Joint Endeavor inBosnia, changes had to be made in theplanned battalion rotation for task forcesdeployed to Macedonia. Since mecha-nized infantry battalions were at apremium in Bosnia, a tank battalion wasalerted and trained for the next rotation inMacedonia.

Fundamentally, the V Corps experiencewas that it was not easy to create a lightinfantry task force from a mechanizedinfantry battalion—much less from a tankbattalion. Because the mechanizedinfantry battalion did not provide therequisite number of dismounted riflemen,commanders were obliged to restructuretheir units such that platoons were mixedamong companies. That posed leader-ship challenges, because well-establishedteams had to be broken up, and small unitloyalties disrupted. Additional andunaccustomed requirements increasedthe training burden. Soldiers had to learnto deal effectively and appropriately withthe civilian population, a task thatoccupied the majority of soldiers’ time.Furthermore, the task force in Macedoniawas equipped with weapons and equip-ment that are not standard to a U.S. Armybattalion. Among them were five-tontrucks and the 81-mm mortar. Similarly,soldiers had to learn to operate andmaintain non-standard generators andwhat they dubbed the Small Unit SupportVehicle, or SUSV, essentially a “SnowCat.” Most of that training had to bedone in Macedonia, on the run, becausethe equipment was not available to thebattalions in Germany.

Specific additional training wasrequired for medical personnel because

the isolation of the observation posts andthe lack of American hospital supportimposed the need for greater indepen-dence and autonomy on the part of themedics. One solution to the problem ofproviding adequate medical support toobservation posts along the border, aswell as to the task force base camp, wasuse of sophisticated new equipment suchas the Tele-Med, which allowed directcontact with U.S. Army hospitals and theelectronic transmittal of medical informa-tion to doctors for their review. Medicshad to be trained in the use of that

equipment, but they also requiredadditional training to permit them greaterautonomy in providing medical treatment.

Operations in Macedonia, for the mostpart uneventful, were physically challeng-ing for soldiers and, in the judgment ofunit commanders, useful in developinggood noncommissioned officers. Work-ing within the United Nations chain ofcommand was a learning experience forthe task forces, as well as drawinglogistical support from other than U.S.Army sources. Other challenges awaitedtask force commanders upon return oftheir units to home station in Germany.Once in garrison, the battalions had to bereconstituted as mechanized or armoredunits, once again sundering teams thatleaders in Macedonia worked hard tobuild. For the duration of the six-monthdeployment, each task force focused itsattention on dismounted infantryoperations. Soldiers returned to Germanyin excellent physical condition and wellversed in patrolling. They were, however,no longer proficient Abrams or Bradleydrivers, mechanics, gunners, andmounted infantrymen. Thus a major partof the redeployment plan included re-training a battalion to resume mission-capable status for the heavy force battle.

The Able Sentry deployments came toan end on 28 February 1999, when theRepublic of China vetoed a UnitedNations resolution further to extend themission in Macedonia. The change camejust as Task Force 1-4 Cavalry arrived totake over from Task Force 1-18 Infantry.Because of other developments in theregion that suggested the need to retainthe base at Skopje, TF 1-4 Cavalryremained in Macedonia and was reconsti-tuted as Task Force Sabre. The task forcethen played a part in the NATO missionin Kosovo that developed later that year.By the end of the Able Sentry mission, VCorps had trained and dispatched 12battalion task forces for duty there.

Changes in training,organization, and

operationaltechniques

Not only operations, but also training,changed during those busy years, as the

Operations inMacedonia, forthe most partuneventful,were physicallychallenging forsoldiers and, inthe judgment ofunit command-ers, useful indevelopinggood noncom-missioned offic-ers. ... Soldiersreturned toGermany inexcellent physi-cal conditionand well versedin patrolling.They were,however, nolonger profi-cient Abrams orBradley drivers,mechanics,gunners, andmounted infan-trymen.

20

take an objective and then rapidlydisperse, so as not to present a profitabletarget for nuclear fires.

To enhance mobility, the goal was tomake all parts of the division air-trans-portable. Conventional weapons werealso improved, and the division wasgiven its own nuclear artillery. By 1958,the Corporal rocket, with range up to 75miles, was available, and the Redstone,with a range of 200 miles, had reachedoperational units. The Lacrosse, a short-range missile for close support of theinfantry, was soon to enter the inventory.The corps had its own nuclear cannonartillery in the 280-mm gun, of whichSeventh Army had six battalions.

Each battle group was a self-containedforce capable of independent operations.Specifically organized to enable it toabsorb new equipment, the Pentomicdivision soon received the M-14 rifle inthe standard NATO 7.62mm caliber, the7.62mm M60 machine gun, the diesel-powered M60 tank with 105mm cannon,and the lower-silhouette M-113 armoredpersonnel carrier that, together withhelicopters, gave the infantry highmobility. Smaller than a regiment, thebattle group was larger than a battalion,consisting of four rifle companies and amortar company in the standard infantrydivision. The division had a tankbattalion, an armored cavalry squadron, a105mm artillery battalion of five batteries,and a composite gun and missile battalionthat could deliver nuclear fires. The155mm howitzer battalion was reorganizedto retain two 155mm batteries, butsubstituted one 8-inch howitzer batteryand one Honest John rocket battery forthe other two. Supporting units weregenerally pooled outside the division andprovided as needed. The Pentomicdivision was smaller, at 13,748 officersand men, than the prior triangulardivision.

