1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
United States Army
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The United States Armed Forces are the federal armed forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, from the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War. Even so, the Founders were suspicious of a permanent military force and it played an important role in the American Civil War, where leading generals on both sides were picked from members of the United States military. Not until the outbreak of World War II did a standing army become officially established. The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold Wars onset, the U. S. military is one of the largest militaries in terms of number of personnel. It draws its personnel from a pool of paid volunteers. As of 2016, the United States spends about $580.3 billion annually to fund its military forces, put together, the United States constitutes roughly 40 percent of the worlds military expenditures. For the period 2010–14, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that the United States was the worlds largest exporter of major arms, the United States was also the worlds eighth largest importer of major weapons for the same period. The history of the U. S. military dates to 1775 and these forces demobilized in 1784 after the Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence. All three services trace their origins to the founding of the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, the United States President is the U. S. militarys commander-in-chief. Rising tensions at various times with Britain and France and the ensuing Quasi-War and War of 1812 quickened the development of the U. S. Navy, the reserve branches formed a military strategic reserve during the Cold War, to be called into service in case of war. Time magazines Mark Thompson has suggested that with the War on Terror, Command over the armed forces is established in the United States Constitution. The sole power of command is vested in the President by Article II as Commander-in-Chief, the Constitution also allows for the creation of executive Departments headed principal officers whose opinion the President can require. This allowance in the Constitution formed the basis for creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 by the National Security Act, the Defense Department is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is a civilian and member of the Cabinet. The Defense Secretary is second in the chain of command, just below the President. Together, the President and the Secretary of Defense comprise the National Command Authority, to coordinate military strategy with political affairs, the President has a National Security Council headed by the National Security Advisor. The collective body has only power to the President
3.
Armor Branch (United States)
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The Armor Branch of the United States Army is an active combat arms branch. It was created provisionally in 1940 as Armored Force under Chief of the Armored Force, Brigadier General Adna R. Chaffee, Jr. even though the armor branch traces its lineage back to the original cavalry units, its first beginnings date from the First World War. The Tank Service of the National Army was formed on 5 March 1918. the Armored Force was formed on 10 July 1940 and became a permanent branch of the Army in 1950. The United States Army Armor School is now located at Fort Benning, ARMOR is the professional journal of the U. S. Army’s Armor Branch, published by the Chief of Armor at Fort Benning, GA. training center for the Army’s tank and cavalry forces. It is also one of the oldest publications in the U. S. S
4.
Armoured warfare
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Armoured warfare, mechanised warfare or tank warfare is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a component of modern methods of war. The premise of armoured warfare rests on the ability of troops to penetrate defensive lines through use of manoeuvre by armoured units. Under these conditions, any sort of advance was very slow. Tanks were first developed in Britain and France in 1915, as a way of navigating the barbed wire, British Mark I tanks first went to action at the Somme, on 15 September 1916, but did not manage to break the deadlock of trench warfare. The first French employment on 16 April 1917, of the Schneider CA, was also a failure, in the Battle of Cambrai British tanks were more successful, and broke a German trenchline system, the Hindenburg Line. Despite the generally unpromising beginnings, the military and political leadership in both Britain and France during 1917 backed large investments into armoured vehicle production and this led to a sharp increase in the number of available tanks for 1918. The German Empire to the contrary, produced only a few tanks, twenty German A7V tanks were produced during the entire conflict, compared to over 4,400 French and over 2,500 British tanks of various kinds. Tactically, the deployment of armour during the war was typified by an emphasis on direct infantry support. The tanks main tasks were seen as crushing barbed wire and destroying machine-gun nests, theoretical debate largely focussed on the question whether a swarm of light tanks should be used for this or a limited number of potent heavy vehicles. Though in the Battle of Cambrai a large concentration of British heavy tanks effected a breakthrough, the manoeuvrability of the tank should at least in theory regain armies the ability to flank enemy lines. Following the First World War, the technical and doctrinal aspects of armoured warfare became more sophisticated and diverged into multiple schools of doctrinal thought, during the 1920s, only very few tanks were produced. There were however, important theoretical and technical developments, various British and French commanders who had contributed to the origin of the tank, such as Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne, B. H. Liddell Hart and J. F. C. Fuller, theorised about a future use of independent armoured forces, containing a large concentration of tanks. Especially Liddell Hart wrote many books about the subject, partly propagating Fullers theories, such doctrines were faced with the reality that during the 1920s the armoured vehicles, as early road transport in general, were extremely unreliable, and could not be used in sustained operations. Mainstream thought on the subject was more conservative and tried to integrate armoured vehicles into the infantry and cavalry organisation. To save weight, such designs had thin armour plating and this inspired fitting small-calibre high-velocity guns in turrets, J. Collins, after Fuller refused the function. The unit carried out operations on Salisbury Plain and was observed by the major nations, the United States, Germany
5.
Division (military)
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A division is a large military unit or formation, usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. Infantry divisions during the World Wars ranged between 10,000 and 30,000 in nominal strength, in most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, in turn, several divisions typically make up a corps. In the West, the first general to think of organising an army into smaller units was Maurice de Saxe, Marshal General of France. He died at the age of 54, without having implemented his idea, victor-François de Broglie put the ideas into practice. He conducted successful practical experiments of the system in the Seven Years War. The first war in which the system was used systematically was the French Revolutionary War. It made the more flexible and easy to manoeuvre. Under Napoleon, the divisions were grouped together into corps, because of their increasing size, napoleons military success spread the divisional and corps system all over Europe, by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, all armies in Europe had adopted it. In modern times, most military forces have standardized their divisional structures, the peak use of the division as the primary combat unit occurred during World War II, when the belligerents deployed over a thousand divisions. With technological advances since then, the power of each division has increased. Divisions are often formed to organize units of a particular type together with support units to allow independent operations. In more recent times, divisions have mainly been organized as combined arms units with subordinate units representing various combat arms, in this case, the division often retains the name of a more specialized division, and may still be tasked with a primary role suited to that specialization. For the most part, large cavalry units did not remain after World War II, in general, two new types of cavalry were developed, air cavalry or airmobile, relying on helicopter mobility, and armored cavalry, based on an autonomous armored formation. The former was pioneered by the 11th Air Assault Division, formed on 1 February 1963 at Fort Benning, on 29 June 1965 the division was renamed as the 1st Cavalry Division, before its departure for the Vietnam War. After the end of the Vietnam War, the 1st Cavalry Division was reorganised and re-equipped with tanks, the development of the tank during World War I prompted some nations to experiment with forming them into division-size units. Many did this the way as they did cavalry divisions, by merely replacing cavalry with AFVs. This proved unwieldy in combat, as the units had many tanks, instead, a more balanced approach was taken by adjusting the number of tank, infantry, artillery, and support units. A panzer division was a division of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS of Germany during World War II
6.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
7.
Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine
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The Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine was a phase in the Western European Campaign of World War II. This roughly corresponds with the official United States military European Theater of Operations Rhineland, German forces had been routed during the Allied break-out from Normandy. The Allies advanced rapidly against an enemy that put up little resistance, but after the liberation of Paris in late August 1944, the Allies paused to re-group and organise before continuing their advance from Paris to the River Rhine. The pause allowed the Germans to solidify their lines—something they had been unable to do west of Paris, while Montgomery and Bradley each favored relatively direct thrusts into Germany, General Eisenhower disagreed. The rapid advance through France had caused considerable logistical strain, made worse by the lack of any major port other than the relatively distant Cherbourg in western France. Although Antwerp was seen as the key to solving the Allied logistics problems, as the campaign progressed, all the belligerents, Allied as well as German, felt the effects of the lack of suitable replacements for front-line troops. There were two major obstacles to the Allies. The first was the natural barriers made by the rivers of eastern France, the second was the Siegfried Line, which fell under the command, along with all Wehrmacht forces in the west, of Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt. Although the breakout from Normandy had taken longer than planned, the advances until September had far exceeded expectations, Bradley, for example, by September had four more divisions than planned and all of his forces were 150 miles ahead of their expected position. One effect was that insufficient supplies could be delivered to the fronts to maintain the advance. Much war material still had to be brought ashore across the invasion beaches, the availability of Cherbourg had been valuable until the breakout, but then the shortage of transport to carry supplies to the rapidly advancing armies became the limiting factor. Although fuel was pumped from Britain to Normandy via the Pluto pipeline, this still had to reach the fronts. The railways had been destroyed by Allied attacks and would take much effort to repair. In an attempt to address this shortage of transport, three newly arrived U. S. infantry divisions—the 26th, 95th, and 104th—were stripped of their trucks in order to haul supplies. Advancing divisions of the U. S. 12th Army Group left all their artillery and half their medium artillery west of the Seine. Four British truck companies were loaned to the Americans, unfortunately,1,500 other British trucks were found to have critical engine faults and were unusable, limiting assistance from that quarter. The Red Ball Express was an attempt to expedite deliveries by truck, the 6th Army Group advancing from southern France were supplied adequately from Toulon and Marseille because it had captured ports intact and the local railway system was less damaged. This source supplied about 25% of the Allied needs, the U. S. supply organization—Communications Zone —is perceived to have failed to expedite solutions and to have been far too bureaucratic, employing 11,000 staff
8.
Battle of the Bulge
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The Battle of the Bulge was the last major German offensive campaign of World War II. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, the surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard. American forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties of any operation during the war, the battle also severely depleted Germanys armoured forces on the Western Front, and they were largely unable to replace them. German personnel and later, Luftwaffe aircraft, also sustained heavy losses, the Germans officially referred to the offensive as Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein, while the Allies designated it the Ardennes Counteroffensive. The phrase Battle of the Bulge was coined by contemporary press to describe the bulge in German front lines on wartime news maps, once that was accomplished, the German dictator Adolf Hitler believed he could fully concentrate on the Soviets on the Eastern Front. The offensive was planned by the German forces with utmost secrecy, with minimal radio traffic and movements of troops, intercepted German communications indicating a substantial German offensive preparation were not acted upon by the Allies. The Germans achieved total surprise on the morning of 16 December 1944, due to a combination of Allied overconfidence, preoccupation with Allied offensive plans, and poor aerial reconnaissance. The Germans attacked a weakly defended section of the Allied line, columns of armor and infantry that were supposed to advance along parallel routes found themselves on the same roads. This, and terrain that favored the defenders, threw the German advance behind schedule, improved weather conditions permitted air attacks on German forces and supply lines, which sealed the failure of the offensive. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were left severely depleted of men and equipment, the Germans initial attack involved 406,000 men,1,214 tanks, tank destroyers, and assault guns, and 4,224 artillery pieces. These were reinforced a couple of later, bringing the offensives total strength to around 450,000 troops. Between 67,200 and 125,000 of their men were killed, missing, for the Americans, out of 610,000 troops involved in the battle,89,000 were casualties. While some sources report that up to 19,000 were killed, British historian Antony Beevor reports the number killed as 8,407. It was the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in World War II, after the breakout from Normandy at the end of July 1944 and the Allied landings in southern France on 15 August 1944, the Allies advanced toward Germany more quickly than anticipated. The Allies were faced with several military logistics issues, - troops were fatigued by weeks of continuous combat supply lines were stretched extremely thin supplies were dangerously depleted. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his staff chose to hold the Ardennes region which was occupied by the U. S, the Allies chose to defend the Ardennes with as few troops as possible due to the favorable terrain and limited Allied operational objectives in the area. They also had intelligence that the Wehrmacht was using the area across the German border as an area for its troops. The speed of the Allied advance coupled with a lack of deep-water ports presented the Allies with enormous supply problems
9.
