71st Infantry Division

Description

Trace the history of the 71st Infantry Division, from its inception in 1943 on, in this fascinating account. Nicknamed the Red Circle Division from their insignia, the 71st played a significant role in World War II in Alsace-Lorraine and also in Austria, where they liberated a concentration camp. Features photographs, index, and endpaper color maps.

Sujets

• WW2
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• Austria
• 71st Division
• Biography
• Military history of the United States
• History of the United States
• World War II
• Autobiography
• Alsace-Lorraine
• Seconde Guerre mondiale
• Autriche

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781618587428
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Turner Publishing Company 412 Broadway • P.O. Box 3101 Paducah, KY 42002-3101 [phone]
 
Editor: Dayna Spear Williams
 
Copyright 2001 Turner Publishing Company
 
Publishing Rights Turner Publishing Company
 
Library of Congress #: 00 133697
9781618587428
 
Printed in the U.S.A.
 
Sketches on page 4&5 taken from Farthest East by Gerald McMahon, Yaderman Books, 1986. Used with permission.
 
This book or any part there of may not be reproduced without the written consent of the Publisher. This publication was compiled using available information. The Publishers regrets it cannot assume liability for errors or omissions.
Table of Contents
Title Page Copyright Page The Liberation of Paris Foreword Publisher’s Message 71st Infantry Division History - A History of the 71st Infantry Division Recollections... Those Who Served... Killed in Action Methodology INDEX
The Liberation of Paris

GENERALS George C. Marshall Dwight D. Eisenhower Omar N. Bradley George S. Patton, Jr. Walton H. Walker
Sketches by Jack Butler
Foreword
A personal note to the men of the 71 st:
My father was an extremely modest man, even telling Cornelius Ryan (author of The Longest Day ) when he asked my father to record his feelings throughout that chaotic day on Omaha Beach, that he thought everything Ryan needed to know could be found in the First Division History. (The History reads, after describing in detail the action that took place: “There were many heroes on Omaha Beach that bloody day, but none of greater stature than Wyman and Taylor.”) Ryan writes about Taylor and others in The Longest Day, but does not mention Wyman.
All of you should be honored that this “by the book” career soldier learned so much about the practicality and inventiveness and values of American people from the men of the 71st Division. Even though he had been in charge of the First Division troops on that bullet-riddled day on Omaha Beach, it was the 71st Division that he considered his division. It was the soldiers and officers of the 71st to whom he was most devoted.
That is the way my father would want it, for over the years he said very little about his own war experiences. On the other hand he always had much to say about the men of the 71st Division, a division he claimed was as good as any division in the European Theater of Operations, including the famous First Division.
Two stories are particularly telling. Like most of the memories he shared with me about those days, they seem to say more about the men of the 71st Division than they do about my father. They bear repeating.
The first was when he and members of an advance party were standing on the roof of a building in some town in Germany. Suddenly they spotted German tanks moving rapidly into the town from the opposite direction. Members of the party were immediately on their radios identifying locations and directing anti-tank fire. Very quickly the tanks were stopped by the big guns of the 71st. My father would marvel over the speed and efficiency of that operation. And when I asked about it, saying, “Wasn’t that what was supposed to happen?” He would just shake his head. “Of course.” He would smile as he said it. “But they forgot all the artillery terms they had been trained to use. They just raised hell and brought the rounds right in on target. I honestly think they got the job done faster doing it their own way.”
The second was the concentration camp at Gunskirchen Lager. It was impossible for him to erase that grim truth from his memory. “I didn’t believe people could do that to other people,” he would tell me. “Neither could the men. None of us could make sense of these ravished bodies, the horror of that place.”
I think it was Gunskirchen Lager that brought him closer than anything else to all of you who served in the 71 st Division. He saw it with you; he saw it through you. It seemed to symbolize for him the special qualities this country has that draws all sorts of people together to protect freedom. To him it made all of you one in facing the deeply serious and formidable task inherited by your generation.
I am sorry he cannot be here to see how this book celebrates your success. He would take great pleasure in your reminiscences. He would be rewarded that the task you shared long ago has kept you together as it has.
Wherever he is, you can be sure that he will forever be saluting the men who served in the 71st Division.
 