Following testing, the Army convertedall of its divisions to the Pentomicorganization between 1958 and 1960,including the divisions assigned to V andVII Corps in Germany. Problems with thePentomic division quickly becameapparent. Particularly evident to V Corpscommanders were the facts that thePentomic division lacked the combatpower for sustained offensive operationsand that it was far more difficult than with

early the next year.As early as 1948, some of the con-

stabulary squadrons had been reorga-nized as combat troops, forming threearmored cavalry regiments, including the14th Armored Cavalry that eventually fellunder V Corps control. With the functionof the Army in Europe definitely changedfrom occupation to defense, additionalcombat forces were quickly assigned.Seventh Army was activated in Stuttgarton 24 November 1950 to command theunits that rapidly began to arrive intheater. In 1951, Seventh Army tookcommand of V Corps and VII Corps toassume the form it was to retain for thenext four decades.

V Corps arrived in June 1951 and wasassigned to Seventh Army in August. Itstwo divisions were the 4th InfantryDivision, arriving in May 1951, and the2nd Armored Division, arriving in July.VII Corps arrived in Germany and took upits position on the right flank of V Corpsin October, initially commanding the 28thInfantry Division and the 43rd InfantryDivision, along with the 1st InfantryDivision. In February 1952, Seventh Armytransferred 1st Infantry Division to VCorps from VII Corps. In the course of1952, the constabulary completely ceasedoperation.

Divisionalreorganizations

A new Department of the Army planapproved on 1 July 1955 changed the wayreplacements were handled in Europe.Instead of an individual replacementsystem, whole units, together with familymembers, were exchanged betweenEurope and the Continental United Statesin what was known as Operation Gyro-scope. The expectation was that such areplacement concept would improve unitmorale and effectiveness, as well asproducing cost savings. Each major unitrotation to Europe was scheduled for a33-month tour. In Operation Gyroscope I,26 May to 27 September 1955, the 10thInfantry Division replaced the 1stInfantry Division in the V Corps order ofbattle. Likewise, from May to June 1956,the 3rd Armored Division arrived inOperation Gyroscope III to replace the4th Infantry Division. The 8th Infantry

Division, later to come under V Corpscommand, arrived in October of 1956 inanother Gyroscope rotation. Four yearsafter beginning Gyroscope, Departmentof the Army decided to return to anindividual replacement system, and thelarge unit rotations ended on 1 September1959.

The structure of the divisions them-selves underwent profound change inthose years as well. The Army inthe 1950s assumed that future war wouldinevitably be nuclear war, and Departmentof the Army in 1956 developed a plan toreorganize divisions to be not only moresurvivable on a nuclear battlefield, butalso to be more flexible. The new organi-zation was intended to give the divisionmobility, dispersion, superior intelligence,and communications. Under the Pentomicconcept, the division did away with thecombat command, the equivalent to thebrigade echelon of command, as well asthe regiment and the battalion, insteadorganizing its companies into five battlegroups, each commanded by a colonel.The assumption was that there would beno fixed lines on such a battlefield, andthe division had to be organized to fightin every direction at once. Conceptually,the battle groups would concentrate to

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

In Operation Gyroscope, theArmy replaced entire divisionsat once, rather than individu-als. Here the 3rd Armored Di-vision arrives in Bremerhaven,Germany to join V Corps.


U.S. ARMY PHOTO

Tank gunnery remained a principal focus of V Corps during training during the Cold War. Here, the 3rdBattalion, 12th Infantry, tests its firing skill.

the triangular division to task organize fordifferent missions. More directly,however, the United States soon lost itsmonopoly on tactical nuclear weapons,on which Pentomic operations werebased. More importantly, the UnitedStates Army came to realize that tacticalnuclear war was almost certainly not aviable concept, and that indulging in anykind of tactical nuclear exchange wouldprobably lead to a strategic nuclear war.

Beginning, therefore, in 1961, althoughdelayed in Europe until after the resolu-tion of the 1961 Berlin Crisis, the Armycarried through another reorganization ofits divisions. The ReorganizationObjectives Army Divisions, or ROADDivisions, returned the Army to thetriangular division organization, this timewith three brigades that resembled theWorld War II combat commands inflexibility and adaptability, and particu-larly in their ability to command whatevermix of units was needed for a givenmission. The ROAD division, to which VCorps converted in 1963, could fighteither a nuclear or a conventional war andwas powerful enough for sustainedoffensive operations. The division wasmechanized, which meant that its infantrywas mounted in armored personnelcarriers. The division headquarters had

two brigadier generals as assistantdivision commanders, one charged withdirecting the maneuver elements and theother with the logistical support. Beyondits maneuver brigades, the division hadan armored cavalry squadron thatincluded an air cavalry troop, a signalbattalion, an engineer battalion that had abridge company, an aviation battalion, amilitary police company, a robust divisionsupport command, and a division artillerywith three battalions of 105mm howitzersand a composite battalion of 155mm gunsand 8-inch howitzers.