Western Allied invasion of Germany
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The Western Allied invasion of Germany was coordinated by the Western Allies during the final months of hostilities in the European theatre of World War II. This is known as the Central Europe Campaign in United States military histories, by early 1945, events favored the Allied forces in Europe. The failure of this offensive exhausted Germanys strategic reserve, leaving it ill-prepared to resist the final Allied campaigns in Europe, additional losses in the Rhineland further weakened the German Army, leaving shattered remnants of units to defend the east bank of the Rhine. On 7 March, the Allies seized the last remaining bridge across the Rhine at Remagen. During Operation Lumberjack and Operation Plunder in February–March 1945, German casualties are estimated at 400,000 men, on the Eastern Front, the Soviet Red Army had liberated most of Poland and were within striking distance of Berlin. The Soviets also pushed deep into Hungary and eastern Czechoslovakia, and these rapid advances on the Eastern Front destroyed additional veteran German combat units and severely limited German Fuhrer Adolf Hitlers ability to reinforce his Rhine defenses. As such, with the Western Allies making final preparations for their powerful offensive into the German heartland, forty-nine of these divisions were American,12 British, eight French, three Canadian and one Polish. Another seven American divisions arrived during February, along with the British 5th Infantry Division and I Canadian Corps, as the invasion of Germany commenced, General Eisenhower had a total of 90 full-strength divisions under his command, with the number of armored divisions now reaching 25. The Allied front along the Rhine stretched 450 miles from the mouth at the North Sea in the Netherlands to the Swiss border in the south. The Allied forces along this line were organized into three army groups, in the north, from the North Sea to a point about 10 miles north of Cologne, was the 21st Army Group commanded by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. Within 21st Army Group the Canadian 1st Army held the left flank of the Allied line, with the British 2nd Army in the center and the U. S. 9th Army to the south. Holding the middle of the Allied line from the 9th Armys right flank to a point about 15 miles south of Mainz was the 12th Army Group under the command of Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, Bradley had two American armies, the U. S. 1st Army on the left and the U. S. 3rd Army on the right, as these three army groups cleared out the Wehrmacht west of the Rhine, Eisenhower began to rethink his plans for the final drive across the Rhine and into the heart of Germany. Originally, General Eisenhower had planned to all his forces up to the west bank of the Rhine. The main thrust beyond the river was to be made in the north by Montgomerys 21 Army Group, 1st Army as it made a secondary advance northeast from below the Ruhr River. If successful, this movement would envelop the industrial Ruhr area. Facing the Allies was Oberbefehlshaber West commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, although Kesselring brought an outstanding track record as a defensive strategist with him from the Italian Campaign, he did not have the resources to make a coherent defense. During the fighting west of the Rhine up to March 1945, busch—whose main unit was the German 1st Parachute Army —was to form the right wing of the German defenses
10.
Presidential Unit Citation (United States)
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The unit with the most Presidential Unit Citations is the USS Parche with 9 citations. The Army citation was established by Executive Order 9075 on 26 February 1942, superseded by Executive Order 9396 on Dec.2,1943, as with other Army unit citations, the PUC is in a larger frame than other ribbons, and is worn above the right pocket. All members of the unit may wear the decoration, whether or not they participated in the acts for which the unit was cited. Only those assigned to the unit at the time of the action cited may wear the decoration as a permanent award, for both the Army and Air Force, the emblem is a solid blue ribbon enclosed in a gold frame. The Air Force PUC was adopted from the Army Distinguished Unit Citation after the Air Force became a military branch in 1947. By Executive Order 10694, dated Jan,10,1957 the Air Force redesignated the Distinguished Unit Citation as the Presidential Unit Citation. The Air Force PUC is the color and design as the Army PUC but slightly smaller. The Citation is carried on the units colors in the form of a blue streamer,4 ft long and 2.75 in wide. For the Army, only on rare occasions will a larger than battalion qualify for award of this decoration. The Navy citation was established by Executive Order 9050 on 6 February 1942, the Navy version has blue, yellow, and red horizontal stripes, and is the only Navy ribbon having horizontal stripes. These are only worn by persons who meet the criteria at the time it is awarded to the unit, unlike the Army, those who later join the unit do not wear it on a temporary basis. The current decoration is known as the Department of Homeland Security Presidential Unit Citation. A Coast Guard version of the award was awarded to all U. S. Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary personnel responding to Hurricane Katrina by President George W. Bush for rescue, the United States Public Health Service Presidential Citation was established in 2015. The design was finalized by the Army Institute of Heraldry on 17 August 2015, two units of the Free French Forces were awarded Presidential Unit Citations during World War II. On April 22,1986, the 1st Fighter Group Força Aérea Brasileira was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its actions in the Po Valley region of Italy in World War II. The Brazilians, operating in Italy in support of Allied forces, destroyed in one day over 45 vehicles, strafed pontoon bridges on the River Po, eleven missions of 44 sorties were flown destroying nine motor transports and damaging 17. One Belgian-Luxembourgian battalion of the Belgian United Nations Command was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation once for actions during the Battle of the Imjin River, the Colombia Battalion received the citation while attached to the American 21st Infantry Regiment in 1951. One Dutch unit, the Netherlands Detachment United Nations, part of the Regiment Van Heutsz, was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation twice for actions during the Korean War, the first citation was awarded after the battle near Wonju and Hoengson in February 1951
11.
Paul Newgarden
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Major General Paul Woolever Newgarden was a senior United States Army officer. Prior to his death he commanded the 10th Armored Division, the 10th Armored Division Tigers” played a key role in several engagements during World War II. While Major General William H. H. Morris took the Tigers into battle, Newgarden was the first to command, Newgarden died in a plane crash over Chattanooga, Tennessee while returning to Fort Knox. Lester M. Nichols, Impact, The Battle Story of the 10th Armored Division, Divisional Histories,54, The Battery Press, Inc.2 edition, ISBN 978-0-89839-303-3, retrieved 17 March 20142. Brandon T. Wiegand, Index to the General Orders of the 10th Armored Division in World War II, Divisional Histories, D-Day Militaria, ISBN 978-1-932891-49-2, retrieved 17 March 20143
12.
William Henry Harrison Morris Jr.
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Lieutenant General William Henry Harrison Morris, Jr. was a senior United States Army officer who fought in both World War I and World War II. William Morris was born in the Ocean Grove section of Neptune Township, lucas, Frederick Gilbreath, Charles P. Hall, Joseph Cowles Mehaffey, John Homer, Paul W. Baade, Ira T. Wyche, and numerous others who would become general officers. After graduation he was commissioned as a lieutenant into the Infantry Branch of the United States Army and was assigned to the 19th Infantry Regiment at Camp Jossman. He then served at Fort McKinley, afterwards transferring to the 15th Infantry Regiment with duty in Tientsin, China, in 1914 Morris was assigned to the 9th Infantry Regiment in Laredo, Texas, where he served until 1916. While there he married Ida Marguerite Downing, who he met soon after being commissioned in 1911, Morris was promoted to captain on May 15,1917, a month after the American entry into World War I. Thirteen months later he was a major, in July 1918 he was sent to the Western Front as commander of the 1st Battalion, 360th Infantry Regiment, part of the 90th Division of the American Expeditionary Force. He led his battalion in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and he remained in Europe with the Army of occupation, commanding his battalion in Germany, and then serving on the staffs of the General Headquarters and the IX Corps. After the war Morris returned to the United States in June 1919 as a ROTC instructor at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania, after that he served with the 10th Infantry Regiment at Fort Hayes, Ohio. He entered the U. S. Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1924, after he graduated he served as a staff officer with the HQ of the 8th Coast Artillery Regiment, then stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In 1929 he entered the U. S. Army War College at Washington, D. C. and he remained there for the next three years as an instructor. In 1937 he served with, and later commanded, the 2nd Battalion, 66th Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, from 1938 to 1940 Morris served as a G-1 staff officer on the General Staff of the War Department in Washington, D. C. By late 1940 he was commander of the 66th Armored Regiment and he was promoted to the two-star rank of major general fifteen months later, in May 1943. In 1943 he was CG of the II Armored Corps and he was sent to Italy as a Ground Force Observer for the Salerno landings in September 1943. He returned to the United States and became CG of the XVIII Corps and he led the division overseas on the Western Front, where it played a played a vital role in the relief of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. Following this he was assigned to command VI Corps in the U. S, sixth Army Group, under Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, which drove from the Rhine to Italy in the spring of 1945. After the war, trom 1945 to 1948, Morris served on the War Department Personnel Board in Washington, in 1949 he was assigned as head of the U. S. Caribbean Command as a lieutenant general, where he remained until his 1952 retirement from the army. Morris died on March 30,1971 in Washington, D. C and he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, Section 5, Grave 47. William Morriss awards and decorations included the Distinguished Service Cross, Army Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, for extraordinary heroism in action near Villers-devant-Dun, France, November 1,1918
13.
9th Armored Division (United States)
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The 9th Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army during World War II. In honor of their World War II service, the 9th was officially nicknamed the Phantom Division. Outnumbered five to one, with its rifle companies surrounded for most of the time, clerks, cooks, mechanics. They were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their heroism, after over two years of training throughout the country the 9th Armored Division, now commanded by Major General John W. Leonard, reached the United Kingdom in September 1944. The 9th Armored Division was one of several real U. S, the 9th was assigned to a camp on the British coastline opposite of the German defenses in Pas-de-Calais, ostensibly as part of the First US Army Group under Major General John W. Leonard. Returned to U. S.10 October 1945, the 9th Armored Division landed in Normandy late in September 1944, and first went into line,23 October 1944, on patrol duty in a quiet sector along the Luxembourg-German frontier. When the Germans launched their offensive on 16 December 1944. The Division saw its severest action at St. Vith, Echternach and its stand at Bastogne held off the Germans long enough to enable the 101st Airborne Division to dig in for a defense of the city. After a rest period in January 1945, the Division prepared to drive across the Roer River, the offensive was launched on 28 February 1945 and the 9th crossed the Roer to Rheinbach, sending patrols into Remagen. On 7 March 1945, elements of the 9th Armored found that the Ludendorff Bridge was still standing, when German demolition charges failed to bring the bridge down, they crossed it, disarming and removing the remaining charges, which could have exploded at any time. The Division exploited the bridgehead, moving south and east across the Lahn River toward Limburg, the Division drove on to Frankfurt and then turned to assist in the closing of the Ruhr Pocket. In April it continued east, encircling Leipzig and securing a line along the Mulde River, the Division was shifting south to Czechoslovakia when the war in Europe ended on 9 May 1945. Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division is cited for outstanding performance of duty in action from 28 February to 9 March 1945 in Germany. At 1500 hours that day a prisoner was captured who revealed that the bridge was mined for demolition and was to be destroyed at 1600 hours, at 1535 hours, one column of Combat Company B reached the western approach to the bridge. Although the destruction of the bridge was imminent, American troops unhesitatingly rushed across the structure in the face of enemy automatic weapons fire. An explosion rocked the bridge but did not destroy it, engineers scrambled down the abutments, cutting wires leading to other demolition charges and disposing of hundreds of pounds of explosives by hurling them into the river. Bulldozer tanks, working under heavy artillery and small-arms fire, filled craters at the approach to permit vehicular passage. Upon reaching the bank, troops of Combat Command B fought gallantly
14.
