CHAPTER VII
The 5TH Armored Division and the Hurtgen Battle
The 5th Armored Division was a participant in the Battle of the HÜRTGEN FOREST from the first week in October until it was withdrawn from positions near the ROER RIVER on 22 December as a result of the German ARDENNES Offensive. During this period the division was employed in missions which included:
- holding a defensive sector,
- having combat commands attached simultaneously to V and VII Corps, as reserves,
- attacking key positions within the forest, and
- attempting to exploit eastward when infantry elements reached the eastern edge of the more thickly wooded area.
The action of the 5th Armored is important to this study not only because it was the only armored division employed in the HÜRTGEN FOREST mass but primarily because the division secured the V Corps objective in the zone of the 8th Infantry Division.
To better understand the action of this division in the HÜRTGEN let us briefly review its history prior to October 1944. In February 1944 the "Victory Division" arrived in England where "married" formations were adopted for last minute training and the final preparations for combat. These formations were to be used with only minor variations throughout the EUROPEAN campaign. Finally on 23 July 1944 the men of the division embarked for FRANCE and the job for which they had been preparing nearly three years.
On the continent the 5th was attached to XV Corps and spearheaded the corps' advance in the Third Army dash across FRANCE as it pursued the German Seventh Army — the army it was to oppose in the HURTGEN FOREST. Teamed with the 28th Infantry Division and fighting under V Corps, the division captured the city of LUXEMBOURG and pushed to the German border where on 11 September 1944 it become the first division to fight inside the Third Reich.