The Army established the standardROAD infantry division with eightmechanized infantry battalions and twotank battalions, though that organizationvaried widely, particularly in Europe,where the Soviet and Warsaw Pact forceswere so richly provided with armor. Thearmored division, by contrast, wasorganized with six tank battalions and fivemechanized infantry battalions. In theearly years of the ROAD reorganization,the designation “mechanized division”indicated that a division had sevenmechanized infantry battalions and threearmored battalions, though that was adistinction that soon became lost, exceptas the divisions in Europe were con-trasted to the 82nd and 101st Airborne

Divisions in the United States and thelighter 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii.All ROAD divisions were larger thanPentomic divisions and had at least twicethe artillery firepower. By early 1964, bothof the divisions in V Corps were settled inthe new ROAD organization.

Defense ofWestern Europe

Once committed to the defense ofWestern Europe, V Corps experienced noreal change of mission for more than threedecades. To describe the corps’ opera-tions for any given year between 1952and 1990 was therefore essentially todescribe operations for every year of theCold War. The Victory Corps assumedresponsibility for conducting UnitedStates Army, Europe, operations plans forthe general defense of Germany from anyattack by the Warsaw Pact forces. Thatportion of the general defense plan thatpertained to the corps was precise andoriented the staff’s attention and thinkingtoward the east, and toward means ofcountering a single, overwhelming threat.

The V Corps sector was roughly 50miles in width and focused on the FuldaGap, one of several natural avenues of

28

corps was alerted for the mission andarrived in Mogadishu by 3 January, 1993.Advance elements conducted the first ofsix air assaults on 28 December andthereafter flew medical evacuation,combat service support, and administra-tive missions for 10th Mountain Divisionthrough the beginning of March, whenthe main body began to redeploy toGermany. The task force officiallydisbanded on 5 April 1993.

OperationSupport Hope

Another civil war in Africa, this time inRwanda, was the occasion for the next VCorps out-of-sector deployment. ByApril 1994, millions of refugees from thefighting had fled across the border intoZaire, and cholera and other diseaseswere causing deaths totaling around1,000 a day in the refugee camps aroundGoma. One of the principal problems wasa shortage of potable water. The UnitedStates agreed to take part in the humani-tarian relief operations already underwayand established a joint task force head-quarters at U.S. European Commandheadquarters in Stuttgart to manage theeffort. EUCOM set up a forward operat-ing base in Zaire through which tochannel food, medicines, and other reliefsupplies, and created Joint Task Force 51under the commanding general, U.S.Southeastern Task Force, to run theoperation in Africa.

V Corps provided forces to JTF 51,based in Entebbe, in what became a veryswiftly evolving situation. Calling uponthe 3rd Corps Support Command, thecorps in July deployed a water purifica-tion unit to Zaire. The platoon had thecapacity to produce 3,000 gallons ofwater at each of three sites, store 60,000gallons of water at the production site,and distribute water at eight forwardwater supply points, each of which couldstore 15,000 gallons. In July, the corpsdeployed an engineer earthmovingplatoon from the 94th Engineer Battalionto assist in handling the mass burials atthe various refugee camps, and aug-mented medical teams in Zaire.

By August, the success of the humani-tarian aid effort had enabled the Army toturn over much of the task to non-

governmental agencies in Zaire,and other V Corps units that hadbeen alerted for deployment toAfrica were told to stand down.Throughout that and otherdeployments, the corps had beenlearning important lessons inworking with the United Nations,in cooperating with non-govern-mental organizations, and inproviding forces for operationsunder control of the Joint Chiefsof Staff. One of the most impor-tant issues that the V Corps staffbrought to the attention of jointplanners was that U.S. Army unitshad to be deployed with appropri-ate command and control, support,and maintenance elements, if suchsupport was not explicitlyprovided within the joint taskforce.

Task ForceAble Sentry

On January 6, 1994, V Corps assumedfrom the Berlin Brigade the mission ofproviding an infantry battalion to theUnited Nations Protective Force inMacedonia. The UNPROFOR had amission unique in UN history of provid-ing a peacekeeping force before hostili-ties erupted, with the intention ofpreventing fighting—in that case,between the Former Republic of Yugosla-via, generally referred to as Serbia, andthe Former Yugoslav Republic ofMacedonia, generally referred to simplyas Macedonia. The V Corps battalionsmanned the northeastern sector of theborder between Macedonia and Serbia,with the Nordic Battalion (a compositebattalion of Swedes, Norwegians, andFinns) manning observation posts totheir left flank. The basic plan was toalternate the mission between infantrybattalions of the 3rd Infantry Divisionand the 1st Armored Division. During theDecember, 1994, to May, 1995, rotation,the character of the operation changed.Because a measurable degree of stabilityhad been assured, the United Nationsrenamed the deployed force theUNPREDEP, or United Nations PreventiveDeployment.