11th Armored Division (United States)
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The 11th Armored Division was a division of the United States Army in World War II. It was activated on 15 August 1942 at Camp Polk, Louisiana, the division staged at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey from 16 to 29 September 1944 until departing New York Port of Embarkation on 29 September 1944, arriving in England on 11 October 1944. The 11 AD landed in France on 16 December 1944, crossed into Belgium on 29 December, the 11th Armored Division was deactivated in August 1945. The division was activated on 15 August 1942 and it arrived in England 11 October 1944 and prepared for combat with two months training on the Salisbury Plain. Launching an attack from Neufchâteau, Belgium,30 December, the 11th defended the highway to Bastogne against fierce assault and these boys were to be machine gunned and murdered. We were committing the same crimes we were now accusing the Japanese, the division acted as spearhead of a wedge into the enemy line, and its junction with the First Army at Houffalize,16 January 1945, created a huge trap. After the liquidation of the Bulge, the Siegfried Line was pierced, Lützkampen falling 7 February, Grosskampenberg on the 17th, after a brief rest, the division crossed the Prum and Kyll Rivers, taking Gerolstein and Nieder Bettingen against violent opposition. Andernach and Brohl fell 9 March, in the sweep to the Rhine, in the swing southward to clear the Saar-Moselle-Rhine pocket, the Moselle River was crossed at Bullay and the Worms Airport captured,21 March. After rest and maintenance, the division drove across the Rhine at Oppenheim, took Hanau and Fulda, the offensive raced through Bavaria, Coburg falling on the 10th, Bayreuth on the 14th. In the final drive, the crossed the Regen river,24 April, overran Grafenau and Freyung, and plunged toward the Danube, seizing Rohrbach, Neufelden. The enemy put up its last fanatical resistance along the approaches to Linz, Austria, pushing onward, elements contacted Soviet forces,8 May, the first unit of the Third Army, to meet the Soviet Red Army. On 5 May 1945, elements of the US 11th Armored Division liberated the Mauthausen concentration camp, the war in Europe officially ended 9 May, and the division was placed on occupational duty until inactivation on 31 August 1945. battleofthebulge. org Hartman, J. Ted. Tank Driver, With the 11th Armored from the Battle of the Bulge to VE Day
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European Theater of Operations, United States Army
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The European Theater of Operations, United States Army was a United States Army formation which directed US Army operations in parts of Europe from 1942 to 1945. It referred to Army Ground Forces, United States Army Air Forces, and Army Service Forces operations north of Italy and it was bordered to the south by the North African Theater of Operations, US Army, which later became the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. As the armies advanced, both these zones and the areas into which they were divided would shift forward to new areas of control. Major General James E. Chaney, an Army Air Corps officer, arrived in the United Kingdom on 18 May 1941, SBOPS also had the role of studying British use of Lend Lease supplies. His formal title was the Special Army Observer in the United Kingdom, after the United States entered the war, SPOBS was succeeded by United States Army Forces in the British Isles, actually SPOBS under a new name. At the time of the ARCADIA Conference, December 1941 – January 1942, daley, and make him in turn responsible to General Chaney, designated as CG, USAFBI. Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee became Chief, Services of Supply, U. S. Army Forces British Isles, on June 8,1942, the United States Department of War officially established ETOUSA in its place. Its mission was to conduct planning for the retaking of Europe and to exercise administrative. The 133rd Infantry Regiment of the 34th Infantry Division was the first United States Army unit sent to Europe in World War II, the first battalion arrived in Belfast in late January 1942, followed by the rest of the regiment in February. These units were designated as U. S. Army Northern Ireland Forces, the 133rd and 168th Infantry Regiments trained in the peat bogs, and performed border guard patrols between British Northern Ireland and the neutral Irish Free State. The remaining unit of the division, the 135th Infantry Regiment, until SHAEF was operational ETOUSA liaised closely with the British in the planning and organising of Operation Overlord. General Dwight D. Eisenhower had multiple command appointments, he replaced Chaney in late June 1942 and he then relinquished command of ETOUSA to Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews in February 1943, who was killed in an air crash in May. He was replaced by Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, in December 1943 it was announced that Eisenhower would be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. In January 1944 he resumed command of ETOUSA and the month was officially designated as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. He served in a role until the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945. From February 1944, SHAEF was the command and ETOUSA administrative command. Some units were transferred between operational commands and administrative commands at different times, by the end of 1944, Eisenhower, through SHAEF, commanded three powerful Allied army groups. The British 21st Army Group and French elements of the 6th Army Group were not part of ETOUSA, the ETOUSA planning staff in London was usually referred to by its Army Post Office number, APO887
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Twelfth United States Army Group
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The Twelfth United States Army Group was the largest and most powerful United States Army formation ever to take to the field. It controlled the majority of American forces on the Western Front in 1944 and 1945 and it was commanded by General Omar Bradley with its headquarters established in London on 14 July 1944. Bradleys First United States Army, which formed part of the Twelfth Army Group, formed the right wing of the Allied lines during the Normandy landings. They were joined during July by the Third United States Army, after the breakout from the beach-head at Normandy, the Twelfth Army Group formed the center of the Allied forces on the Western Front. To the north was the British 21st Army Group and, to the south, as the Twelfth advanced through Germany in 1945, it controlled four field armies, First United States Army, Third United States Army, Ninth United States Army and Fifteenth United States Army. By V-E Day, the Twelfth Army Group was a force that numbered over 1.3 million men. Gillem, Jr. 30th Infantry Division – Major General Leland S. Hobbs 35th Infantry Division – Major General Paul W. Baade 83rd Infantry Division – Major General Robert C
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Sixth United States Army Group
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The Sixth United States Army Group was an Allied Army Group that fought in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. Made up of field armies from both the United States Army and the French Army, it fought in France, Germany, Austria, and, briefly, Italy. Also referred to as the Southern Group of Armies, it was established in July 1944, in a lead role in Operation Undertone, its Seventh Army fought its way across the Rhine into Germany, captured Nuremberg and then Munich. Finally it crossed the Brenner Pass and made contact with the US Fifth Army at Vipiteno, the Sixth Army Group was originally created in Corsica, France as Advanced Allied Force HQ, a special headquarters within AFHQ commanded by Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers. Its initial role was to supervise the planning of the combined French and American forces which invaded southern France in Operation Dragoon, Dragoon was the operational responsibility of the Seventh United States Army commanded by Lt. Gen. Alexander Patch. Available to Patch were three corps and 24,000 Maquis of the Forces Francaises de lInterieur, the two French corps constituted French Army B commanded by Général Jean de Lattre de Tassigny which was later renamed French First Army. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander at SHAEF, the 63rd Infantry Division was the first Seventh Army unit to cross the Siegfried Line, and the first to get an entire division through it. The 3rd Infantry Division suffered the highest casualty count of all US divisions, the Army Group later advanced through Bavaria, and eventually into western Austria in the waning days of the war. Elements of Sixth Army Group linked up south of the Brenner Pass on 4 May 1945 with troops of the Fifth United States Army of the Allied 15th Army Group advancing north from Italy, after the end of the war the U. S. Seventh Army, remained as an occupation and defensive force in southern Germany for many decades and it also occupied part of Austria until that country was released from occupation in the mid 1950s. Order of Battle on 8 May represents a significantly different disposition in some instances than in the weeks, United States Army in World War II, European Theater of Operations. Washington DC, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, jackson, General Sir William & Gleave, Group Captain T. P. The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume VI, Victory in the Mediterranean, History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series. Uckfield, UK, Naval & Military Press, toomey, Denis W. Montelimar, Slaughterhouse on the Rhone. Harry Yeide, Mark Stout, First to the Rhine, The 6th Army Group in World War II, in November 1944, the 6th Army Group reached the Rhine river at Strasbourg, France. Lt. General Jacob Devers wanted to cross the Rhine into Germany but the plan was vetoed by General Eisenhower
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Third United States Army
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The United States Army Central is a military formation of the United States Army, which saw service in World War I and World War II, in the 1991 Gulf War, and in the coalition occupation of Iraq. It is best known for its campaigns in World War II under the command of General George S. Patton, Third Army is currently denoted USARCENT, headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina with a forward element at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. On the 15th, Major General Joseph T. Dickman assumed command, the third Army consisted of three corps and seven divisions. On 15 November 1918, Major General Dickman was given the mission to move quickly and he was to disarm and disband German forces as ordered by General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces. The march into Germany for occupation duty was begun on 17 November 1918, by 15 December the Third Army Headquarters at Mayen opened at Coblenz. Two days later, on 17 December 1918, the Coblenz bridgehead, consisting of a pontoon bridge, Third Army troops had encountered no hostile act of any sort. In the occupied area, both food and coal supplies were sufficient, the crossing of the Rhine by the front line divisions was effected in good time and without confusion. Troops, upon crossing the Rhine and reaching their assigned areas, were billeted preparatory to occupying selected positions for defense. The strength of the Third Army as of 19 December, the date the bridgehead occupation was completed, was 9,638 officers and 221,070 enlisted men, the southern boundary was as has been previously mentioned. Before the advance, the 1st Division passed to the command of the III Corps, the four bridges available for crossing the river within the Coblenz bridgehead were the pontoon bridge and railroad bridge at Coblenz, the railroad bridges at Engers and Remagen. On 13 December the advance began with the American khaki crossing the Rhine into advanced positions. On the same day the 42d Division passes to the command of the IV Corps, which, in support of the III Corps, continued its march to occupy the Kreise of Mayen, Ahrweiler, Adenau, and Cochem. The VII Corps occupied under the order that portion of the Regierungsbezirk of Trier within army limits. On 15 December, Third Army Headquarters at Mayen opened at Coblenz, III Corps Headquarters at Polch opened at Neuwied and IV Corps Headquarters remained at Cochem, with the VII Corps at Grevenmacher. In crossing the Rhine on the shortened front—from Rolandseck to Rhens on the west bank—the Third Army encountered no hostile act of any sort, in the occupied area both food and coal supplies were sufficient. By the night of 14 December, Third Army troops had occupied their positions on the perimeter of the Coblenz bridgehead, during January 1919, the Third Army was engaged in training and preparing the troops under its command for any contingency. A letter of instruction was circulated to lower commanders prescribing a plan of action in case hostilities were resumed, installations were set up throughout the Army area to facilitate command. On 4 February, the control of the Stadtkreis of Trier was transferred from GHQ to the Third Army
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George S. Patton
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General George Smith Patton Jr. was a senior officer of the United States Army who commanded the U. S. Seventh Army in the Mediterranean and European theaters of World War II, Third Army in France and Germany following the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Born in 1885 to a family with a military background, Patton attended the Virginia Military Institute. He studied fencing and designed the M1913 Cavalry Saber, more known as the Patton Sword. Patton first saw combat during the Pancho Villa Expedition in 1916, in the interwar period, Patton remained a central figure in the development of armored warfare doctrine in the U. S. Army, serving in numerous staff positions throughout the country. Rising through the ranks, he commanded the 2nd Armored Division at the time of the American entry into World War II, Seventh Army during the Allied invasion of Sicily, where he was the first Allied commander to reach Messina. Patton returned to command the Third Army following the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and he led the relief of beleaguered American troops at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, and advanced his Third Army into Nazi Germany by the end of the war. After the war, Patton became the governor of Bavaria. He commanded the United States Fifteenth Army for slightly more than two months, Patton died in Germany on December 21,1945, as a result of injuries from an automobile accident twelve days earlier. Pattons colorful image, hard-driving personality and success as a commander were at times overshadowed by his public statements. His philosophy of leading from the front and his ability to inspire troops with vulgarity-ridden speeches, such as an address to the Third Army. His strong emphasis on rapid and aggressive offensive action proved effective, while Allied leaders held sharply differing opinions on Patton, he was regarded highly by his opponents in the German High Command. A popular, award-winning biographical film released in 1970 helped transform Patton into an American hero, George Smith Patton Jr. was born on November 11,1885 in San Gabriel, California, to George Smith Patton Sr. and his wife Ruth Wilson. Patton had a sister, Anne, who was nicknamed Nita. The family was of Irish, Scots-Irish, English, and Welsh ancestry and his great grandmother came from an aristocratic Welsh family, descended from many Welsh lords of Glamorgan, which had an extensive military background. Patton believed he had former lives as a soldier and took pride in mystical ties with his ancestors, though not directly descended from George Washington, Patton traced some of his English colonial roots to George Washingtons great-grandfather. He was also descended from Englands King Edward I through Edwards son Edmund of Woodstock, family belief held the Pattons were descended from sixteen barons who had signed the Magna Carta. Patton believed in reincarnation, and his ancestry was very important to him, the first Patton in America was Robert Patton, born in Ayr, Scotland