— Willard G. Wyman Jr.
Publisher’s Message
The 71st Infantry Division takes pride in their valor through sharing their stories and photos this historical album of memories. We salute them for their bravery, courage and loyalty to this nation.
Turner Publishing Company would like to extend appreciation to the veterans for the biographies, stories and photos which make up the contents of The Red Circle Division. Also, special thanks belongs to Mr. Bill Kasson whose support made this book possible.
I am proud of my father’s military service in the Navy during World War II; my brother, who was killed in the Army during Vietnam; my service in the Air Force and my oldest son, who is on active duty with the Marines.
Turner Publishing is honored to add The Red Circle Division to nearly 800 published Turner titles, among which are Legacy of the Purple Heart; Iwo Jima; Airborne 50th Anniversary; American Ex-Prisoners of War; Battle of the Bulge; Korean War Veterans Memorial; Pearl Harbor Survivors; Hump Pilots; Vietnam Fighter Pilots; Vietnam Helicopter Pilots and 101st Airborne.
 
Sincerely,

Dave Turner President
Historic Event: Lt. Gen. Lothar von Rendulic surrenders to Maj. Gen. Willard G. Wyman, commanding general of the 71st Infantry Division, at Steyr, Austria, May 6, 1945.

71st Infantry Division History
A History of the 71st Infantry Division
by Gerald McMahon

THE DIVISION IS FORMED
In August, 1943, the War Department created the 71 st Infantry at Fort Carson, Colorado, to be one of three small fighting forces designed to operate in the roughest terrain possible with minimum mechanical equipment. Two regular army regiments with credentials dating back to the formation of the Republic, the 5th and 14th Infantry, augmented by the newly formed 66th Infantry, shaped the new division, soon fleshed out by 607th, 608th, 609th and 564th Field Artillery Battalions, the 271st Engineer Combat Battalion, the 771st Ordnance, the 581st Anti-Tank Battery, the 371st Medical Battalion, other support elements, and tough, experienced training officers and NCOs.
The men of the new 71st had no way of knowing that sixteen months later they would be at sea, heading for combat commitment with the 7th Army in the Vosges Mountains in northeastern France. With its makeup, probable training program and experience of its senior personnel, a date in Italy, Yugoslavia, Norway, Burma or the Pacific Islands was a more likely assignment.
 
Outstanding Battalion Commander

Ltc Bryce F. Denno CO, 3rd Bn., 66th Inf. Siegfried File
But, in the Army, events and destinations entail their own mystery and are not always planned long in advance. Unforeseen developments can alter the best-laid plans of planners — and often do.
As a “light” division, the 71st was a stripped-down small, tough collection of foot soldiers. Instead of jeeps it had small two-wheeled steel carts. Most important of all, it had 8,000 pairs of feet. The outfit could go anywhere sturdy Infantry feet could take it. The training program in Colorado, and later, the grueling maneuvers at Hunter Liggett Military Reservation in the arid central mountains of California, toughened still further an already tough outfit. Still later after three weeks of rain, the mountain dust of Hunter Liggett turned to mud like most had never seen. After this “conditioning,” almost everyone was ready to go overseas — just to get out of training designed by fiends and compounded by hellish weather and terrain. The training had achieved a major objective.
Men who have carried the long, heavy, awkward tube of an 81 mm mortar, or the spread-legged cradle of a heavy machine-gun or slept in rocky foxholes, bitten by sand fleas, roasting in the daytime and chilled to the bone at night, can appreciate the term “Infantry Desert Training.” Those who have not experienced these or similar discomforts can only get a mental picture conveyed by words. The training was difficult, demanding, necessary.
It was a demanding war; it required tough men. The Germans and Japanese had been at it for years and thus had a decided edge on experience. We would only beat them by being tougher, better trained, more determined.

UNIT TRAINING
The War Department decided its needs could best be met by standard 14,300-man infantry divisions and gave up the notion of having three small, “light” divisions. The 71st division lost 3,200 trained privates and received a like number of college-trained Army Specialist Training Program men, many of whom had had some R.O.T.C. experience, and in May, 1944, headed for Sand Hill, Fort Benning, Georgia for reorganization and still more new men.
From July to October men were assigned from a wide variety of camps and from every section of the country. A dozen junior officers from the Armored School were assigned as anti-tank platoon leaders; several hundred eighteen-year olds came up from Camp Blanding, Florida after thirteen weeks basic infantry training, and so it went. A few new second lieutenants were assigned from West Point, including John Eisenhower, who was assigned to a 14th Infantry rifle company.
We engaged in intensive small unit training, night problems, map orientation, infiltration and reconnaissance problems, extensive range practice, mine and booby-trap familiarization, road marches, drills, VD lectures and a few unit parades. Short passes to nearby Columbus were of little use as the town was literally swamped by infantrymen and paratroopers. There were over 60,