The peace enforcement mission was

unique for combat arms soldiers, andthere was at that time no validated U.S.Army doctrine to guide them as theyprepared for duty in Macedonia. To makeup for the deficiency, training exercisesprior to deployment drew on lessonslearned by previous battalion rotations.As time went on, leaders down to squadlevel went to Macedonia on brief orienta-tion tours — “right seat rides” — beforetheir units arrived for duty. Training fordismounted peacekeeping operationsalso required changes in the way soldiersand their leaders thought. There were anumber of problems inherent in changingthe mindset of an infantry battalion fromits traditional mission to one of peace-keeping. Fundamentally, peace enforce-ment missions stood normal combatoperations on their heads. In patrolling,for example, the object was not to movequietly and unseen, but specifically to beseen. Weapons were not carried at theready, but were often carried at slingarms, with the muzzle downward, whenpatrols went through towns. Mostfundamentally, the soldiers were not thereto fight, but to observe, monitor, andreport the conditions along the border tothe United Nations command.

Soldiers of the Berlin Brigade experi-enced the most austere conditions of anybattalion rotation in Macedonia. Becauseeach succeeding battalion worked hard toimprove conditions, the amenities thesoldiers enjoyed improved substantially

V Corps soldiers kept an eye on theYugoslavia-Macedonai border as partof Task Force Able Sentry, but therewas no validated doctrine for the mis-sion at the time, and soldiers had tolearn how to be peacekeepers.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

replaced by an Air Force hospital, anddirect V Corps involvement in the missioncame to an end.

OperationRestore Hope

The decade-long civil war in Somaliawas the cause of the next V Corpsmission, one that overlapped the hospitaldeployment to Croatia. The refugeesfleeing the war in Somalia, a countryimpoverished not only by fighting, butalso by drought, were in a desperate stateby the summer of 1992. Various attemptsby civilian agencies to relieve thesituation not having been sufficient, thePresident directed U.S. Central Commandto deploy 10th Mountain Division toSomalia to stabilize the political situationand orchestrate relief efforts. V Corpsreceived the mission of augmenting the10th Mountain Division’s helicopterunits, and began working in December of1992 to prepare a unit from 12th AviationBrigade for the mission.

Basing the task force on the 5thBattalion, 158th Aviation, the corps sentthe battalion headquarters, a compositeUH-60 company drawn from the battalionand the 1st Armored Division’s 7/227thAviation, a CH-47 company from the502nd Aviation, the 159th MedicalCompany, an air ambulance unit attachedfrom 7th Medical Command, an aviationintermediate maintenance company from7/159th Aviation, and an air traffic controlelement from 3/58th Aviation. TF 5-158began its deployment the day after the

orchestrated the 11th Armored Cavalrydeployment to Kuwait, it kept a wary eyeon developments in the Balkans.

That was a wise decision, for thePresident on 22 October 1992 directed theArmy to send a Mobile Army SurgicalHospital to Zagreb, Croatia, for anunspecified period starting on 15 Novem-ber. The civilian hospitals in Croatia werealready overburdened with casualtiesfrom the fighting, and medical supporthad to be provided for the 20,000-manUnited Nations Protection Force(UNPROFOR) scheduled to beginoperations throughout the FormerRepublic of Yugoslavia that month.USAREUR gave the mission to V Corps,which in turn selected the 212th MobileArmy Surgical Hospital, stationed atWiesbaden Air Base. The 68th MedicalGroup provided command and control forwhat became known as TF 212, and both7th Medical Command and 21st TheaterArmy Area Command attached personnelto enhance the hospital’s capabilities.

Detailed staff work ensued that set thestage for the deployment. The hospitalwas located at Camp Pleso, an area on thegrounds of the international airport inZagreb, alongside units of other nationsinvolved in the United Nations effort.The hospital was shipped by rail fromWiesbaden, while the soldiers deployedby air. The 90 officers, one warrantofficer, and 251 enlisted soldiers had theMASH operational, as planned, on 15November 1992. After treating more than3,000 patients from 30 countries, the 212thMASH was relieved in place by another VCorps unit, the 502nd MASH, which tookover the mission at the end of April, 1993.At the end of its 179-day tour ofduty, the 502nd MASH was

27

deter any future Iraqi aggression. In May1991, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directedUSAREUR to dispatch a brigade-sizedforce to relieve the Ready First Brigade.Responding to those orders, V Corpsdeployed the 11th Armored CavalryRegiment there in Operation PositiveForce. The Blackhorse, constituted asTask Force Victory, began its movementto Kuwait on the last day of May andassumed its mission on 15 June, when thelast of its 3,700 troopers arrived.

The deployment was principally apersonnel flow, since the regiment wasable to take over equipment sets that the1st and 3rd Armored Divisions had left inSaudi Arabia. The task force establisheda base camp near Kuwait City and a rangeand training area to the west of the city,and then assumed its mission of observ-ing the border. By late summer, it hadbecome clear that there was little risk offurther Iraqi military action, andUSAREUR concluded that a battaliontask force was ample for the mission.Therefore, the corps prepared the 3rdBattalion, 77th Armor, of 8th InfantryDivision, to assume the Blackhorse’sequipment and mission by 15 September1991. At the end of November, TF 3-77Armor had completed its uneventful tourof duty and returned to Mannheim.Thereafter, equipment remaining inSouthwest Asia was used for trainingrotations of battalions that used CampsDoha and Monterey and the adjacentmaneuver areas in Kuwait both to honetheir skills in desert operations and toserve as an earnest of American inten-tions to defend Kuwait.