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Seventh United States Army
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The Seventh Army was a United States army created during World War II that evolved into the United States Army Europe during the 1950s and 1960s. It served in North Africa and Italy in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and France, originally the I Armored Corps under command of Lieutenant General George S. Patton, it made landfall at Morocco during Operation Torch as the Western Task Force, the first all-U. S. Force to enter the European war, after the conquests of Palermo and Messina the Seventh Army prepared for the invasion of France by its Mediterranean coast as the lead element of Operation Dragoon in August 1944. It then drove a retreating German army north and then west toward the Alsace, in January 1945 it repelled a fierce but brief enemy counter-offensive during the German Operation Nordwind, then completed its reduction of the region by mid-March. In a lead role in Operation Undertone launched March 15th, the Seventh Army fought its way across the Rhine into Germany, capturing Nuremberg and then Munich. Elements reached Austria and crossed the Brenner Pass into Italy by May 4th, the United States officially entered World War II on 7 December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This was followed four days later by the German declaration of war on the United States, Patton was to command the Seventh Army until early 1944. During the fighting, the elements of the Seventh Army killed or captured thousands of enemy soldiers, during the operation the Seventh and Eighth Armies came under the command of the 15th Army Group, under General Sir Harold Alexander. The headquarters of the Seventh Army remained relatively inactive at Palermo, Sicily, and Algiers until January 1944, fifth Army on the Italian Front, was assigned as commander and the Seventh Army began planning for the invasion of southern France. The invasion was given the code name of Operation Anvil. In March 1944, Major General Alexander Patch, an experienced and competent commander, was assigned to command the Seventh Army, which moved to Naples, Italy. On 15 August 1944, elements of the Seventh Army assaulted the beaches of southern France in the St. Tropez, on September 15, the Seventh was put under the field control of the 6th Army Group, under Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers. The 6th Army Group also included the French First Army, in the process, the Seventh Army had liberated Marseilles, Lyon, Toulon and all of Southern France. The Seventh Army then assaulted the German forces in the Vosges Mountains, during the Battle of the Bulge in late December, it extended its flanks to take over much of the area that had been the responsibility of U. S. Third Army, now commanded by Patton who had commanded the Seventh. In mid-January 1945, the Seventh engaged in pitched battle seeking to regain ground lost to Germanys Operation Nordwind New Years offensive, along with the French First Army, the Seventh went on the offensive in February 1945 and eliminated the Colmar Pocket. After capturing the city of Strasbourg, the Seventh went into the Saar, assaulted the Siegfried Line, in a lead role in Operation Undertone, the Seventh Army fought its way across the Rhine into Germany, captured Nuremberg and then Munich. Finally it crossed the Brenner Pass and made contact with Lieutenant General Lucian Truscotts U. S, fifth Army at Vipiteno - once again on Italian soil
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Alexander Patch
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General Alexander McCarrell Sandy Patch was a senior United States Army officer, who fought in both World War I and World War II. During World War II he commanded U. S. Army and U. S. Marine Corps forces during the Guadalcanal Campaign, Seventh Army on the Western Front. He died in November 1945, a few months after the end of the war and two days before his 56th birthday. Patch was, along with James Van Fleet and Lucian K. Truscott, Jr. one of the few senior American commanders to command a division, corps. Patch was born in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, although he was raised in Pennsylvania and his father, Captain Alexander M. Moore of Pennsylvania. He had two brothers, Joseph and Dorst. Of German, Scottish and Irish descent, Patch attended Lehigh University for a year, Patchs two older brothers, Joseph and Dorst, also enlisted in the army the same year. Some of his classmates, all of whom were, like Patch, destined to general officers, included William R. Schmidt. Upon being commissioned, Patchs first assignment was with the 18th Infantry Regiment, then based in Texas City and he later saw action in the Pancho Villa Expedition into Mexico in 1916, and was later promoted to first lieutenant. In November that year he married Julia A. Littell, the daughter of an army general and his leadership came to the attention of Colonel George Marshall, then a member of General John J. Pershings staff. The war came to an end on November 11,1918, at 11, 00am, by which time Patch was a lieutenant colonel, having promoted to the rank a month before. In February 1919 he reverted to the rank of captain and was an officer at AEF Headquarters. After briefly serving on occupation duties, Patch returned to the United States in May 1919 and chose to remain in the army during the interwar period. After four years at Fort Benning, Georgia, and Washington, D. C. he spent the few years as professor of military science and tactics at Staunton Military Academy. He returned to this post twice in the years, from 1925–28. In 1922 he attended the Field Officers Course at the U. S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, in 1924 he attended the U. S. Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and graduated there with distinction a year later. This was followed by service with the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment from 1929–31 at Fort Washington and he then entered the U. S. Army War College in 1931 and graduated the following year. In November 1940 he was promoted to colonel and assumed command of the 47th Infantry Regiment, General George Marshall, who had been impressed with Patchs leadership in France in World War I, was appointed Army Chief of Staff in 1939, just before World War II
22.
Camp Patrick Henry
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Camp Patrick Henry is a decommissioned United States Army base which was located in Warwick County, Virginia. The airport is known in times as Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport. The base served primarily as a staging ground during World War II under the control of the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation. The camp was founded in late 1942 and was an approximately 1, 700-acre complex, at its peak, Camp Patrick Henry had a capacity of hosting approximately 35,000 individuals at one time. These included American troops of every branch of the service, troops of other Allied armies. Although most of the military personnel processed through the Camp during the war were replacements, complete units processed in 1943 included the 45th Thunderbird, the 85th Custer, and the 88th Blue Devils Infantry Divisions. During 1944 the camp handled the 31st Dixie, the 91st Powder River, by January 31,1946, the total number of personnel to pass through the camp was 1,412,107. In the later stages of the war, the served as a demobilization point for many soldiers returning home. The Camp had its own post office, restaurant, movie theater, Camp Patrick Henry also served as a prisoner of war camp, housing over 5,000 German and prisoners of war between 1944 and 1945. The prisoners were assigned to alleviate the shortage of manpower in the area within the limits of the Geneva Convention. The first German prisoners of war assigned to the Port of Hampton Roads were members of the Afrika Korps who had been captured in the early part of 1943 in North Africa. A prisoner-of-war canteen was established within the compound where the prisoners, within existing regulations, after the war, the camp was deactivated and about 925 acres were ceded to the Peninsula Airport Commission to build a regional airport on the site. Patrick Henry Field, which later became Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport opened in 1949, the U. S. Army continued to operate a Nike Missile site, designated N-85, on the complex until the late 1970s, when the base was shut down permanently. A historical marker in front of the current terminal of Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport marks the site of the camp, the Marker has the following text on it, Title, Camp Patrick Henry Dec.1,1942 - Jan. 31,1945 Location, Newport News Williamsburg International Airport, Newport News VA Description, an Army base of 1,700 acres of Peninsula woodland became a World War II staging area of 35,000 personnel capacity with shuttle rail service to shipside. A key component of the vital Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation, almost a million and a half people were processed through this camp. After deactivation, the land was sold in 1949 for community development
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Fort Benning
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Fort Benning is a United States Army base straddling the Alabama-Georgia border next to Columbus, Georgia. Fort Benning supports more than 120,000 active-duty military, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees and it is a power projection platform, and possesses the capability to deploy combat-ready forces by air, rail, and highway. It is named after Henry L. Benning, a general in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. Since 1918, Fort Benning has served as the Home of the Infantry, included in this transformation was the move of the Armor School from Fort Knox to Fort Benning. On December 26,1918, a portion of the Camp Polk tank school was transferred to Camp Benning to work in conjunction with the Infantry school, Camp Benning tank troops were moved to Camp Meade from February 19–21,1919. By the fall of 1920, more than 350 officers,7,000 troops and 650 student officers lived at Camp Benning, the post was renamed to Fort Benning in 1922, after Henry L. Benning, a general in the army of the Confederate States of America. During Wells tenure, the post developed recreational facilities such as Doughboy Stadium, Gowdy Field, Doughboy Stadium was erected as a memorial by soldiers to their fallen comrades of World War I. One of the Doughboys original coaches was a captain named Dwight D. Eisenhower. Lt. Col George C. Marshall was appointed assistant commandant of the post in 1927, Marshall, who later became the Army Chief of Staff during World War II, was appalled by the high casualties of World War I caused, he thought, by insufficient training. He was determined to prevent a lack of preparation from costing more lives in future conflicts and he and his subordinates revamped the education system at Fort Benning. The changes he fostered are still known as the Benning Revolution, later in his life, Marshall went on to author the Marshall Plan for reviving postwar Europe and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. During World War II Fort Benning had 197,159 acres with billeting space for 3,970 officers and 94,873 enlisted persons. The battalion, later expanded to become the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, was trained at Fort Benning but did not deploy overseas, during this period, the specialized duties of the Triple Nickel were primarily in a firefighting role, with over one thousand parachute jumps as smoke jumpers. The 555th was deployed to the Pacific Northwest of the United States in response to the concern that forest fires were being set by the Japanese military using long-range incendiary balloons, the 82nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion was activated July 15,1940, and trained at the Fort. The 17th Armored Engineer Battalion became active and started training July 15,1940, the Airborne School on Main Post has three 249-foot drop towers called Free Towers. They are used to train paratroopers, the towers were modeled after the parachute towers at the 1939 Worlds Fair in New York. Only three towers stand today, the tower was toppled by a tornado on March 14,1954. During the spring of 1962 General Herbert B, continental Army Command, directed that all instruction at the Infantry School after July 1 reflect Reorganization Objective Army Division structures
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Georgia (U.S. state)
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Georgia is a state in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1733, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies, named after King George II of Great Britain, Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2,1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 19,1861 and it was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15,1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States, from 2007 to 2008,14 of Georgias counties ranked among the nations 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South, Atlanta is the states capital, its most populous city and has been named a global city. Georgia is bordered to the south by Florida, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina, to the west by Alabama, the states northern part is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountains system. Georgias highest point is Brasstown Bald at 4,784 feet above sea level, Georgia is the largest state entirely east of the Mississippi River in land area. Before settlement by Europeans, Georgia was inhabited by the mound building cultures, the British colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe on February 12,1733. The colony was administered by the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America under a charter issued by King George II. The Trustees implemented a plan for the colonys settlement, known as the Oglethorpe Plan. In 1742 the colony was invaded by the Spanish during the War of Jenkins Ear, in 1752, after the government failed to renew subsidies that had helped support the colony, the Trustees turned over control to the crown. Georgia became a colony, with a governor appointed by the king. The Province of Georgia was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution by signing the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the State of Georgias first constitution was ratified in February 1777. Georgia was the 10th state to ratify the Articles of Confederation on July 24,1778, in 1829, gold was discovered in the North Georgia mountains, which led to the Georgia Gold Rush and an established federal mint in Dahlonega, which continued its operation until 1861. The subsequent influx of white settlers put pressure on the government to land from the Cherokee Nation. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law, sending many eastern Native American nations to reservations in present-day Oklahoma, including all of Georgias tribes. Despite the Supreme Courts ruling in Worcester v. Georgia that ruled U. S. states were not permitted to redraw the Indian boundaries, President Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. In 1838, his successor, Martin Van Buren, dispatched troops to gather the Cherokee
25.