OperationProvide Promise

It soon became clear to V Corpsplanners that the post-Cold War worldwould be a complicated place in which tooperate, not least because operations didnot come one at a time, but often simulta-neously instead. As early as April 1992,the corps commander had asked forregular updates on the rapidly deteriorat-ing situation in Yugoslavia, and many onthe staff anticipated that V Corps mightbe called upon to perform some missionthere as part of the United Nationsresponse. While, therefore, the staff

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

The soldiers of VCorps� Task Force5/158th Aviationconduct a cer-emony upon theirreturn from Op-eration RestoreHope in Somalia.


approach from the eastern part ofGermany into the west, and a place thatLt. Gen. Creighton W. Abrams, when hecommanded V Corps in 1963 and 1964,once called “a playground for tanks.”Defensive guidelines continually evolvedto meet changing conditions, but thedominant pattern was that the corps’cavalry regiment (the 14th ArmoredCavalry, until it was replaced by the 11thArmored Cavalry on 17 May 1972, at theend of the Vietnam War) patrolled theinter-German border and observed themovements of the East German andSoviet forces deployed along thatboundary. Behind the cavalry screen, thecorps was alert to maneuver the 3rdArmored Division and the 8th InfantryDivision (Mechanized) in response to anyattack.

Original NATO defensive plansevolved to include units of the new WestGerman army, the Bundeswehr, after 1955.The background of the Bundeswehr wasfairly complicated. Germany enacted theGundgesetz, the Basic Law that served asits constitution, in May 1949 and unitedthe western occupation zones under asingle civil government. In September ofthat year, Konrad Adenauer became thefirst West German chancellor, and steeredGermany in the direction of closer tieswith the former Allies. In October 1954,the Paris Peace Treaty was signed,officially ending the European portion ofWorld War II. At that time, Germany wasinvited to join NATO. The treaty cameinto effect in March 1955, establishing theFederal Republic of Germany as asovereign nation. In May, West Germanyofficially joined NATO. Two years later,in April 1957, and amid great publicdebate in Germany, the Bundeswehrdrafted its first class of 10,000 conscripts.Thereafter, V Corps shared boundaries inthe south with VII U.S. Corps and in thenorth with III (German) Korps.

In April 1976, Lt. Gen. Donn Starry,then corps commander, began to reviewthe corps general defensive plans to usethe doctrine of the active defense thatemphasized the strength of the coveringforce and limited the designated reserves,relying instead on mobility to concentratestrength wherever required. Eventually,the active defense concept became a partof a larger Army doctrine known asAirLand Battle, a concept embodied in a

new edition of Field Manual 100-5,Operations, and the corps continued torevise its own battle plans to reflectchanging doctrine. Gerow and Huebnerwould probably have been quite comfort-able with AirLand Battle doctrine,because it strongly reflected the style ofbattle that V Corps had practiced at theend of World War II. AirLand Battleemphasized swift, decisive operationsthat synchronized all of the firepower andmaneuver forces available to the corps,together with all of the supportingfunctions of logistics, intelligence, and airpower, conducted violently and with theagility that new mechanized equipmentgave the maneuver units, and waged overthe entire depth of the battlefield to fightnot only the enemy forces in contact, butalso to attack his follow-on echelons offorces.

Division structure changed in conso-nance with the development of AirLandBattle. In the early 1970s, once the war inVietnam was over, Army attentionreturned to Europe, where a plan draftedin 1969 began to be implemented to addcapabilities to the divisions of V and VIICorps. The AIM (Armored, Infantry,

Mechanized divisions) modified organiza-tional structure added air defense,additional aviation, and TOW anti-tankmissile units to the divisional tables oforganization, as well as additional tankbattalions. At the same time, V Corpsartillery added the Lance missile battalion,which was capable of delivering nuclearweapons. Department of the Armypersonnel policy at that time focused onkeeping the units in Europe fully up tostrength, which meant that while divi-sions in Europe had three maneuverbrigades each, some divisions in theUnited States had only two Regular Armybrigades and a round-out brigade fromthe Army Reserve or National Guard.

V Corps strength was increased in 1976as a result of a 1974 bill sponsored bySenator Sam Nunn of Georgia, requiringthe Army to reduce support personnel inEurope by 18,000 and increase its combatspaces. The result was the Brigade-75and Brigade-76 program, begun in 1975 tobring additional armored units to Ger-many. Brigade-75 was the 3rd Brigade,2nd Armored Division, from Fort Hood,Texas which rotated its battalionsthrough Grafenwöhr, Wildflecken andHohenfels training areas on six-monthtours. In 1976, that brigade was perma-nently assigned to Germany, underSeventh Army control, as 2nd ArmoredDivision (Forward), at Garlstedt, innorthern Germany. The role of 2ndArmored Division (Forward) was to bethe lead element of III Corps, if that corpswere deployed to Germany in the event ofwar.

Brigade-76, arriving in Germany in thatcalendar year, was the recently activated4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, fromFort Carson, Colorado. The brigade wasstationed at Wiesbaden Air Base, whichhad until recently, been a U.S. Air Forces,Europe, installation. In the fall of 1976, thebrigade was assigned to Seventh Army,rotating its subordinate units from FortCarson on six-month tours of duty. In theautumn of 1977, the brigade was perma-nently assigned to Seventh Army andattached to a V Corps unit, the 8thInfantry Division (Mechanized), whichhad its headquarters in nearby BadKreuznach.

In 1983, V Corps began converting tothe new Division 86 structure, a processthat basically involved increasing the

In the earlyyears of the

Cold War,American lead-

ers thoughtthan an attack

on westernEurope was

imminent... Foralmost 40

years, V Corpskept itself

ready for thateventuality.

combat power of thedivisions through thefielding of more powerfulcombat vehicles andhelicopters. Division 86reorganization began in VCorps with the 3rd InfantryDivision, and involvedfielding the M-1 tank andthe M-2 Bradley fightingvehicle to complete thedivision structure andequipment that existed atthe end of the Cold War. On15 September 1984, the 4thBrigade, 4th InfantryDivision, inactivated inWiesbaden, to complete theDivision 86 reorganizationin the corps.

In the early years of theCold War, American leadersthought than an attack onwestern Europe wasimminent, a belief thatconditioned the Americanresponse to the war in Korea, where theArmy sent National Guard divisions,rather than regular forces, in the earlydays of the fighting. Consequently, theArmy maintained its European units atthe highest possible state of readiness.As time went on, Army planners came tobelieve that a Warsaw Pact attack inGermany was increasingly less probable,but that it remained the greatest of allpossible dangers to American nationalsecurity if it ever materialized. For almost40 years, V Corps kept itself ready for thateventuality. In doing so, the corps’watchword remained readiness, and in theopinion of many Cold War veterans, theArmy in Europe in general, and V Corpsand VII Corps in particular, was the mosthighly trained and ready part of the entireservice.

Vigilance andpreparedness

for war

Life in V Corps focused on the eternalround of gunnery and field trainingexercises, and the battalions moved fromgarrison to Grafenwöhr, Vilseck,Baumholder, Hohenfels, and back togarrison with the regularity and inevitabil-

23

ity of the changing of the seasons. Corpscommanders demanded skilled maneuver,but for the individual soldier, platoonleader, company commander, and battal-ion commander, gunnery lay at the heartof all training. The overwhelmingnumerical strength of the Warsaw Pactforces confronting the corps demandedproficiency in gunnery above all else, andtank crew qualification in the armoredbattalions and Expert Infantry Badgequalification in the mechanized infantrybattalions were the most importantmeasures of true happiness. Thus, theexperiences of a V Corps soldier whomanned an M-26 tank in 1952, or an M48tank in 1960, or an M60 tank in 1975, orand M-1 tank in 1989, were preciselysimilar. The same was true for infantry-men, artillerymen and soldiers of all theother branches throughout nearly fourdecades. Technical and tactical profi-ciency dominated the thoughts of leadersat all levels.

Exercises of all varieties filled the timethat battalions were not involved ingunnery and maintenance. Wintermaneuvers became an annual event, butin October 1963, Operation Big Lift, whichbrought the 2nd Armored Division fromFort Hood to participate in the annualexercise, set a new model for the scale of

U.S. ARMY PHOTOThird Armored Division tankers fire in REFORGER 81.

the event. V Corps, then under commandof Abrams, was responsible for runningBig Lift, which had a political purpose aswell as a military one. President John F.Kennedy wished to demonstrate, in theaftermath of the 1961 Berlin confronta-tion, that the United States was deter-mined to defend Europe. That exercisewas also a rigorous test of the concept ofpositioning equipment in Europe thatarriving troops could use.

In 1967, the United States announcedplans to withdraw 28,000 troops, roughlytwo divisions, from Europe in 1968. Todemonstrate its continued commitment toNATO, despite that drawdown, the U.S.agreed to a large-scale force deploymentof not less than three brigades of a singledivision to Europe in an annual exercise.Thus was born REFORGER – the Returnof Forces to Germany exercise — whichdrew on the experience of Big Lift, andwhich become one of the most enduringsymbols of the Army in Europe duringthe Cold War. REFORGER not onlytested the ability of conventional forcesto fight in a conventional war scenario,while simultaneously testing the forceprojection capability of the Americanmilitary establishment, but it also re-mained a demonstration of Americandetermination to preserve the freedom of