Cherbourg-Octeville
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Cherbourg-Octeville is a city and former commune situated at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It is a subprefecture of its department, and was formed when the commune of Cherbourg absorbed Octeville on 28 February 2000. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, the city is a Maritime prefecture and sub-prefecture of la Manche. Cherbourg-en-Cotentin is protected by Cherbourg Harbour, between La Hague and Val de Saire, and the city has been a position over the centuries. A stopping point for prestigious transatlantic liners in the first half of the 20th century, limited by its geographical isolation from being a great commercial port, it is nonetheless an important shipbuilding centre, and a working-class city with a rural hinterland. Cherbourg-en-Cotentin is located at the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula, in the department of Manche. At the time of the 1999 census the city of Cherbourg had an area of 6.91 square kilometres, the largest city in the Department of Manche, it is the result of the merger of the communes of Cherbourg and Octeville. The amalgamated city today has an area of 14.26 km2. Cherbourg is situated at the mouth of the Divette and at the south of the bay between Cap Lévi to the east and Cap de La Hague to the west, Cherbourg-Octeville is 120 km from the English coast. Cherbourg and Octeville-sur-Cherbourg once belonged to the deanery of La Hague, in 1786, a part of Equeurdreville joined Cherbourg, during the construction of the port, and then in 1802, a portion of Octeville. Thus, Cherbourg-Octeville lies both in La Hague and in the Val de Saire, like all Chantereyne and the area of the Mielles, the Cherbourg territory was reclaimed from the sea. Built at the level of the sea, the town developed at the foot of the Roule mountain and these folds result in layers of sandstone tilted 45° towards the north-east on la Fauconniere and the Montagne du Roule. These two cliffs are due to sea erosion in the Quaternary, the retreat of the sea then gave way to sand dunes and tidal marshes, destroyed by the urbanisation of the 17th and 19th centuries, identical to those of Collignon in Tourlaville. The greenschist, whose colour comes from chlorite and sericite, are used mainly for roofing in Nord-Cotentin, the Armorican sandstone of the Montagne du Roule is used for rubble and rockfill. Most of the quarries, which opened in the metropolitan area for building the harbour wall, are now closed. Cherbourg-en-Cotentin is bordered by the sea, the construction of the port of trade, from 1769, accompanied by the diversion of the Divette and the Trottebec gathered in the canal de retenue, along the Avenue de Paris and Rue du Val-de-Saire. The streams of the Bucaille and the Fay, which watered the Croûte du Homet, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin has a temperate oceanic climate. Its maritime character causes high humidity and a strong sea wind, commonly stormy but also low seasonal variations of temperature and few days of frost
26.
Metz
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Metz is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Great East region, located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, the city forms a central place of the European Greater Region and the SaarLorLux euroregion. The city has been steeped in Romance culture, but has strongly influenced by Germanic culture due to its location. Because of its historical, cultural, and architectural background, Metz has been submitted on Frances UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, Metz is home to some world-class venues including the Arsenal Concert Hall and the Centre Pompidou-Metz museum. A basin of urban ecology, Metz gained its nickname of The Green City, as it has extensive open grounds, the historic city centre is one of the largest commercial pedestrian areas in France. A historic garrison town, Metz is the heart of the Lorraine region, specialising in information technology. In ancient times, the town was known as city of Mediomatrici, after its integration into the Roman Empire, the city was called Divodurum Mediomatricum, meaning Holy Village or Holy Fortress of the Mediomatrici, then it was known as Mediomatrix. During the 5th century AD, the name evolved to Mettis, Metz has a recorded history dating back over 3,000 years. Before the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, between the 6th and 8th centuries, the city was the residence of the Merovingian kings of Austrasia. After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Metz became the capital of the Kingdom of Lotharingia and was integrated into the Holy Roman Empire. During the 12th century, Metz rose to the status of Republic, with the signature of the Treaty of Chambord in 1552, Metz passed to the hands of the Kings of France. Under French rule, Metz was selected as capital of the Three Bishoprics, with creation of the departments by the Estates-General of 1789, Metz was chosen as capital of the Department of Moselle. Metz remained German until the end of World War I, when it reverted to France, however, after the Battle of France during the Second World War, the city was annexed once more by the German Third Reich. In 1944, the attack on the city by the U. S, Third Army freed the city from German rule and Metz reverted one more time to France after World War II. During the 1950s, Metz was chosen to be the capital of the newly created Lorraine region, with the creation of the European Community and the later European Union, the city has become central to the Greater Region and the SaarLorLux Euroregion. Metz is located on the banks of the Moselle and the Seille rivers,43 km from the Schengen tripoint where the borders of France, Germany, and Luxembourg meet. The city was built in a place where branches of the Moselle river creates several islands. The terrain of Metz forms part of the Paris Basin and presents a plateau relief cut by river valleys presenting cuestas in the north-south direction
27.
Siegfried Line
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The original Siegfried Line was a First World War line of defensive forts and tank defences built by Germany in northern France during 1916–17 as a section of the Hindenburg Line. This line stretched more than 630 km and featured more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and it was planned in 1936 and built between 1938 and 1940. From September 1944 to March 1945, the Siegfried Line was subject to a large scale Allied offensive, the overall cost of this Campaign in American personnel was close to 140,000. The German losses were not well documented and this standardisation was the most effective use of scarce raw materials, transport and workers. Dragons teeth tank traps were known as Höcker in German because of their shape. These blocks of reinforced concrete stand in rows on a single foundation. There are two sorts of barrier, Type 1938 with four teeth getting higher toward the back. Many other irregular lines of teeth were also built, another design of tank obstacle, known as the Czech hedgehog, was made by welding together several bars of steel in such a way that any tank rolling over it would get stuck. If the contour of the land allowed it, water-filled ditches were dug instead of tank traps, examples of this kind of defence are those north of Aachen near Geilenkirchen. Small bunkers with 50 cm thick walls were set up with three embrasures towards the front, in exposed positions, similar small bunkers were erected with small round armoured lookout sections on the roofs. The Limes Programme began in 1938 following an order by Hitler to strengthen fortifications on the western German border, Limes refers to the former borders of the Roman Empire, the cover story for the programme was that it was an archaeological study. Its Type 10 bunkers were more strongly constructed than the border fortifications. These had 1.5 m thick ceilings and walls, a total of 3,471 were built along the entire length of the Siegfried Line. They featured a room or shelter for 10-12 men with a stepped embrasure facing backwards. This elevated section had embrasures at the front and sides for machine guns, more embrasures were provided for riflemen, and the entire structure was constructed so as to be safe against poison gas. Heating was from a safety oven, the chimney of which was covered with a thick grating, space was tight, with about 1 m2 per soldier, who was given a sleeping-place and a stool, the commanding officer had a chair. Surviving examples still retain signs warning Walls have ears and Lights out when embrasures are open, the Aachen-Saar programme bunkers were similar to those of the Limes programme, Type 107 double MG casemates with concrete walls up to 3.5 m thick. One difference was there were no embrasures at the front
28.
Siege of Bastogne
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The Siege of Bastogne was an engagement in December 1944 between American and German forces at the Belgian town of Bastogne, as part of the larger Battle of the Bulge. The goal of the German offensive was the harbour at Antwerp, in order to reach it before the Allies could regroup and bring their superior air power to bear, German mechanized forces had to seize the roadways through eastern Belgium. The siege was from 20 to 27 December, until the besieged American forces were relieved by elements of General George Pattons Third Army. After the successful invasion of Normandy and the subsequent eastward push through France, the valuable port city of Antwerp had been captured during the push, and by the time winter arrived, the Allies even had control of German territory near the city of Aachen. Despite major misgivings from his commanders, including Gerd von Rundstedt and Walther Model, the plan was not modified. Meanwhile, the Allied commanders considered the Ardennes area to be unsuitable for a large-scale German attack, the Allies believed only an infantry division was present opposite the 28th Infantry, and they believed any attack along this sector would be limited in scale. The seven roads in and out of Bastogne were critical to the movement of German armor, hasso von Manteuffel—commanding the 5th Panzer Army—gave Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz′s XLVII Panzer Corps the responsibility of capturing Bastogne, before crossing the Meuse near Namur. Lüttwitz planned to attack a 7 mi front with three divisions, the 26th Volksgrenadier and the 2nd Panzer would lead the assault, with the Panzer-Lehr-Division behind them. The Allied forces were gathered into groups at major Luxembourgish villages. The forces were too thin to maintain an even battle line, the 2nd Panzer Division was assigned to cross the river along this road, while the 26th Volksgrenadier Division would construct a bridge near Gemünd for its crossing. Lüttwitz realized the importance of the network of Bastogne—he knew that the town had to be captured before his corps could venture too far westward. Therefore, he ordered the Panzer-Lehr Division to push forward to Bastogne as soon as his troops had crossed the Clerf River in Northern Luxembourg. On the evening of 15 December, the 26th Volksgrenadier established an outpost line on the west bank of the Our, at 03,00, engineers began ferrying men and equipment over the river where they began assembling at the departure point, quite close to the American garrisons. At 05,30, the German artillery began bombarding the American positions, knocking out telephone lines, the Germans attacked swiftly, their advances made possible by sheer weight of numbers. German engineers completed bridges over the Our before dark, and armor began moving to the front, but in the end, the Germans were significantly delayed by the American defenders—their plan to cross the Clerf River by nightfall on the first day was delayed by two days. On 19 December, the 28th Division command post transferred to Bastogne from Wiltz, at Wiltz, the division put up its last stand, 3rd Battalion of the 110th—supported by armor and artillery—arrived at the town around noon of that day. The 44th Engineer Battalion was set up north of the town and this small force—numbering no more than 500 in total—held out until the evening, when their position became completely untenable and they retreated to the west. With the 110th Infantry completely destroyed as a combat unit, it would be up to the rest of the Allied army to defend Bastogne
29.
Noville, Switzerland
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Noville is a municipality of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, located in the district of Aigle. Noville is first mentioned in 903 as Nova villa, in 1162-1173 it was mentioned as Nouila. Due to the similarity between the names Noville and the municipality of Villeneuve it is very difficult to identify which village is being mentioned in older records. Noville has an area, as of 2009, of 10.35 square kilometers, of this area,4.3 km2 or 41. 5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 3.63 km2 or 35. 1% is forested. Of the rest of the land,0.88 km2 or 8. 5% is settled,0.43 km2 or 4. 2% is either rivers or lakes and 1.09 km2 or 10. 5% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 3. 4%, while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1. 3%. Out of the land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land,34. 8% is used for growing crops and 5. 8% is pastures, of the water in the municipality,0. 6% is in lakes and 3. 6% is in rivers and streams. The municipality is located in the Aigle district, on a hill above the right bank of the Rhone river where it enters Lake Geneva. It consists of the village of Noville and the hamlet of Crebelley, the blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure, a Griffin rampant Or langued and armed Gules. Noville has a population of 1,029, as of 2008,14. 2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 10. 1% and it has changed at a rate of 5. 4% due to migration and at a rate of 4. 6% due to births and deaths. Most of the population speaks French, with German being second most common, of the population in the municipality 207 or about 32. 0% were born in Noville and lived there in 2000. There were 230 or 35. 5% who were born in the canton, while 103 or 15. 9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland. In 2008 there were 7 live births to Swiss citizens and 1 birth to non-Swiss citizens, ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 3 while the foreign population increased by 1. There was 1 Swiss woman who emigrated from Switzerland, at the same time, there were 4 non-Swiss men and 1 non-Swiss woman who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 was an increase of 6 and this represents a population growth rate of 1. 3%. The age distribution, as of 2009, in Noville is,75 children or 10. 8% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 102 teenagers or 14. 6% are between 10 and 19
30.
Panzer IV
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The Panzerkampfwagen IV, commonly known as the Panzer IV, was a German medium tank developed in the late 1930s and used extensively during the Second World War. Its ordnance inventory designation was Sd. Kfz, the Panzer IV was the most widely manufactured German tank of the Second World War, with some 8,500 built. The Panzer IV saw service in all combat theaters involving Germany and was the only German tank to remain in production throughout the war. Upgrades and design modifications, intended to counter new threats, extended its service life, the Panzer IV was the most widely exported tank in German service, with around 300 sold to Finland, Romania, Spain and Bulgaria. After the war, Syria procured Panzer IVs from France and Czechoslovakia, the Panzer IV was the brainchild of the German general and innovative armored warfare theorist Heinz Guderian. In concept, it was intended to be a tank for use against enemy anti-tank guns and fortifications. Ideally, each battalion in a panzer division was to have three medium companies of Panzer IIIs and one heavy company of Panzer IVs. On 11 January 1934, the German army wrote the specifications for a medium tractor, development was carried out under the name Begleitwagen, or BW, to disguise its actual purpose, given that Germany was still theoretically bound by the Treaty of Versailles ban on tanks. MAN, Krupp, and Rheinmetall-Borsig each developed prototypes, with Krupps being selected for further development, the chassis had originally been designed with a six-wheeled Schachtellaufwerk interleaved-roadwheel suspension, but the German Army amended this to a torsion bar system. Permitting greater vertical deflection of the roadwheels, this was intended to improve performance, in the turret, the tank commander sat beneath his roof hatch, while the gunner was situated to the left of the gun breech and the loader to the right. The turret was offset 66.5 mm to the left of the center line. Due to the layout, the right side of the tank contained the bulk of its stowage volume. Accepted into service as the Versuchskraftfahrzeug 622, production began in 1936 at Fried, Krupp Grusonwerk AG factory at Magdeburg. The first mass-produced version of the Panzer IV was the Ausführung A and it was powered by Maybachs HL 108TR, producing 250 PS, and used the SGR75 transmission with five forward gears and one reverse, achieving a maximum road speed of 31 kilometres per hour. As main armament, the vehicle mounted the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm Kampfwagenkanone 37 L/24 tank gun, against armored targets, firing the Panzergranate at 430 metres per second the KwK37 could penetrate 43 millimetres, inclined at 30 degrees, at ranges of up to 700 metres. A7.92 mm MG34 machine gun was mounted coaxially with the weapon in the turret. The main weapon and coaxial machine gun were sighted with a Turmzielfernrohr 5b optic while the machine gun was sighted with a Kugelzielfernrohr 2 optic. A was protected by 14.5 mm of armor on the front plate of the chassis
31.
M4 Sherman
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The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most numerous battle tank used by the United States and some of the other Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, thousands were distributed through the Lend-Lease program to the British Commonwealth and Soviet Union. The tank was named by the British for the American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, the M4 Sherman evolved from the interim M3 Medium Tank, which had its main armament in a side sponson mount. The M4 retained much of the mechanical design, but put the main 75 mm gun in a fully traversing turret. The designers stressed mechanical reliability, ease of production and maintenance, durability, standardization of parts and ammunition in a number of variants. These factors, combined with the Shermans then-superior armor and armament, outclassed German light, the M4 went on to be produced in large numbers. It spearheaded many offensives by the Western Allies after 1942, for this reason, the US Army believed that the M4 would be adequate to win the war, and no pressure was exerted for further tank development. Logistical and transport restrictions, such as limitations imposed by roads, ports, Tank destroyer battalions using vehicles built on the M4 hull and chassis, but with open-topped turrets and more potent high-velocity guns, also entered widespread use in the Allied armies. Even by 1944, most M4 Shermans kept their dual purpose 75 mm gun, some Shermans were produced with a more capable gun, the 76 mm gun M1, or refitted with a 17-pounder by the British. These factors combined to give the Allies numerical superiority in most battles, the U. S. Army Ordnance Department designed the M4 medium tank as a replacement for the M3 medium tank. The M3 was a development of the M2 Medium Tank of 1939. The M3 was developed as a stopgap measure until a new turret mounting a 75 mm gun could be devised, though reluctant to adopt the British army weapons in their entirety the American designers were prepared to accept proved British ideas. British ideas, as embodied with in a designed by the Canadian General Staff. Before long American Services and designers had accumulated sufficient experience to forge ahead on several points, in the field of tank armament the American 75mm and 76mm dual-purpose tank guns won the acknowledgement of British tank experts. On 18 April 1941, the U. S, Armored Force Board chose the simplest of five designs. Known as the T6, the design was a modified M3 hull and chassis and this would later became the Sherman. The goals were to produce a fast, dependable medium tank able to support infantry, provide breakthrough striking capacity, the T6 prototype was completed on 2 September 1941. The T6 upper hull was a large casting
32.
Anthony McAuliffe
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General Anthony Clement Nuts McAuliffe was a senior United States Army officer, who earned fame as the acting commander of the U. S. 101st Airborne Division troops defending Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge towards the end of World War II, after the battle, McAuliffe was promoted and given command of the 103rd Infantry Division, which he led from January 1945 to July 1945. In the post-war era, he was commander of U. S. forces in the American sector of Germany, McAuliffe was born in Washington, D. C. on July 2,1898. He attended West Virginia University from 1916 to 1917 and he was a member of the West Virginia Beta Chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity during his time at West Virginia University. He enrolled at West Point in 1917, McAuliffe was part of an accelerated program and graduated shortly after the end of World War I, in November 1918. During this time, he visited Europe for a short time, assigned to field artillery, he graduated from the Artillery School in 1920. For the next 16 years, McAuliffe carried out typical peacetime assignments, by 1935, he had been promoted to the rank of captain. Later, he was chosen to attend the United States Army Command, in June 1940, McAuliffe graduated from the United States Army War College. Just before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was promoted again, while in this position, McAuliffe supervised the development of such new technology as the bazooka and the jeep. He became assistant division commander of the 101st Airborne, following the death of Brigadier General Don Pratt on June 6,1944, in December 1944, the German army launched the surprise attack that became the Battle of the Bulge. Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, was attending a conference in the United States. During Taylors absence, McAuliffe commanded the 101st and its attached troops, at Bastogne, the 101st was besieged by a far larger force of Germans under the command of General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz. On December 22,1944, von Lüttwitz dispatched a party, consisting of a major, a lieutenant, entering the American lines southeast of Bastogne, the German party delivered the following to Gen. McAuliffe. Commander of the town of Bastogne. The fortune of war is changing and this time the U. S. A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Our near Ortheuville, have taken Marche, there is only one possibility to save the encircled U. S. A. troops from total annihilation, that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note. If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U. S. A. troops in, the order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term
33.
Saar (river)
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The Saar is a river in northeastern France and western Germany, and a right tributary of the Moselle. It rises in the Vosges mountains on the border of Alsace and Lorraine and it has two headstreams, that both start near Mont Donon, the highest peak of the northern Vosges. After 246 kilometres the Saar flows into the Moselle at Konz between Trier and the Luxembourg border and it has a catchment area of 7,431 square kilometres. The Saar was very important for the Saarland coal, iron, raw materials and finished products were shipped on it by water via the Canal des houillères de la Sarre, the Marne-Rhine Canal and the Rhine, for instance, to the Ruhr area or the port of Rotterdam. Although the German part of the Saar has been upgraded to a waterway by deepening, construction of sluices and straightening, on the banks of the Saar is the UNESCO-World Heritage Site Völklinger Hütte. At Mettlach the Saar passes the well-known Saar loop, the lower Saar in Rhineland-Palatinate is a winegrowing region of some importance, producing mostly Riesling. Until the early 20th century, much more wine was grown on the banks of the Saar, reaching much further up from the mouth of the river, only in the early 21st century have some enterprising farmers from the Saarland area started experimenting with winegrowing again. The name Saar stems from the Celtic word sara, and the Roman name of the river, saravus. Blies Nied Prims Length,246 kilometres, Catchment area,7,431 square kilometres http, //www. geoportail. fr The Saar at the Sandre database Media related to Saar River at Wikimedia Commons
34.
Trier
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Trier, formerly known in English as Treves, is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. Trier lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the west of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the border with Luxembourg and within the important Moselle wine region. Founded by the Celts in the late-4th century BC as Treuorum, it was conquered by the Romans in the late-1st century BC. Trier may be the oldest city in Germany and it is also the oldest seat of a bishop north of the Alps. In the Middle Ages, the Archbishop-Elector of Trier was an important prince of the church, the Archbishop-Elector also had great significance as one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. With an approximate population of 105,000, Trier is the fourth-largest city in its state, after Mainz, Ludwigshafen, the nearest major cities are Luxembourg, Saarbrücken, and Koblenz. It is one of the five places of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. A medieval inscription on the façade of the Red House in Trier market stated, trebetas parents were said to have been Ninus, a legendary King of Assyria invented by the ancient Greeks, and an unknown mother who was Ninuss wife before Semiramis. Semiramis took control of the kingdom upon his fathers death and Trebeta was forced into exile and his body was said to have been cremated on Petrisberg. The historical record describes the Roman Empire subduing the Treveri in the 1st century BC, the name distinguished it from the empires many other cities honoring the first emperor Augustus. The city later became the capital of the province of Belgic Gaul, after the Diocletian Reforms, it became the capital of the prefecture of the Gauls, overseeing much of the Western Roman Empire. In the 4th century, Trier was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire with a population around 75,000, the Porta Nigra dates from this era. A residence of the Western Roman Emperor, Roman Trier was the birthplace of Saint Ambrose, sometime between 395 and 418, probably in 407 the Roman administration moved the staff of the Praetorian Prefecture about 2000 from the city to Arles. The city continued to be inhabited but was not as prosperous as before, northern Gaul was held by the Romans along a line from north of Cologne to the coast at Boulogne through what is today southern Belgium until 460. South of this line, Roman control was firm, as evidenced by the operation of the imperial arms factory at Amiens. The Franks seized Trier from Roman administration in 459, in 870, it became part of Eastern Francia, which developed into the Holy Roman Empire. Relics of Saint Matthias brought to the city initiated widespread pilgrimages, the bishops of the city grew increasingly powerful and the Archbishopric of Trier was recognized as an electorate of the empire, one of the most powerful states of Germany. The University of Trier was founded in the city in 1473, in the 17th century, the Archbishops and Prince-Electors of Trier relocated their residences to Philippsburg Castle in Ehrenbreitstein, near Koblenz
35.
Moselle
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The Moselle is a river flowing through France, Luxembourg, and Germany. It is a tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A small part of Belgium is also drained by the Moselle through the Sauer, the Moselle twists and turns its way between Trier and Koblenz along one of Germanys most beautiful river valleys. It flows through a region that has influenced by mankind since it was first cultivated by the Romans. Today, its hillsides are covered by terraced vineyards where some of the best Rieslings grow, Traben-Trarbach with its art nouveau architecture and Bernkastel-Kues with its traditional market square are two of the many popular tourist attractions on the Moselle river. The name Moselle is derived from the Celtic name form, Moseal, via the Latin Mosella, a form of Mosa, the Latin description of the Meuse. So the Mosella was the Little Meuse, the Moselle is first recorded by Tacitus in Book 13 of his Annals and in Book 4 of his Histories. The Roman poet, Decimius Magnus Ausonius, made it a theme as early as the 4th century. In his poem dated A. D. Ausonius describes flourishing and rich landscapes along the river and in the valley of the Moselle, the river subsequently gave its name to two French republican départements, Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle. The source of the Moselle is at 715 metres above sea level on the Col de Bussang on the slopes of the Ballon dAlsace in the Vosges. After 544 kilometres it discharges into the Rhine at the Deutsches Eck in Koblenz at a height of 59 metres above NHN. The length of the river in France is 314 kilometres, for 39 kilometres it forms the border between Germany and Luxembourg, and 208 kilometres are solely within Germany, the Moselle flows through the Lorraine region, west of the Vosges. Further downstream, in Germany, the Moselle valley forms the division between the Eifel and Hunsrück mountain regions. The average flow rate of the Moselle at its mouth is 328 m³/s, making it the second largest tributary of the Rhine by volume after the Aare and bigger than the Main and Neckar. The section of the Moselle from the Franco-German-Luxembourg tripoint to its confluence with the Saar near Konz shortly before Trier is in Germany known as the Upper Moselle. The section from Trier to Pünderich is the Middle Moselle, the section between Pünderich and its mouth in Koblenz as the Lower Moselle or Terraced Moselle. Characteristic of the Middle and Lower Moselle are its wide meanders cut deeply into the highlands of the Rhenish Massif, also typical are its vineyard terraces. From the tripoint the Moselle marks the entire Saarland-Luxembourg, the catchment area of the Moselle is 28,286 km² in area
36.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Dwight David Ike Eisenhower was an American politician and Army general who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a general in the United States Army during World War II. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43, in 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO. Eisenhower was of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry and was raised in a family in Kansas by parents with a strong religious background. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married Mamie Doud, after World War II, Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman and then accepted the post of President at Columbia University. Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race as a Republican to counter the non-interventionism of Senator Robert A. Taft, campaigning against communism, Korea and he won in a landslide, defeating Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson and temporarily upending the New Deal Coalition. Eisenhower was the first U. S. president to be constitutionally term-limited under the 22nd Amendment, Eisenhowers main goals in office were to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. He ordered coups in Iran and Guatemala, Eisenhower gave major aid to help the French in the First Indochina War, and after the French were defeated he gave strong financial support to the new state of South Vietnam. Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, which led to the space race. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eisenhower condemned the Israeli, British and French invasion of Egypt and he also condemned the Soviet invasion during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action. Eisenhower sent 15,000 U. S. troops to Lebanon to prevent the government from falling to a Nasser-inspired revolution during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a meeting with the Soviets collapsed because of the U-2 incident. On the domestic front, he covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking executive privilege and he otherwise left most political activity to his Vice President, Richard Nixon. Eisenhower was a conservative who continued New Deal agencies and expanded Social Security. Eisenhowers two terms saw considerable economic prosperity except for a decline in 1958. Voted Gallups most admired man twelve times, he achieved widespread popular esteem both in and out of office, since the late 20th century, consensus among Western scholars has consistently held Eisenhower as one of the greatest U. S. Presidents. The Eisenhauer family migrated from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland, to North America, first settling in York, Pennsylvania, in 1741, accounts vary as to how and when the German name Eisenhauer was anglicized to Eisenhower. Eisenhowers Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, who were farmers, included Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer of Karlsbrunn
37.