ThePersian Gulf War

Just as Americans began to think thethreat of a major European war was at lasta thing of the past, the Iraqi invasion ofKuwait demonstrated that the collapse ofthe Warsaw Pact did not necessarilymean that the “new world order” wouldbe a peaceful one. In November 1990,U.S. Army, Europe, sent a corps to SaudiArabia to take part in Operation DesertShield and, later, in Operation DesertStorm. Partly because V Corps had justhad a change of command, USAREURselected VII Corps headquarters for thejob. The Jayhawk Corps was, however, acomposite of V Corps and VII Corpsunits. The Victory Corps sent its 3rdArmored Division and some battalionsfrom the 8th Infantry Division along withVII Corps, because the SpearheadDivision was well advanced in itsmodernization process and was largelyequipped with Bradley Fighting Vehicles.Even before VII Corps moved out, VCorps received orders to send its 12thAviation Brigade to Southwest Asia. Thecorps then took on the mission of helpingVII Corps deploy out of Germany. Thecorps provided additional equipment andammunition to VII Corps and assumedcontrol of those VII Corps troops —23,482 of them — who did not deploy toSaudi Arabia. Units across V Corps gaveup soldiers and equipment to get thedeploying units up to 100 percentstrength. In all, V Corps sent 26,878soldiers to the Persian Gulf. Once thedeployment was complete, the corpsbegan training replacement squads,crews, and sections in armor, infantry,artillery, and engineer skills, and trainedindividual ready reservists from theUnited States in the same skills, in case

the war in the desert turned out to be along and costly one.

While VII Corps was waging its war inSouthwest Asia, Lt. Gen. David M.Maddox kept V Corps focused otherpossible missions that might arise.Political instability in eastern and centralEurope made the situation on NATO’speriphery a risky one, and V Corps had toremain able to react swiftly if the needarose. Consequently, throughout thefighting in the Persian Gulf, V Corpstrained hard, keeping its units at a peak ofreadiness. Once the war was over, thecorps concentrated on recoveringsoldiers and equipment from SouthwestAsia and continuing the drawdownprocess that had just been gettingunderway when the Persian Gulf Warbegan. By the end of 1992, V Corps wasthe only remaining corps in Germany, andhad reorganized to command the 11thArmored Cavalry Regiment, the 8thInfantry Division (soon to be re-flaggedas the 1st Armored Division), and the 3rdInfantry Division, as well as a number ofseparate brigades. Immediately, the firstof many out of sector missions sent VCorps troops out of Germany again.

OperationProvide Comfort

In the aftermath of the Persian GulfWar, Sadaam Hussein’s army began aseries of attacks on its internal Kurdishpopulation, an action that propelled manycivilian refugees to the northern part ofthe country, where Iraq shared a borderwith Turkey. In April 1991, reacting to apresidential order for the armed forces toassist in an international humanitarianrelief action for that displaced group, thecommander-in-chief, Europe, activatedJoint Task Force Provide Comfort at

Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, under thecommand of Lt. Gen. John Shalikashvili,the deputy commander-in-chief. The U.S. Army component of JTF ProvideComfort was drawn from USAREUR.Task Force Bravo, commanded by Maj.Gen. Jay Garner, the deputy corpscommander, deployed to Turkey startingon 13 April, with the self-deployment ofTask Force Thunderhorse, drawn from the4th Squadron, 11th Armored CavalryRegiment. Very quickly, every majorcommand in USAREUR became involved,with the heaviest deployments comingfrom V Corps units. Many troop unitswere involved, but the major deploymentscame from the corps’ aviation units,which assumed the mission in rotationafter it became evident that the deploy-ment would be a long one. The 4th(Combat Aviation) Brigade of the 3rdInfantry Division, the initial command andcontrol element, was replaced by the 11thAviation Brigade in December 1991. Thepeak deployment involved 2,043 soldiersin the first phase of relief operations. Bylate 1992, the number had fallen to nomore than 51, and the numbers of soldiersdiminished steadily thereafter.

OperationPositive Force

Meanwhile, political and diplomaticdevelopments further to the southcreated the context for another V Corpsmission. To ensure the security ofrecently liberated Kuwait, U. S. CentralCommand had, upon the request of thegovernment of Kuwait and the approvalof the President of the United States, leftthe 1st (Ready First) Brigade, 3rd Ar-mored Division, behind to occupyassembly areas as the theater reserve,provide a continued U.S. presence, and

After the Cold War

V❂

1990-1111

24 25❂ It Will Be Done

western Europe. The first REFORGER,which the Russians denounced as a“major military provocation,” began on 6January 1969. Thereafter, V Corpsparticipated in each of those annualexercises.

In Wintex exercises, the corps validatedgeneral defense and war plans andvarious administrative measures thatsupported those plans. Other exerciseshelped resolve questions about how bestto cooperate with the NATO allies, and VCorps troops regularly went to the fieldwith, or in conjunction with, French,Belgian, Dutch, British, Canadian, andGerman units to become familiar withthose nations’ equipment, organization,communications, and tactical doctrine.Still other exercises tested United StatesArmy, Europe, operations plans. Formost Cold War veterans, however, one ofthe dominant recollections of duty inGermany was the periodic and unan-nounced readiness test, when all soldierswere recalled to their units, generally inthe middle of the night, and the unitsmoved out to their general defensepositions in accordance with a stricttimetable that permitted no variance andadmitted no excuses for failure. Theringing of a telephone in the middle of thenight was, for many, the most enduringsymbol of service in Europe during thosetension-laden years.