Bavaria
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Bavaria is a free state and one of 16 federal states of Germany. Located in the German southeast with an area of 70,548 square kilometres and its territory comprises roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, and, with 12.9 million inhabitants, it is Germanys second most populous state. Munich, Bavarias capital and largest city, is the third largest city in Germany, the Duchy of Bavaria dates back to the year 555. In the 17th century CE, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, when Bavaria became a republic. In 1946, the Free State of Bavaria re-organised itself on democratic lines after the Second World War, Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the states Catholic majority and conservative traditions. Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes such as Oktoberfest. The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia, Upper Palatinate and Swabia. The Bavarians emerged in a north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, the name Bavarian means Men of Baia which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BCE. From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria and their daughter, Theodelinde, became Queen of the Lombards in northern Italy and Garibald was forced to flee to her when he fell out with his Frankish overlords. Garibalds successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the frontier against the expansion of Slavs. Tassilos son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616, after Garibald II little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onwards he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and his son, Theudebert, led a decisive Bavarian campaign to intervene in a succession dispute in the Lombard Kingdom in 714, and married his sister Guntrud to the Lombard King Liutprand. At Theodos death the duchy was divided among his sons, at Hugberts death the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighbouring Alemannia. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748, saint Boniface completed the peoples conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Bavaria was in ways affected by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century
38.
Dachau concentration camp
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Dachau concentration camp was the first of the Nazi concentration camps opened in Germany, intended to hold political prisoners. It is located on the grounds of a munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were work camps or Arbeitskommandos. The camps were liberated by U. S. forces on 29 April 1945, There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands that are undocumented. Approximately 10,000 of the 30,000 prisoners were sick at the time of liberation, in the postwar years the Dachau facility served to hold SS soldiers awaiting trial. After 1948, it held ethnic Germans who had expelled from eastern Europe and were awaiting resettlement. It was finally closed in 1960, There are several religious memorials within the Memorial Site, which is open to the public. After the takeover of Bavaria on 9 March 1933, Heinrich Himmler, then Chief of Police in Munich, began to speak with the administration of an unused gunpowder and he toured the site to see if it could be used for quartering protective-custody prisoners. The Concentration Camp at Dachau was opened 22 March 1933, with the arrival of about 200 prisoners from Stadelheim Prison in Munich and it became the first regular concentration camp established by the coalition government of the National Socialist German Workers Party and the German National Peoples Party. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and emigrants were sent to Dachau after the 1935 passage of the Nuremberg Laws which institutionalized racial discrimination, in early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, initiated construction of a large complex capable of holding 6,000 prisoners. The construction was completed in mid-August 1938. More political opponents, and over 11,000 German and Austrian Jews were sent to the camp after the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938. Sinti and Roma in the hundreds were sent to the camp in 1939, the prisoners of Dachau concentration camp originally were to serve as forced labor for a munition factory, and to expand the camp. It was used as a center for SS guards and was a model for other concentration camps. The camp was about 300 m ×600 m in rectangular shape, the prisoners entrance was secured by an iron gate with the motto “Arbeit macht frei”. This reflected Nazi propaganda, which trivialized concentration camps as labor and re-education camps, as of 1938, the procedure for new arrivals occurred at the Schubraum, where prisoners were to hand over their clothing and possessions. One former Luxembourgian prisoner, Albert Theis, reflected about the room, everything had to be handed over, money, rings, watches. The camp included a building that contained offices for the Gestapo trial commissioner, SS authorities
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Landsberg (district)
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Landsberg is a district in Bavaria, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Aichach-Friedberg, Fürstenfeldbruck, Starnberg, Weilheim-Schongau, Ostallgäu, in 1180 the lands east of the Lech river fell to the Wittelsbach dynasty of Bavaria, the lands on the western bank were acquired about 1315. The district of Landsberg was established in 1938 as the successor of another entity of the same name, in the administrative reform of 1972 the district received its present shape. In the final stages of World War II, the German Armaments Ministry and it was set up as a subcamp of Dachau. At the end of April in 1945, the SS evacuated or destroyed what they could before the Allies arrived, the district is situated on both sides of the Lech river. The Ammersee, one of the largest lakes of Germany, is located in the east of the district. com an online memorial to the victims of the Kaufering death camps and their liberators
40.
Kaiserslautern
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Kaiserslautern is a city in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century and it is 459 kilometres from Paris,117 km from Frankfurt am Main, and 159 km from Luxembourg. Kaiserslautern is home to 98,166 people, additionally, approximately 45,000 NATO military personnel inhabit the city and its surrounding district, and contribute approximately US$1 billion annually to the local economy. The city is home to football club 1. FC Kaiserslautern that has won the German championship four times, prehistoric settlement in the area of what is now Kaiserslautern has been traced to at least 800 BC. Some 2, 500-year-old Celtic tombs were uncovered at Miesau, a town about 29 kilometres west of Kaiserslautern, the recovered relics are now in the Museum for Palatinate History at Speyer. Kaiserslautern received its name from the hunting retreat of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa who ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1155 until 1190. The small river Lauter made the old section of Kaiserslautern an island in medieval times, ruins of Fredericks original castle, built 1152–1160, can still be seen in front of the Rathaus. A second castle, Nanstein Castle, was built at Landstuhl to guard the approach to the city. Barbarossas influence on Kaiserslautern remains today, both in its nickname as a Barbarossa city and the open-mouthed pike on the coat of arms. The Stiftkirche, Kaiserslauterns oldest church, was constructed in 1250–1350, as the population of Kaiserslautern grew, King Rudolf von Habsburg chartered the town in 1276. St. Martins Kirche was built from 1300–1350 for an order of monks, today a section of the original city wall still stands in the courtyard of the church. In 1375, the city of Kaiserslautern was pledged to Electoral Palatinate, in 1519, Franz von Sickingen became the owner of Nanstein Castle. He became a Protestant, and in 1522 Nanstein was a stronghold for local nobles favouring the Reformation, Sickingen and the local nobles began their battle against the Archbishop of Trier, but the attack was unsuccessful, and they retreated to Nanstein. Nanstein was then besieged by cannon-armed German Catholic princes, Sickingen died after the castle surrendered, and the Protestant nobility of the Electoral Palatinate were subdued by the Catholic princes. Count of the Electoral Palatinate Johann Casimir, came to Kaiserslautern during the Thirty Years War, spanish occupation in 1621–1632 ended when Protestant Swedish armies liberated the area. In 1635, however, Croatian troops of the Austrian emperors army entered Kaiserslautern, Landstuhl was saved from a similar fate by surrendering without a fight. It took Kaiserslautern about 160 years to repopulate itself, conflict did not end with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648
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Rhine
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The largest city on the river Rhine is Cologne, Germany, with a population of more than 1,050,000 people. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe, at about 1,230 km, with an average discharge of about 2,900 m3/s. The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days. The many castles and fortifications along the Rhine testify to its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire, in the modern era, it has become a symbol of German nationalism. The variant of the name of the Rhine in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, spanish is with French in adopting the Germanic vocalism Rin-, while Italian, Occitan and Portuguese retain the Latin Ren-. The Gaulish name Rēnos belongs to a class of river names built from the PIE root *rei- to move, flow, run, the grammatical gender of the Celtic name is masculine, and the name remains masculine in German, Dutch and French. The Old English river name was variously inflected as masculine or feminine, the length of the Rhine is conventionally measured in Rhine-kilometers, a scale introduced in 1939 which runs from the Old Rhine Bridge at Constance to Hoek van Holland. The river length is shortened from the rivers natural course due to a number of canalisation projects completed in the 19th and 20th century. The total length of the Rhine, to the inclusion of Lake Constance and its course is conventionally divided as follows, The Rhine carries its name without distinctive accessories only from the confluence of the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein near Tamins-Reichenau. Above this point is the catchment of the headwaters of the Rhine. It belongs almost exclusively to the Swiss Canton of Graubünden, ranging from Gotthard Massif in the west via one valley lying in Ticino, traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass in the Gotthard region is seen as the source of the Vorderrhein and the Rhine as a whole. The Hinterrhein rises in the Rheinwald valley below Mount Rheinwaldhorn, the Vorderrhein, or Anterior Rhine, springs from Lai da Tuma, near the Oberalp Pass and passes the impressive Ruinaulta formed by the largest visible rock slide in the alps, the Flims Rockslide. A multiday trekking route is signposted along the young Rhine called Senda Sursilvana, the Hinterrhein/Rein Posteriur, or Posterior Rhine, starts from the Paradies Glacier, near the Rheinwaldhorn. One of its tributaries, the Reno di Lei, drains the Valle di Lei on politically Italian territory, after three main valleys separated by the two gorges, Roflaschlucht and Viamala, it reaches Reichenau. The Vorderrhein arises from numerous source streams in the upper Surselva, one source is Lai da Tuma with the Rein da Tuma, which is usually indicated as source of the Rhine, flowing through it. Into it flow tributaries from the south, some longer, some equal in length, such as the Reno di Medel, the Rein da Maighels, and the Rein da Curnera. The Cadlimo Valley in the Canton of Ticino is drained by the Reno di Medel, all streams in the source area are partially, sometimes completely, captured and sent to storage reservoirs for the local hydro-electric power plants. In its lower course the Vorderrhein flows through a gorge named Ruinaulta through the Flims Rockslide, the whole stretch of the Vorderrhein to the Rhine confluence near Reichenau-Tamins is accompanied by a long-distance hiking trail called Senda Sursilvana
42.