Although the United States fought awar in Vietnam from early 1961 through1973, the Army attempted to maintainhigh manning levels in Europe. V Corpsreports still complained of shortages incertain ranks — particularly the middle-grade non-commissioned officers andcompany-grade officers that were in suchdemand in Vietnam — but the corpsremained at more than 90 percent strengththroughout the Cold War despite the hotwar in Southeast Asia. In the late 1960sand early 1970s, the rapid rotation ofjunior leaders and the unsettled conditionof the Army as a whole produced seriousmorale and discipline problems in Europe,problems to which V Corps was notimmune. During the second half of the1970s, however, the Army systematicallycured the disciplinary and moraleproblems that arose, in part, because ofthe Vietnam War.

The other characteristic of VCorps during the Cold War was a

continuous modernization of equipment.The Warsaw Pact threat defined therequirements for new tanks and armoredpersonnel carriers, and the corps steadilyreceived the newest and most capableweapons the United States couldproduce. The centerpiece was naturallythe tank, but maneuver doctrine, particu-larly after the publication of succeedingeditions of Field Manual 100-5, andespecially the version that outlined thetenets of AirLand Battle, demanded theupgrading of every category of militaryequipment. Thus, for example, the M-113Armored Personnel Carrier replacedearlier equipment, and the M551 Sheridanlight tank replaced the M-114 cavalryscout vehicle in the cavalry regiment. Inturn, the M-3 Bradley scout vehiclereplaced the Sheridan. The Lance missilereplaced Honest John and Sergeant fieldartillery rockets. Each of those weaponswas replaced by still more modernequipment, thanks to increased fundingin the second half of the 1980s. By theend of the Cold War, V Corps’ cavalryregiment, two divisions, supportingartillery, and other arms all had, or were inthe process of receiving, fighting

equipment that defined the state of theart. M-1 and, eventually, M-1A1 tanksreplaced the fleet of aging M60 variants,while the M-2 and M-3 Bradley infantrysquad and cavalry scout vehiclesreplaced the venerable M-113 armoredpersonnel carrier. Upgrades in cannonartillery were matched by fielding of theMultiple Launch Rocket System. Simi-larly, the UH-60 Black Hawk utilityhelicopter and AH-64 Apache attackhelicopter replaced the aging UH-1Iroquois and AH-1 Cobra aircraft.

Throughout the decades after 1952, VCorps stood in the center of the NATOline, literally and figuratively the keystoneof the defenses of western Europe.Unlike the corps’ previous assignments,that one turned out to have involved nogreat battles. The Cold War was none-theless a period of enormous stress andyears of apprehensive and watchfulwaiting. Occasionally, war seemed tocome closer, sending V Corps troops upto the border in times of crisis. TheHungarian revolt of November 1956 wasone such occasion. More serious stillwas the East German decision to close theborder in Berlin in August, 1961, and the

accompanying Soviet decision to encircleBerlin with combat divisions in support ofthe East German action while the GermanDemocratic Republic built the Berlin Wall.Similarly, in October 1973, the Army inEurope moved to the field during thestate of alert that was ordered at theoutbreak of the Arab-Israeli War.

In addition to threats of war, V Corpssoldiers were also subjected to personalattacks through the 1970s and 1980s. TheRed Army Faction exploded bombs at VCorps headquarters and at the TerraceClub on the headquarters complex in May1972, again in June 1976, and yet again in

June and July 1982. Officers’ clubs inHanau, Gelnhausen, and Bamberg werebombed in June 1982, a year that saw thelargest number of terrorist incidents (68)ever directed against American soldiers inGermany. Finally, in November 1985, a carbomb exploded at the Frankfurt postexchange, injuring 35 people. V Corpssoldiers and their families lived undersuch threats for a dozen years.

When the Warsaw Pact collapsed in1989 and both the Berlin Wall and theinter-German border fence went down, itshortly became clear to everyone inEurope that the Cold War was not only

over, but had actually been won. Thecost had been principally in nationaltreasure, rather than in lives, as inAmerica’s earlier wars. The end resultof many years of V Corps training,readiness, and intense effort, theconclusion of the Cold War was not,however, the end of V Corps’ missionsin Europe. Almost immediately, veteransof Cold War service became involvedin attempting to bring calm to regionson the periphery of western Europewhere the demise of communistsystems had left instability and insecu-rity.

The Iron Curtain, as seen at Fulda. During the Cold War, the borderbetween East Germany and West Germany might also contain tank orvehicle obstacles, watch towers, dog runs and even minefields.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

The Terrace Club behind corps headquarters in Frankfurt was bombed in May 1972 by members of theterrorits Red Army Faction. Throughout the 70s and 80s V Corps soldiers and their families lived with theconstant fear of terorist attacks. In 1982 alone there were 68 terrorist threats against U.S. soldiers livingin Germany.

Documents

history pamphlet final print order - USArmyGermany.com Corps History Revised Nov 2… · to supporting the NATO alliance and to carrying out the ... V Corps Operations in the ETO,