Heilbronn
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Heilbronn is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is surrounded by Heilbronn County and, with approximately 123,000 residents, the city on the Neckar is a former Imperial Free City and is the seat of Heilbronn County. Heilbronn is also the center of the Heilbronn-Franken region that includes most of northeast Baden-Württemberg. Heilbronn is known for its industry and is nicknamed Käthchenstadt. Heilbronn is located in the corner of the Neckar basin at the bottom of the Wartberg. It occupies both banks of the Neckar, and the highest spot inside city limits is the Schweinsberg with a height of 372 meters, Heilbronn is adjacent to Swabian-Franconian Forest Nature Park and is surrounded by vineyards. Heilbronn and its surroundings are located in the part of the larger Stuttgart metropolitan area. The city is the center of the Heilbronn-Franken region and is one of fourteen such cities in the Baden-Württemberg master plan of 2002. The city is divided into nine boroughs, The oldest traces of humans in, the fertile Neckar floodplains in the Heilbronn basin aided early settlement by farmers and ranchers. The city limits of present-day Heilbronn contain many sites of Bronze Age finds, later on, but still before AD, the Celts already mined here for salt from brine. Under Roman Emperor Domitian the Romans pushed east away from the Rhine, a castle in todays borough of Böckingen was part of that limes, and nearby numerous Roman villas and plantations were built. Around 260, the Romans surrendered the limes, and the Alamanni became rulers of the Neckar basin, between the 4th and 7th centuries, the area became part of the Frankish Empire, and the first settlement was built in the general vicinity of the present center of town. In 741 Heilbronn is first mentioned in a document of the Diocese of Würzburg as villa Helibrunna. The name Heilbrunna hints to a well that is located not far from the basilica, in 1225 Heilbronn was incorporated into the Hohenstaufen Empire as oppidum Heilecbrunnen. Oppidum signified a city fortified by parapet and trenches, later during the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights obtained ownership of a large area south of Heilbronn which would remain owned by that order until German Mediatisation in 1805. Starting in 1268, the built the Deutschhof there as one of its residences. After the demise of the Staufen dynasty, King Rudolf I returned city status to Heilbronn in 1281, in addition to the advocate he put a council in place that was headed up by a mayor. Around 1300, the first city hall was erected in the market place, the Neckar privilege gave the city the right to modify the flow of the river in 1333, which meant it now had the right to construct dams, harbors and mills
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Stuttgart
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Stuttgart is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the Stuttgart Cauldron an hour from the Swabian Jura. Stuttgarts urban area has a population of 623,738, making it the sixth largest city in Germany. 2.7 million people live in the administrative region and another 5.3 million people in its metropolitan area. Since the 6th millennium BC, the Stuttgart area has been an important agricultural area and has been host to a number of cultures seeking to utilize the rich soil of the Neckar valley. The Roman Empire conquered the area in 83 AD and built a massive Castrum near Bad Cannstatt, Stuttgarts roots were truly laid in the 10th century with its founding by Liudolf, Duke of Swabia as a stud farm for his warhorses. Overshadowed by nearby Cannstatt, the town grew steadily and was granted a charter in 1320, the fortunes of Stuttgart turned with those of the House of Württemberg, and they made it the capital of their County, Duchy, and Kingdom from the 15th Century to 1918. Stuttgart prospered despite setbacks in the forms of the Thirty Years War and devastating air raids by the Allies on the city, however, by 1952, the city had bounced back and became the major economic, industrial, tourism and publishing center it is today. Stuttgart is also an important transport junction, and possesses the sixth largest airport in Germany. Such companies as Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler AG, Dinkelacker, Stuttgart is unusual in the scheme of German cities. It is spread across a variety of hills, valleys and parks and this is often a source of surprise to visitors who associate the city with its reputation as the Cradle of the Automobile. The citys tourism slogan is Stuttgart offers more, under current plans to improve transport links to the international infrastructure, the city unveiled a new logo and slogan in March 2008 describing itself as Das neue Herz Europas. For business, it describes itself as Where business meets the future, in July 2010, Stuttgart unveiled a new city logo, designed to entice more business people to stay in the city and enjoy breaks in the area. Stuttgart is a city of mostly immigrants, according to Dorling Kindersley Publishings Eyewitness Travel Guide to Germany, In the city of Stuttgart, every third inhabitant is a foreigner. 40% of Stuttgarts residents, and 64% of the population below the age of five are of immigrant background, the reason for this being that the city was founded in 950 AD by Duke Liudolf of Swabia to breed warhorses. Originally, the most important location in the Neckar river valley as the rim of the Stuttgart basin at what is today Bad Cannstatt. As with many military installations, a settlement sprang up nearby, when they did, the town was left in the capable hands of a local brickworks that produced sophisticated architectural ceramics and pottery. When the Romans were driven back past the Rhine and Danube rivers in the 3rd Century by the Alamanni, in 700, Duke Gotfrid mentions a Chan Stada in a document regarding property
44.
VI Corps (United States)
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The VI Corps was activated as VI Army Corps in August 1918 at Neufchâteau, France, serving in the Lorraine Campaign. Constituted in the Organized Reserves in 1921, it was allotted to the Regular Army in 1933 and activated on 1 August 1940 at Fort Sheridan, VI Corps took part in some of the most high-profile operations in World War II. By wars end it was part of the Seventh Army of the 6th Army Group. In early May 1945 its 103d Infantry Division, which had raced south through Bavaria into Innsbruck, Austria, met up with troops of the 349th Infantry, the VI Corps was activated as VI Army Corps on 1 August 1918 at Neufchâteau, France. It served in the Lorraine Campaign, VI Corps commanders during World War I were MG Omar Bundy, from 26 August through 12 September 1918, MG Charles C. Ballou, from 23 October 1918 through 10 November 1918, MG Charles T. Menoher, MG Adelbert Cronkhite commanded from January to April,1919. The corps was demobilized on 11 April 1919, at Villerupt, the VI Corps was reconstituted in the Organized Reserves on 29 July 1921, and was organized in March 1922 at Chicago, Illinois. It was withdrawn from the Organized Reserves on 1 October 1933, the corps was activated on 1 August 1940 at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. The VI Corps took part in some of the most high-profile operations in World War II, fifth Army as part of Operation Avalanche. Major General Dawley was replaced after the battle, as he was judged to be worn out and he was replaced by Major General John Lucas. At the end of December, after fighting on the Bernhardt Line without a breakthrough. At first German resistance was negligible, however, Major General Lucas felt he needed to consolidate his beachhead before breaking out. This gave the Germans critical time to concentrate forces against him, another bloody stalemate ensued, with the corps almost being driven back into the sea for the second time in Italy, again being rescued by naval and air power. This, along with the performance at Anzio, would cast a shadow over the reputation of the corps. Following the capture of Rome, VI Corps again left the line, Operation Dragoon was aimed at capturing southern France, and VI Corps provided the assault troops, coming under Seventh Army. The landing, on 15 August 1944, was not opposed with much fervor, German forces, by comparison, lost over 2,000 men, with the bulk taken prisoner. Fearing their forces in southern France would be caught in a squeeze between the U. S, Seventh Army and allied forces advancing eastward from Normandy, the Germans began a strategic retreat toward the north. Wishing to avoid a repeat of the Anzio landings, elements of VI Corps moved north rapidly while the beachhead was consolidated and these units established a commanding position over the main route of German retreat near the town of Montelimar
45.
Danube
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The Danube is Europes second-longest river, after the Volga River, and also the longest river in the European Union region. It is located in Central and Eastern Europe, the Danube was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, and today flows through 10 countries, more than any other river in the world. Its drainage basin extends into nine more countries, the Latin name Dānuvius is one of a number of Old European river names derived from a Proto-Indo-European *dānu. Other river names from the root include the Dunajec, Dzvina/Daugava, Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, dānu means fluid, drop, in Avestan, in the Rigveda, Dānu once appears as the mother of Vrtra. Known to the ancient Greeks as the Istros a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian name meaning strong, in Latin, the Danube was variously known as Danubius, Danuvius or as Ister. The Dacian/Thracian name was Donaris for the upper Danube and Istros for the lower Danube, the Thraco-Phrygian name was Matoas, the bringer of luck. The Latin name is masculine, as are all its Slavic names, the German Donau is feminine, as it has been re-interpreted as containing the suffix -ouwe wetland. Classified as a waterway, it originates in the town of Donaueschingen, in the Black Forest of Germany, at the confluence of the rivers Brigach. The Danube then flows southeast for about 2,800 km, passing through four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea via the Danube Delta in Romania and its drainage basin extends into nine more. The highest point of the basin is the summit of Piz Bernina at the Italy–Switzerland border. The land drained by the Danube extends into other countries. Many Danubian tributaries are important rivers in their own right, navigable by barges, from its source to its outlet into the Black Sea, its main tributaries are, The Danube flows through many cities, including four national capitals, more than any other river in the world. Danube remains a mountain river until Passau, with average bottom gradient 0. 0012%. Middle Section, From Devín Gate to Iron Gate, at the border of Serbia and Romania, the riverbed widens and the average bottom gradient becomes only 0. 00006%. Lower Section, From Iron Gate to Sulina, with average gradient as little as 0. 00003%, about 60 of its tributaries are also navigable. In 1994 the Danube was declared one of ten Pan-European transport corridors, routes in Central, the amount of goods transported on the Danube increased to about 100 million tons in 1987. In 1999, transport on the river was difficult by the NATO bombing of three bridges in Serbia during the Kosovo War
46.
Innsbruck
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Innsbruck is the capital city of Tyrol in western Austria. It is located in the Inn valley, at its junction with the Wipp valley, Innsbruck lies about halfway between Munich in Germany and Verona in Italy. Located in the valley between high mountains, the so-called North Chain in the Karwendel Alps to the north. Innsbruck is an internationally renowned winter sports centre, and hosted the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics as well as the 1984 and 1988 Winter Paralympics, Innsbruck also hosted the first Winter Youth Olympics in 2012. The name translates as Inn bridge, earliest traces suggest initial inhabitation in the early Stone Age. Surviving pre-Roman place names show that the area has been populated continuously, in the 4th century the Romans established the army station Veldidena at Oenipons, to protect the economically important commercial road from Verona-Brenner-Augsburg in their province of Raetia. The first mention of Innsbruck dates back to the name Oeni Pontum or Oeni Pons which is Latin for bridge over the Inn, the Counts of Andechs acquired the town in 1180. In 1248 the town passed into the hands of the Counts of Tyrol, the citys arms show a birds-eye view of the Inn bridge, a design used since 1267. The route over the Brenner Pass was then a major transport, the revenues generated by serving as a transit station enabled the city to flourish. Innsbruck became the capital of all Tyrol in 1429 and in the 15th century the city became a centre of European politics, the city benefited from the emperors presence as can be seen for example in the Hofkirche. Here a funeral monument for Maximilian was planned and erected partly by his successors, the ensemble with a cenotaph and the bronze statues of real and mythical ancestors of the Habsburgian emperor are one of the main artistic monuments of Innsbruck. A regular postal service between Innsbruck and Mechelen was established in 1490 by the Thurn-und-Taxis-Post, in 1564 Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria received the rulership over Tirol and other Further Austrian possessions administrated from Innsbruck up to the 18th century. He had Schloss Ambras built and arranged there his unique Renaissance collections nowadays mainly part of Viennas Kunsthistorisches Museum, up to 1665 a stirps of the Habsburgian dynasty ruled in Innsbruck with an independent court. In the 1620s the first opera house north of the Alps was erected in Innsbruck, in 1669 the university was founded. Also as a compensation for the court as Emperor Leopold I again reigned from Vienna, during the Napoleonic Wars Tyrol was ceded to Bavaria, ally of France. Andreas Hofer led a Tyrolean peasant army to victory in the Battles of Bergisel against the combined Bavarian and French forces, the combined army later overran the Tyrolean militia army and until 1814 Innsbruck was part of Bavaria. After the Vienna Congress Austrian rule was restored, until 1918, the town was part of the Austrian monarchy, head of the district of the same name, one of the 21 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in the Tyrol province. The Tyrolean hero Andreas Hofer was executed in Mantua, his remains were returned to Innsbruck in 1823, during World War I, the only recorded action taking place in Innsbruck was near the end of the war
47.
Mittenwald
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Mittenwald is a German municipality in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria. Mittenwald is located approximately 16 kilometres to the south-east of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the most significant landmark in the village is the pink colored Roman Catholic church of Saints Peter and Paul, which is typical of the region. The church and many of the buildings, both businesses and private residences, are decorated with elaborate paintings on the exterior walls. Near the Luttenseekaserne there is a monument honoring the participants of the Slutsk Defence Action, official website Virtual tour of Mittenwald Museum of violin manufacturing
United States
United States Army
